Ehrenbreitstein Fortress
Festung Ehrenbreitstein is a fortress on the same-named mountain on the right side of the Rhine opposite to the town of Koblenz in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
It was built as the backbone of the regional fortification system, Festung Koblenz, by Prussia between 1817 and 1832 and guarded the middle Rhine region, an area that had been invaded by French troops repeatedly before. The fortress was never attacked.
Early fortifications at the site can be dated back to about 1000 BC. At about 1000 AD Ehrenbert erected a castle. Its initial name "Burg Ehrenbertstein" became:Burg Ehrenbreitstein. The Archbishops of Trier expanded it with a supporting castle Burg Helferstein and guarded the Holy Tunic in it from 1657 to 1794. Successive Archbishops used the castle's strategic importance to barter between contending powers; thus in 1672 at the outset of war between France and Germany the Archbishop refused requests both from the envoys of Louis XIV and from Brandenburg's Ambassador, Christoph Caspar von Blumenthal, to permit the passage of troops across the Rhine. French revolutionary troops, however conquered Koblenz in 1794. After a one-year siege, starvation forced the defenders of Ehrenbreitstein to hand over the fortress to French troops in 1799. When the French departed in 1801, the castle was destroyed.
After the defeat of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Rhineland became a Prussian province, and the fortification of the Koblenz area a military priority. Festung Ehrenbreitstein represented the largest military fortress in Europe save for Gibraltar and was able to be defended by 1500 soldiers. Unchallenged, it remained in service until 1890.
In 1822 the English translation of the castle's name, The Broad-Stone of Honour, was used as the title of Kenelm Henry Digby's exhaustive work on chivalry.
In 1897, a Monument to Emperor Wilhelm I was erected right below the Festung, but on the west side of the Rhine, known as the Deutsches Eck (German Corner). Both fortress and monument were considered as symbols for the "Guard at the Rhine", as in the song Die Wacht am Rhein.
During World War I the fortress was used as military headquarters. After World War I, the American General T. Allan, convinced of its historical value as a premier 19th century fortress, prevented its intended destruction. During World War II, it served as a place of safekeeping for archives and cultural objects but also harbored three flak guns.
After World War II, it was used first by the French Army before it was handed over to the State of Rhineland-Palatinate. It now has multiple uses including a youth hostel, restaurant, museum and archive.
Quote
...this pulpit, I see, is a self-containing stronghold --a lofty Ehrenbreitstein... (Herman Melville, Moby-Dick)
As the vine flourishes, and the grape empurples close up to the very walls and muzzles of cannoned Ehrenbreitstein; so do the sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils. (Herman Melville, Pierre)
Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shattered wall
Black with the miner's blast, upon her height
Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball
Rebounding idly on her strength did light;
A tower of victory! from whence the flight
Of baffled foes was watch'd along the plain:
But Peace destroy'd what War could never blight,
And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rain--
On which the iron shower for years had pour'd in vain.
(Lord Byron,Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto III, v.58)
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