En un regard
Le château en bref
Fort de Colomars, known locally as Fort Casal, is a secondary work of the fortified place of Nice, built from 1890 in the last quarter of the 19th century, following the torpedo-shell crisis of 1885-1886. Designed as an autonomous battery to reinforce the entrenched camp of Nice, it complemented the Mont Chauve d'Aspremont fort by controlling the Var valley, about 5 kilometres away. Pentagonal in plan, the work included underground barrel-vaulted casemates dug into the natural conglomerate, surmounted by three equidistant gun emplacements set in the rampart, with parapets faced in concrete and limestone. It was armed with 120 mm De Bange model 1878 guns, with a range of 9,900 metres, divided between the main position and an eastern annex battery. Two armoured observatories in reinforced concrete, with metal cupolas and 5 cm-thick armoured viewing slits, were added in 1913. An auxiliary powder magazine was also built at about the same time nearby to supply the Colomars and La Bégude batteries. Decommissioned militarily in 1946, the work was then transferred to the commune of Colomars, which turned it into a leisure area, now known as the "espace de loisirs du fort Casal".
