Fort Pépin

En un regard

Le château en bref

Fort Pépin, also called Fort Pepino, is an Italian fortified battery built in 1883 on the Cime de Pépin, between 2,260 and 2,275 metres above sea level, south of the Col de Tende. It is the easternmost fort of a defensive system organised around the Fort de Colle Alto, intended to seal off the Col de Tende and prevent any advance by French troops towards the Roya valley and Ventimiglia. Built by the contractor Giuseppe Maggia on an artificially levelled rocky spur, it has two parallel fronts broken at an obtuse angle, linked by shorter flanks, and comprises barrel-vaulted casemates, five gun emplacements, barracks, artillery stores, a powder magazine, a kitchen and a double-flanked caponier, all covered by about 2.5 metres of earth. Connected by telephone and telegraph to the rest of the defensive system in 1892, the fort was disarmed and then abandoned during the First World War. Following the Treaty of Paris of 1947, the Tende area was attached to France. Publicly owned, the structure is today in a poor state of preservation.