Heurt Fort

The Fort de l'Heurt is a fort near Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France. It was built by order of Napoleon Bonaparte on the remains of the ancient promontory Icius Ptolemy (by the sea facing the town of le Portel) after the breaking of the Treaty of Amiens by the British in May 1803. This mass of rocks that once formed a small island near Equihen went, according to a former British map, by the name of Heustrière (which means Oyster Island). That name would have become, over time, first Heustre then Heurt. Work on the fort, directed by Captain of Engineers of Gouville, began 24 May 1803. The plans were signed by the Director of the fortifications Guillaume Dode of Brunerie who would become a Marshal under Louis Philippe I. During construction, a second fort, a copy of the Fort de l'Heurt, was also built at Wimereux. It was called the Fort de la Crèche. Napoleon's letters often talk on the work of advancing the "forts of l'Heurt and of the Crèche." Of the latter there is nothing left, except the foundations are visible in some places to the discerning eye. The Fort de la Crèche resisted very bad storms because on the drawings of Mr. Vaillant (in the Boulogne Library) they show that in 1870 it was already almost irreparable, while on other sketches by the same painter dating from 1870, Fort de l'Heurt appears whole and undamaged. Another fort is also called Fort of the Crèche and dates from the 1870s. An association has restored it gradually to its original appearance. After much damage due to storms and relentless attacks of the British, the fort was finally operational on 16 July 1804. It was then intended to protect the southern anchorage of the fleet at the fr:Camp de Boulogne;...