Forts of Metz

[2] In the 19th century, improvements in artillery forced French engineers to conceive a new defensive system around the stronghold of Metz, the first fortified belt.

Based on new concepts of defense, such as dispersion and dissimulation, the fortification groups were intended to constitute an uncrossable barrier to any attacking French forces.

For this major strategic point in the empire's defenses,[note 2] the German command kept work going on the fortifications until World War I. Emperor Wilhelm II, who regularly came to Metz to inspect the construction, said on this subject:"Metz and its army corps constitute a cornerstone of the military might of Germany, destined to protect the peace of Germany, even of all of Europe, a peace I have the firm will to safeguard.

Buried underground on three sides, they faced away from enemy fire and offered nothing to catch the eye beyond the façade, of dressed stone on the oldest forts, concrete on the newer.

Starting in 1905, no less than eleven secondary works were added to reinforce the defenses northwest of Metz: *Sainte-Anne Wolfsberg (Kellermann) Moscou, Leipzig, Saint-Vincent were built between the groupes fortifiés Lothringen et Kaiserin.

Because of their vulnerability compared to the fortified groups of the second belt, these works were nicknamedThe Seven Dwarves by the GIs of the 3rd Army, during the battle of Metz in September to December 1944.

in addition to these advance forts, many barracks remain from this period, such as Caserne Barbot [fr], Caserne Bridoux [fr], Colin, Desvallières, Dupuis, Féraudy, Lattre-de-Tassigny, Lizé, Raffenel, Reymond, Riberpray, Roques, Séré-de-Rivières, Serret, Steinmetz, and Thomassin as well as many military grounds in Metz and neighboring communities are all legacies of the military past of Metz.