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Housed in the 11th-century Boissezon fort, this outstanding collection of authentic objects and documents concerned with the history of armed conflict in the 20th century is an educational and remembrance resource. Its eight exhibition rooms display weaponry, equipment, photographs, documents and literature from the First and Second World Wars, as well as more recent conflicts like Korea, Indochina and Algeria. Armed, uniformed mannequins of our brave soldiers add a remarkable layer of realism. These conflicts left scars which should help prevent new wars and serve as a reminder for future generations.

Created by the now deceased Dr Christian Bourdel, the museum is regularly enhanced through donations and new acquisitions. The museum’s considerable reserve collection means it is able to put on regular temporary exhibitions, as well as lending items to other organisations for events.

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Families, friends, school parties and work groups are all welcome to visit this unique museum in the Occitanie region.

Sources : ©Musée Mémorial pour la Paix – Le Militarial - Boissezon

In the light of the theme of displaced peoples and the values of welcome and hospitality, find out how the Camp de Judes, which opened in 1939 to provide shelter for Spanish refugees of the retirada (the mass exodus of Spanish republicans after Franco came to power), has made Septfonds an important Second World War remembrance site. La Mounière also offers an insight into how the development of the hatmaking industry in the 19th century influenced the village’s architecture.

Discover local personalities, some of them famous - like the aviator Dieudonné Costes, one of the pioneers of aviation and transatlantic flights - and how each contributed to the history and heritage of Septfonds.

La Mounière is an interactive museum, whose themes are discovered using multimedia resources. The visit can be extended with two outdoor trails, one around the remembrance sites in the commune, connected to the camp, the other around the theme of hatmaking and its architectural impact.

The museum has a particular focus on appealing to young people.

All content is translated into Spanish and English.

Sources: © La Mounière – Maison des Mémoires de Septfonds

La Mounière | Maison des Mémoires de Septfonds

www.septfonds-la-mouniere.com

15 Rue des Déportés - 82240 Septfonds - Email: mairie@septfonds.fr

Tel.: +33 (0)5 63 64 90 27 - Mob.: +33 (0)6 70 36 86 90

Located in a pine forest on the edge of Lake Biscarrosse and Parentis, in a place known as "Latécoère", the 1200 m² museum gives an account of the history of sea aviation from 1910 to today.

Since World War I, the presence of vast, almost deserted expanses of water has encouraged the creation of sea place bases on the lakes in the Landes region. In 1929, regional industrialist Pierre Latécoère, the founder of airlines that connected Toulouse to Barcelona (1918), Dakar (1925) and South America (1930) built an important sea plane base for the testing of its prototypes in Biscarosse. This site was chosen due to the sheer size of the area of water (3000 ha) and its protection from winds given by the dunes. Tests have played an important role in the life of the village. After the failures of the Laté prototype between 1945 and 1949 and the abandonment of commercial sea aviation, however, the site was abandoned.

The Musée de l'Hydraviation is thus built on this site and recounts the epic of the pioneers of aviation. The story of the museum is told according to two lines of force. An area dedicated to history (850m²) contains documents from archives, photos, tables, scale models (more than one hundred), engines, propellers, uniforms, detached pieces, etc. The second is made up of an exhibition hall with five sea planes and a glider.

The tour begins with a 25-minute video on the history of sea aviation and a short film on the sea plane collection. Successive visits to the four pavilions and the galleries, followed by a visit to the hall where the large sea planes and "winch 631" shelter are on display.

The main source of funding is donations. Three BMW engines with their propellers, the rear containing the turret of the DO 24 queue gunner and German equipment scuttled in 1944 have also been given to the museum by the association for the protection of wrecks found in Lac de Biscarrosse.

Musée de l'hydraviation

332, avenue Louis Breguet 40600 Biscarosse

Tél. : 05.58.78.00.65 - Fax : 05.58.78.81.97

e-mail : musee.hydraviation@ville-biscarrosse.fr

hydravions-biscarrosse.com

Visites

Le musée est ouvert de janvier à décembre, du mercredi au lundi, de 14h00 à 18h00.

Horaires d'été : du 1 juillet au 31 août, tous les jours de 10h00 à 19h00.

L'établissement est fermé les jours fériés. La visite est libre ou guidée (sur réservation).

Sa durée est d'environ 1h30. Les locaux sont accessibles aux handicapés. Les animaux ne sont pas acceptés.

