Fort de Loncin

Did You Know?

• In October 2007, after a project of mine and explosives clearance, 2,500 shells representing 142 tons of munitions were extracted from the fort.
• During clearance work in 2007, 25 bodies were discovered, of which four were identified, and all were re-interred on 15 August 2008.

Description

The Fort de Loncin forms an isosceles triangle with a base 300 m long and sides measuring 235 m, semi-submerged in the landscape and encircled by a ditch 6 m deep and 8 m wide. Principal armament was concentrated in the central massif, while the ditches were defended in enfilade by 57 mm guns in casemates resembling counterscarp batteries, firing at shot traps at the other end of the ditch. The casemate at the point of the triangle was disposed on two levels, allowing action if the lower level became obstructed, and the fort made provisions for infantry sorties onto the surrounding cleared area.

Unlike other Belgian forts, Loncin provided mechanical ventilation to evacuate gun and sewage gases, improving its combat endurance until debris blocked the exhaust, and it also had better sanitary arrangements. The Brialmont forts placed a weaker side to the rear for potential recapture by Belgian forces, locating barracks and support facilities there; under heavy shellfire the rear ditch became untenable, and German forces could attack from the rear.

The top of the central massif used 4 m of unreinforced concrete, while the caserne walls used 1.5 m, and the forts were designed to withstand shellfire equaling their heaviest guns of 21 cm, but under fire they were damaged by 21 cm fire and could not withstand heavier artillery.

Armament

The fort mounted two single 21 cm howitzer turrets, one double 15 cm gun turret, two double 12 cm gun turrets, four single 57 mm gun turrets, one observation turret with a searchlight, and nine rapid-fire 57 mm Nordenfeld guns in casemates for ditch and postern defense. The large weapons were German products by Krupp, with armor from Cockerill, Ateliers de Creusot, or Grüson. Signal lights permitted communication with neighboring forts, and the guns used black powder, producing choking gas in confined spaces.

First World War

The Fort de Loncin was one of the last Liège forts to suffer German bombardment in 1914. Liège came under attack on 6 August, and Loncin was massively bombarded for three days from 12 to 15 August, until one of its two magazines, containing twelve tons of explosive, blew up. The explosion destroyed the heart of the fort, killing 350 of the 550-man garrison, whose bodies remained under the wreckage; Loncin was the only fort at Liège that did not surrender.

General Gérard Leman, commander of the Liège sector, had chosen the fort as his command post after Germans entered the center of Liège; after the explosion he was rescued, unconscious or delirious, from the fort's ditch and made prisoner. The fort's commandant, Victor Naessens, wrote that under the effect of the explosion, what remained of the concrete massif was dislocated and the greater part of the garrison was crushed, burned alive, or asphyxiated.

The 42 cm Big Bertha howitzer, the German army's secret weapon, became widely celebrated, and the destruction of Loncin was used for German propaganda, precipitating the surrender of the last two Liège forts. The principal reason for the destruction was that the ammunition magazines had been placed too close to the surface and never upgraded; problems with concrete construction, including weak points between daily pours due to poor understanding of bonding properties, caused layers to separate under stress.

These faults were cured with reconstruction of other forts, use of reinforced concrete, and construction of four new forts facing the German frontier, the largest being Fort Eben-Emael.

Commemorative monument

After the conflict ended, public admiration for the fort's defenders inspired a fundraising campaign for a memorial. King Albert I officially unveiled it on August 15, 1923. The monument, crafted by Liège sculptor Georges Petit, features an 18-meter tower. At its top stand two 3-meter statues of Roman and Greek warriors paying tribute to the fallen. At the base, a woman is depicted with her arms outstretched over a dead soldier. Nearby, a separate memorial bears a French inscription, credited to General Malleterre and inspired by Simonides' epitaph for the Spartans at Thermopylae. It tells passersby to inform Belgium and France that 550 Belgians gave their lives for liberty and the world's salvation. Other commemorative pieces on the site include the flamme du souvenir, a sculpture of a man pushing a torch upward from beneath the ground.