Fort de Battice
The Fort of Battice is a Belgian fortification located just to the east of the town of Battice. The fort was built in the 1930s as part of the fortified position of Liège, augmenting the twelve original forts built to defend Liège in the 1880s with four more forts closer to the Belgian frontier with Germany. Battice is nearly as large as the more famous Fort Eben-Emael. Work began in April 1934, with some finish work continuing in 1940 when war broke out. Following the successful German surprise attack on Eben-Emael, Battice held out against the Germans until 22 May 1940. On 28 May 1940 all Belgian forces surrendered. Battice has been preserved and may be visited by the public.
Situation
The fort is located between Fort d'Aubin-Neufchâteau to the north and the Fort de Tancrémont to the south, about east of Liège. Tancrémont and Aubin-Neufchâteau are smaller than Eben-Emael and Battice. Collectively, the line was known as the Fortified Position of Liège I, the original Liège forts constituting PFL II.Description
The Fort de Battice was a greatly enlarged development of the original Belgian fortifications designed by General Henri Alexis Brialmont before World War I. Even in its larger form, the fort comprised a relatively compact ensemble of gun turrets and observation posts, surrounded by a defended ditch. This was in contrast with French thinking for the contemporary Maginot Line fortifications, which were based on the dispersed fort palmé concept, with no clearly defined perimeter, a lesson learned from the experiences of French and Belgian forts in World War I. The new Belgian forts, while more conservative in design than the French ouvrages, included several new features as a result of World War I experience. The gun turrets were less closely grouped. Reinforced concrete was used in place of plain mass concrete, and its placement was done with greater care to avoid weak joints between pours. Ventilation was greatly improved, magazines were deeply buried and protected, and sanitary facilities and general living arrangements for the troops were given careful attention. Battice, along with Eben-Emael, featured 120 mm and 75 mm guns, giving the fort the ability to bombard targets across a wide area of eastern Liège region. The 120 mm guns had sufficient range to provide artillery cover to Tancrémont and Aubin-Neufchâteau, but not with 75 mm guns, nor could the other forts' 75 mm guns or Eben-Emael's 120 mm guns reach Battice.The Fort de Battice comprised at least twelve combat blocks just to the east of Battice, north of the present-day E40 highway. The roughly pentagonal fort has a surface area of about, of a total site area of about. The fort was armed similarly to Eben-Emael in both scale and equipment, only with fewer 60 mm anti-personnel guns. All of Battice's heavy artillery was housed in turrets, while Eben-Emael also disposed heavy guns in casemates.
- Block B.I, designed to interdict the N648 road and a railway line, equipped with two 60 mm guns, a machine gun embrasure, a grenade ejector and a searchlight.
- Blocks B.II, B.III, B.V and B.VII flanking casemates disposed around the perimeter ditch to take the ditch in enfilade
- Blocks A.Nord, B.IV and B.VI, artillery blocks each equipped with a retractable twin 75 mm gun turret and, at B.IV only, two machine gun cloches.
- Blocks B.Nord and B.Sud housed the fort's 120 mm guns, one per block in twin non-retractable gun turrets. Both turrets have been dismantled. Also called B.IX and B.X.
The subterranean galleries total about of passages buried between and below the surface, linking troop accommodations, a command post, ammunition magazines and utility plants.