Autres activités Boutique dans le quatrième pavillon. Vente de cartes postales, affiches, livres, T-shirts, etc...

Le musée possède une bibliothèque et une vidéothèque fournies ainsi qu'une documentation pratiquement exhaustive concernant les hydravions.

Le musée dispose d'un laboratoire d'électrolyse, monté par EDF/Valectra qui a servi notamment à arrêter la corrosion sur des pièces d'hydravions récupérées dans les lacs ainsi que des canons de marine anciens récupérés sur la plage de Biscarrosse.

L'association des amis du musée de l'hydraviation, créée en 1979 s'est fixé pour objectif de réunir des documents et des pièces de collection et de conserver ce patrimoine aéronautique.

Tarifs

Adulte : 4,10 € Enfants de 6 à 12 ans : 0,80 € Famille (2 adultes et à partir de 3 enfants) : 8,55 € Groupe : 2,50 €

Association des amis du musée de l'hydraviation

En 1972, l'Association Nationale des Anciens Combattants de la Résistance (A.N.A.C.R.), l'Association Nationale des Pionniers et Combattants Volontaires du Vercors et la Fédération Nationale des Déportés et Internés Résistant s et Patriotes (F.N.D.I.R.P.), se réunissent en comité dans le but de créer un musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation.

Installé dans l'ancien couvent de la Visitation de Romans, il sera inauguré le 22 Juin 1974, en présence de Monsieur Jacques Debû-Bridel, membre fondateur du conseil National de la Résistance. Devant l’intérêt croissant du public, des étudiants et des chercheurs, le musée s’agrandit et évolue en 1994 pour devenir Centre historique.

Le Musée s'est donné pour mission d'informer et de transmettre afin que les événements qui ont noirci notre histoire ne se reproduisent pas. Il propose, dans une présentation sobre et claire, une exposition permanente : " De la montée du nazisme à la Libération".

Il dispose de différents outils :

- les salles d'exposition : outil de sensibilisation grand public, vitrine à la fois émotionnelle, informative et éducative.

- Le centre de documentation spécialisé à la disposition des étudiants, chercheurs et historiens (installé aux Archives communales, n°3 rue des Clercs).

- Les actions pédagogiques, destinées plus particulièrement aux jeunes générations qui n'ont pas connu cette période de l'histoire, pour leur montrer ce que peut devenir l'homme pour l'homme, dans certaines circonstances, sous certaines influences, et pour éveiller leur attention et leur vigilance aux répétitions de l'histoire.

- Le site web : http://www.resistance- drome.org

Ce site, bilingue, a pour objectif immédiat de faire découvrir aux jeunes générations le Musée et sa base de documentation.

Il veut également susciter des contacts et des échanges avec toute personne française ou étrangère intéressée par cette page d'histoire de notre région.

A terme, son objectif est de mettre en ligne la documentation bibliographique, au travers d'une base de données à critères de recherche multiples, un formidable outil de recherche de documentation.

Info utile :

Le Musée de la Résistance est installé dans une aile du bâtiment abritant le Musée international de la chaussure. L'entrée des deux Musées est commune.

Sources : ©MUSEE DE LA RESISTANCE EN DROME ET DE LA DEPORTATION

The French assault tank, a new armoured motorised weapon mounted on caterpillar tracks, was used for the first time in the offensive launched by General Nivelle at Chemin des Dames (Ladies' Way). The models used were the Schneider and Saint-Chamond from Mazel's army.

