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Key figures

Origin and history

Bourlémont Fort, also briefly known as Choiseul Fort, was built between 1878 and 1881 as part of the Séré de Rivières defensive system. Located in the "loop of Charms", between the strongholds of Toul and d的Épinal, it was intended to block an enemy advance towards the Paris basin. With a 3 month autonomy, it housed 732 men, 18 artillery pieces and 150,000 kg of powder. Its architecture included 84 rooms, a drawbridge and ditches covering 4.5 hectares.

In 1887, Minister Boulanger renamed Fort Choiseul in tribute to General Claude Antoine Cleriadus de Choiseul-La Baume, but that name was repealed that year. From 1881 to 1914, he hosted a small garrison of the 79th artillery regiment. During the First World War, he was re-armed in an emergency and occupied by the Americans in 1918, serving as a place of detention for Alsatian and German soldiers. Between 1918 and 1940, it became an ammunition depot.

During the Second World War, Germans used it as a depot. Abandoned from 1950 to 1996, it was bought by the commune of Mont-lès-Neufchâteau in 1996. Since 1997, the association Les Amis du Fort de Bourlémont has managed it and transformed it into a tourist place called "fort aux enigmas", combining family heritage and leisure. Integration projects have allowed its gradual restoration since 2000.

Future

Today it is a tourist place managed by an association.

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