Model-tower, 1811 type

Construction began along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines the following year but the project was abandoned in 1814 with only 12 towers being completed.

Napoleon I wished to organise France's coastal defences and so demanded the construction of a fortification combining powder magazines, food storehouses and gunners' lodgings in one building[1] Napoleon's idea was that the cannons in coastal batteries were very vulnerable to enemy raids and so they could be made safer by combining these elements in a single building.

[2] Their construction programme was begun in 1812 and was originally intended to run for ten years, but it was abandoned on Napoleon's abdication in 1814.

Of the 160 model works originally planned (106 on the Atlantic coast, and 54 in the Mediterranean), only 12 towers were completed by 1814, including six in Finistère around the roadstead of Brest (listed below).

Louis-Philippe of France attempted to emulate Napoleon and complete this defence chain in 1846 with a set of standardised crenellated guardhouses.