During the first offensive on 16th April 1917, 128 Schneider tanks, divided into two groups, were tasked with piercing the eastern sector of the front, between Corbeny and Berry-au-Bac. Being too heavy, they quickly became bogged down and as their fuel tanks were not sufficiently protected, they were easy targets for the German artillery. This was a cruel and bloody day for these pioneers of assault artillery. Of the 720 officers and men of the crews, 180 were killed, wounded or reported missing. Among the dead was the commander of this brave group of men, the much admired leader, Pierre Bossut, whose tank was hit by a shell. He was buried by his men on 18th April in the small cemetery at Maizy. 52 tanks were hit by enemy artillery (35 of these caught fire): 15 were direct hits and 37 indirect. Plus 21 machines were immobilised by breakdowns, either mechanical or due to the terrain (sinking). Used once again in October, in the Bohéry quarry sector, these tanks cleared the trenches at Casse-Tête and Leibnitz as well as the Vaudesson ravine. Tank Memorial
Erected at the Le Cholera Crossroads, a crucial point in the attack of 16th April 1917, on land acquired in 1921 by the assault artillery veterans' association, this granite monument is the work of Maxime Rél del Sarte, himself a veteran. The memorial was inaugurated on 2nd July 1922 by General Estienne, the father of the tank, alongside Marshal Foch, Marshal Pétain, General Mangin and General Weygand. In 1965, the site was given to the commune of Berry-au-Bac. Tanks from the 1950s can be seen there today. The body of Commander Bossut of the 151st infantry regiment, who fell at the start of the offensive in 1917, was found some hours after the events and brought back by his brother, adjutant Pierre Bossut of the A.S. 2. It was carried in a tank to Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes, where General Estienne, French "inventor" of the tank paid tribute before his funeral on 18th April 1917 at Maizy and his burial in the family grave at Roubaix. On 12th April 1992, on the 75th anniversary of the fighting in 1917, his ashes were reburied at the tank monument by General Woisard, President of the National Armoured Weaponry Union, alongside the Minister for Veterans. A commemorative plaque, behind the monument, pays tribute to him; "On 16th April 1917, after seizing the Le Cholera position in one blow, the 151st Infantry Regiment, under Colonel Moisson, continued its advance as far as the Béliers woods, supported by the tanks of Commander Bossut ."
Location: crossroads of the D1044 and D925 before entering Berry-au-Bac when approaching from Lanon on the A26

The May-June 1940 Museum in Margut in the Ardennes is located on highway RN 43 some twenty kilometres from Sedan on the road to Metz and 2 kilometres from the Fort of La Ferté.

It is located between the Town Hall and the Church in the old town of Margut.

This museum presents a private collection of objects in a single room:

uniforms, arms, munitions, soldier’s equipment, posters, period documents, vestiges found on the battlefield of May-June 1940, souvenirs of the exodus, flags, etc.

Margut Town Hall

Tel.: +33 (0)3 24 29 04 71 or +33 (0)3 24 22 61 00

Fax: +33 (0)3 24 26 75 14

Opening hours

15 May to 30 June:

Saturdays and Sundays from 1.30 pm to 5.30 pm

1 July to 15 September:

Daily from 1.30 pm to 5.30 pm, except Mondays

15 September to 30 October:

Saturdays and Sundays from 1.30 pm to 5.30 pm

Ardennes Departmental Council

HISTORY

“Konzentrationslager Natzweiler” opened in May 1941 at a location called “Le Struthof”, in Alsace, which had been annexed. The Nazis decided to set up a concentration camp at this site to exploit the seam pink granite located nearby.

Designed to provide the Reich with slave labour, it mainly held prisoners of war, political deportees arrested for their anti-Nazi convictions, and Resistance fighters. It also held racial deportees (Jews, Gypsies), homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The deportees came from 31 countries and their numbers tripled in 1943, the year of the “Nacht und Nebel”, prisoners destined to disappear without leaving a trace. The logic of terror was complete with the installation of an experimental gas chamber and the commissioning of a crematorium.

Outside the Struthof site, the Natzweiler camp opened 70 satellite camps annexes, notably in Germany, nearly all dedicated to the war effort.

With the Allies’ advancing, the Nazis evacuated the deportees from the Struthof camp in September of 1944. When the American soldiers discovered the site in November it was completely empty, but the satellite camps continued to operate.

52,000 deportees went through this camp and its “Kommandos” between 1941 and 1945. Nearly 22,000 died – most of them from exhaustion, inhuman treatment or hunger, others from the pseudomedical experiments inflicted on them. The camp also served as a location for executing resistance fighters. With a 40% mortality rate, the Natzweiler camp was one of the deadliest in the SS concentration camp system.

THE SITE TODAY

The entire site belongs to the Ministry of Defence and has been listed as a historical monument since 2011. Since 1 January 2010, it has been placed under the administration of the Office National des Anciens Combattants et Victimes de Guerre.

Some 170,000 people visit each year.

At the former camp, visitors can notably discover four barracks, including the prison, the crematorium and a museum dedicated to the history of KL- Natzweiler. Photos, archived documents, objects and drawings enable the public to understand the camp’s founding, its organisation, the deportees and their everyday life, the satellite camps, the end of the camp, the trials, remembrance, etc.

