Fort de la Drète

En un regard

Le château en bref

Fort de la Drète, also known as Fort Créqui, is a fortified work built between 1879 and 1882 as part of the defensive system of the fortified place of Nice. The initial project was sketched out by Captain Baldy from 1878 onwards, on the basis of observations made as early as 1877 by Commandant Wagner, head of the engineers in Nice; a revised version was approved in August 1879. The work was placed in the first series of fortified places by the law of 29 December 1881. In 1886 it officially received the name "Fort Créqui", in tribute to a sixteenth-century French marshal, by decision of General Boulanger. Polygonal and bastioned in type, inspired by the fortification standards of 1874, it measures approximately 180 by 90 metres and includes vaulted barracks, ammunition magazines and, after the torpedo-shell crisis of 1885, five casemates cut into the rock. The fort occupied a key position on the left flank of the eastern front of the fortified place of Nice, between the Paillon valley and Monaco, with a visual link to Mont Chauve d'Aspremont. Used as a machine-gunner training centre during the First World War, it has belonged to the Département des Alpes-Maritimes since 1995.