Fortress of Luxembourg

Fortifications in and around Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, largely dismantled in 1867

The Fortress of Luxembourg (Luxembourgish: Festung Lëtzebuerg; French: Forteresse de Luxembourg; German: Festung Luxemburg) is the former fortifications of Luxembourg City, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which were mostly dismantled beginning in 1867. The fortress was of great strategic importance for the control of the Left Bank of the Rhine, the Low Countries, and the border area between France and Germany. The fortifications were built gradually over nine centuries, from soon after the city's foundation in the tenth century until 1867. By the end of the Renaissance, Luxembourg was already one of Europe's strongest fortresses, but it was the period of great construction in the 17th and 18th centuries that gave it its fearsome reputation. Due to its strategic location, it became caught up in Europe wide conflicts between the major powers such as the Habsburg–Valois wars, the War of the Reunions, and the French Revolutionary Wars, and underwent changes in ownership, sieges, and major alterations, as each new occupier—the Burgundians, French, Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs, and Prussians—made their own improvements and additions. Luxembourg took pride in the flattering historical epithet of the "Gibraltar of the North" as a result of its alleged impregnability. By 1443 it had only been taken by surprise by Philip the Good. In 1795, the city, expecting imminent defeat and for fear of the following pillages and massacres, surrendered after a seven month blockade and siege by the French, with most of its walls still unbreached. On this occasion, advocating to extend the revolutionary wars across the French borders, the French politician and engineer Lazare Carnot explained to the French House of Representatives, that in taking Luxembourg, France had deprived its enemies of " the best fortress in Europe after Gibraltar, and the most dangerous for France", which had put any French movement across the border at a risk. Thus, the surrender of Luxembourg made it possible for France to take control of the southern parts of the Low Countries and to annex them to her territory. The city's great significance for the frontier between the Second French Empire and the German Confederation led to the 1866 Luxembourg Crisis, almost resulting in a war between France and Prussia over possession of the German Confederation's main western fortress. The 1867 Treaty of London required Luxembourg's fortress to be torn down and for Luxembourg to be placed in perpetual neutrality, signalling the end of the city's use as a military site. Since then, the remains of the fortifications have become a major tourist attraction for the city. In 1994, the fortress remains and the city's old quarter were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In Roman times, two roads crossed on the plateau above the Alzette and Pétrusse rivers, one from Arlon to Trier, and another leading to Thionville. A circular wooden palisade was built around this crossing, which could provide protection to the farmers of the region in case of danger. Not far from this, on the Bock promontory, was the small Roman fortification Lucilinburhuc – this name later turned into Lützelburg, and later still into Luxembourg. After the Romans had left, the fortification fell into disrepair, until in 963 Count Siegfried of the House of Ardennes acquired the land in exchange for his territories in Feulen near Ettelbrück from St. Maximin's Abbey in Trier.

The reinforcement of the fortifications which had begun in 1320 under John the Blind continued until the end of the 14th century. In 1443 Philip the Good and his Burgundian troops took the city in a surprise attack by night. By marriage, the fortress passed in 1447 to the Austrian Habsburgs along with all Burgundian possessions. then passed to French administration again in 1701.

In 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht gave Luxembourg to the Dutch, who ruled there for two more years before the fortress was retaken by Austrian troops in 1715, who remained in possession almost for the rest of the century. As a result, until 1867, around 4,000 Prussian officers, NCOs and men were stationed amongst a community of about 10,000 civilian residents. The Prussians modernised the existing defences and added yet more advance forts, Fort Wedell and Fort Dumoulin.

After the Prussian victory in the Austro Prussian War of 1866, the German Confederation was dissolved. In its place, the North German Confederation was founded under Prussian leadership; it did not include Luxembourg. Nevertheless, Prussian troops continued to occupy the fortress. Before the war, the Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck had signalled to the French government of Napoleon III that Prussia would not object to French hegemony in Luxembourg, if France stayed out of Prussia's conflict with Austria, to which Napoleon agreed. After the war, the French offered King William III 5,000,000 guilder for his personal possession of Luxembourg, which the cash strapped Dutch monarch accepted in March 1867. Prussian objections, now portrayed this as French expansionism, provoked the Luxembourg Crisis. The threat of a major war between the major powers was averted only by the London Conference and the Second Treaty of London. This declared Luxembourg to be a neutral state, mandated the demolition of the fortress, and required the Prussian garrison to leave within three months. Prussian troops finally left on 9 September 1867. Over 16 years, from 1867 to 1883, the fortress, including casemates, batteries, and barracks, was dismantled at a cost of 1.5 million francs. The process was somewhat chaotic: often parts of the fortress were simply blown up, the usable materials carried off by local residents, and the rest was covered up with earth. Social considerations were not overlooked, as old barracks served as housing for workers involved in the demolition. No qualification was required to participate in this work: during times of economic downturn, additional demolition projects on the fortress gave work to the unemployed. The dismantling became a grandiose spectacle, and a celebration of new technologies and ambitious projects. Additionally, the residential quarters of Limpertsberg and Belair were created.

A local version of a legend of Saint Nicholas (D'Seeche vum Zinniklos) refers to the danger of being shut outside the fortress gates for the night. There are several elaborate maps and views of the fortress made before 1700. In 1598, Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg published the oldest known view of Luxembourg City, a copper engraving that appeared in Civitates orbis terrarum (Cologne, 1598). Half a century later, the Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu, drawing on Braun's work, published his "Luxemburgum" in the second volume of his Stedeboek (Amsterdam, 1649). Van der Meulen provides another view of Luxembourg from Limpertsberg where he depicts French troops taking the city in 1649. In more modern times, the British Romantic landscape artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 1851) painted several scenes of the fortress, both paintings and sketches, after visiting in 1824 and 1839. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited the city in 1792, and left a number of sketches of the fortress. Christoph Wilhelm Selig, a member of the Hessian garrison (1814 1815), painted several watercolours. Later, the fortress served as a model for the Luxembourgers Michel Engels and Nicolas Liez and Jean Baptiste Fresez. Even after the dismantling of (most of) the fortifications by 1883, the spectacular remains have still been used as motifs by artists such as Joseph Kutter or Sosthène Weis.

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