Fort de la Pelousette

En un regard

Le château en bref

Fort de la Pelousette, or Pelousette strongpoint, is a fortified work built between 1892 and 1902 in the commune of Saint-Dalmas-le-Selvage (Alpes-Maritimes), as part of the Séré de Rivières fortification system. Located at an altitude of 2,757 metres, it is one of the highest fortified works in France, after the Viraysse battery. The building takes the form of a single-block, single-storey fortified barracks, with a central bastion, a north façade protected by rock fill, firing loopholes and a flat terrace roof; a circulation corridor runs the entire length of the building. It includes barrack rooms able to accommodate around a hundred men as well as non-commissioned officers and officers, a kitchen, storerooms, a cistern fed by rainwater and an ammunition magazine. Its mission was to watch over the Salso Moreno valley and to support the position of Mont des Fourches. Permanently occupied until 1914, then occasionally, it was held in 1940 by a combat group of the 73rd Alpine Fortress Battalion. Now completely abandoned but not ruined, it retains metal shutters, interior timber framing and a Vaillant-type stove.