Fort Trašte

Fort Trašte (Montenegrin: Tvrđava Trašte/Тврђава Траште, German: Werk Traste) is a fortification built by the Austro-Hungarian Empire near Tivat in Montenegro.

The main road through the region, now the Adriatic Highway, was of vital strategic importance to the Austro-Hungarians as it connected their southernmost possessions – Budva and the surrounding area – with the naval base at Kotor and the port at Tivat.

[2] Montenegro's 1905 acquisition of powerful new long-ranged artillery guns, which put the entire coastal strip within range of shellfire, made the existing fortifications obsolete.

The two were originally surrounded by a permanent layer of barbed wire defences and are linked by a postern tunnel, allowing troops to pass between them without being exposed to enemy fire.

[2] It is located in heavily vegetated terrain and can be reached by following a rough track for about 650 m (2,130 ft) from the paved road between the villages of Leševiči and Bigovo.

[7] Only two years after Fort Trašte was completed in 1909, proposals were advanced that it should be demolished and a new and even stronger fortress should be built on the Lustiča peninsula a few kilometers to the north.

[8] After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War, the fort was abandoned and the territory it controlled became part of the newly established state of Yugoslavia.

Map of the Bay of Kotor in 1862. Fort Trašte is just west of "Liesevichi" (Leševiči) near the bottom of the map