The gas chamber, set up at the request of Nazi medical professors to undertake experiments, is located 1.5 km further down and can also be visited.

THE EUROPEAN CENTRE OF DEPORTED RESISTANCE MEMBERS

The European Centre of Deported Resistance Members (CERD) was inaugurated on 3 November 2005 by Jacques Chirac, President of the French Republic.

Designed to be a site for information, thought and encounters, it gives an introduction to the visit to the nearby camp.

Touchscreen kiosks, videos and photos laid out on 2,000 m² of exhibitions present the history of World War II, the resistance movements that rose up throughout Europe and the implacable killing machine set up in the concentration camp system.

The CERD sits above the “Kartoffelkeller”, a reinforced concrete cellar that is nearly 120 metres long, built by deportees. It has become a symbol of the oppression and the exhaustion suffered by the deportees through work and beatings. To this day, nobody knows why.

THE NATIONAL CEMETERY AND THE DEPORTATION MEMORIAL

On 23 July 1960, the “Memorial to the Heroes and Martyrs of Deportation” was officially inaugurated by General de Gaulle, President of the French Republic. A Memorial “Lighthouse” standing 40 metres tall and visible from the valley, it represents a flame and shows the emaciated silhouette of a deportee. The body of the unknown deportee, symbol of all the victims of deportation, lies in a tomb at the foot of the Memorial, along with 14 urns containing symbolic soil or anonymous ashes from the concentration camps in Germany. The National Cemetery holds 1,118 tombs of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen who died in deportation, at KL-Natzweiler or other camps.

THE STRUTHOF NATIONAL CEREMONY

Every year in June, the Memorial’s esplanade hosts the National Remembrance Ceremony, which is held in two parts: a wake is organised on Saturday evening, attended by the last living deportees, during which people in attendance are asked to take turns maintaining the flame. The official commemorative Remembrance ceremony is held on Sunday morning, presided over by a representative of the French State (Minister or President of the French Republic).

TRANSMISSION

Welcoming more than 90,000 schoolchildren a year, the European Centre of Deported Resistance Members fulfils an important educational mission: transmitting history, of course, but beyond that to increase each young visitor’s awareness of his/her role as a citizen. This provides an awakening to the fundamental values of “liberty, equality, and brotherhood”, and a call to vigilance toward the extremist and racist threats that continue to face us today.

School group prices (reservation required at least 1 month in advance)

> 1 euro / student

> Free admission for one accompanying adult

> Educational workshop +20 euros per class (in French)

> Visit +20 euros per class (in French)

Free teaching aids:

http://www.struthof.fr/

Discover, review, work in class:

http://visite-virtuelle.struthof.fr/

Contact : pedagogie@struthof.fr

KEEPING IT ALIVE

The CERD regularly organises meetings between deported resistance fighters and young people to transmit their stories and in turn to make them “Passeurs d’histoire” (History Transmitters): preparation days for the Concours National de la Résistance et de la Deportation (National Resistance and Deportation competitive exams), defence and citizenship days, participation in national ceremonies.

The CERD also proposes exceptional days year-round: European Heritage Days, military ceremonies, conferences, events, concerts, etc.

There is an area dedicated to temporary exhibits on the mezzanine in the reception lobby.

Free GUIDED TOURS of the former Natzweiler camp are available (outside school contexts):

16 April / 15 October, at 10.45 am and 3.15 pm

1 March / 15 April and 16 October / 23 December, at 10.45 am and 2.45 pm.

(on conditions, for information please call +33 (0)3 88 47 44 67)

The number of participants is limited to 100 people per visit. They should sign up upon arrival at the CERD reception desk. Partial accessibility for disabled persons. Proper attire required. Children under the age of 10 must be accompanied and placed under adult supervision. The management reserves the right to refuse admission to anyone who does not show respect for the site and the memory of its victims. Pets are not allowed. As a site of history and remembrance, the site of the former Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp must be visited with respect for its victims. Schools will be held responsible for any damage caused by their students at the historical Struthof site or its exhibits.

European Centre of Deported Resistance Members – Site of the Former Natzweiler Concentration Camp ONACVG

Departmental route 130 - 67130 NATZWILLER

Tél. : + 33 (0)3 88 47 44 57 - Fax : + 33 (0)3 88 97 16 83

email : resa.groupes@struthof.fr

GETTING THERE

Departmental route 130 - 67130 Natzwiller - Strasbourg 60 km - Rothau 8 km

Practical information

Struthof website

Tourisme 67   

From the Carrefour des Roses, you need to drive through Pilkem to get to Langemark and Poelkapelle. Langemark is the site of a large military cemetery in remembrance to 44,500 German soldiers.

In the centre of Poelkapelle stands the monument dedicated to the France "Ace of Aces" Captain Georges Guynemer, one of the most victorious pilots of World War I.

Between June 1915 and September 1917, he won 53 victories in air combat, the final five over the Front of Flanders. Guynemer led the fighter squadron No. 3 (the “Storks”) based in St Pol sur Mer, near Dunkirk, when on 11 September 1917 he was shot down over Poelkapelle by German lieutenant Wisseman.

The body of the French officer of the Legion of Honour was never found.

Before him, another famous French pilot was in active service in Flanders. Roland Garros notched up five victories in April 1915 from Poperinge, when on 19 April, flying over Courtrai, he had the misfortune of being forced to land behind enemy lines and was taken prisoner.

Langemark-Poelkapelle Tourist Information Service: Tel: +32 57 49 09 14

A fortified town at the bottom of a valley Guillem-Ramon, the Count de Cerdagne, built the small fortified town of Villefranche-de-Conflent at the confluence of the Têt and Corneilla Rivers on the road to the Pyrenees in the late 11th century.

In the 12th century, eight corner towers reinforced the town's fortifications, which received a new defensive system in the 14th century during the war between the kingdom of Majorca and Aragon. The 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees definitively attached Villefranche-de-Conflent and Roussillon to the kingdom of France. The town on the valley floor has preserved its distinguished past in the Conflent capital, an outstanding monumental complex built of pink marble. A superb medieval town lies tucked away behind Villefranche-de-Conflent's ramparts, offering visitors a vaulted sentry walk, 11th-century Romanesque church and approximately 20 house façades listed as historic monuments. The town ramparts are still standing: neo-Classical gates and the bastions that Vauban built around 1680 have joined the medieval curtain walls and towers. In the late 18th century Villefranche-de-Conflent lost its importance, in particular after the provost was moved to Prades in 1773.
A fort built on a mountainside As part of his mission to strengthen the defences of Roussillon, which now formed the kingdom of France's southern borders, Vauban, Louis XIV's chief military architect, stayed in Villefranche-de-Conflent to build a fort intended to protect the area from assaults from Vallespir and Cerdagne. To prevent the bombardment of Villefranche-de-Conflent from Belloch Mountain, in 1681 Vauban had Libéria Fort built atop a 160-meter high spur overlooking the town, offering a splendid view of the Têt Valley. The oblong mountainside fort is made up of three successive walls on three levels in order to hug to the steep slopes. A keep stands in the upper part of the fort, preceded by a moat defended by a reverse fire counterscarp gallery communicating with the main body by two caponiers. The fort has a sentry walk, arrow slits, bartizans (projecting watch turrets), a drawbridge and a main courtyard with a chapel opening out on to it. Under Louis XIV, two accomplices of La Voisin, the poisoner of the court of Versailles, were jailed in the fort's dungeon, called the "ladies' prison". Libéria Fort underwent the trials of war in the late 18th century, surrendering on 3 August 1793 to Spanish troops after the capitulation of Villefranche-de-Conflent. Between 1850 and 1856 Napoleon III decided to strengthen the fort and had the underground passageway built known as the "thousand steps", which connects it to Villefranche-de-Conflent. Visitors can still take this stone-vaulted tunnel with pink marble stairs, but it actually only has 754 steps!
In the surrounding area Three prehistoric caves are open to the public near the village of Villefranche-de-Conflent: Grandes Canalettes, the old Canalettes and the Cova Bastera (prehistoric cave), which Vauban fortified in 1707. The famous little yellow train leaves from Villefranche-de-Conflent railway station and winds its way up through the Pyrenees all the way to the border town of La-Tour-de-Carol.
How to get there Perpignan is 50km away on the N 116. Villefranche-de-Conflent Tourist Office Place de l'Église 66500 Villefranche-de-Conflent Tel. +33 (0)4.68.96.22.96 Fax +33 (0)4.68.96.23.23 & 04.68.96.23.93 E-mail: villefranchedeconflent@voila.fr

Villefranche-de-Conflent is a town founded in 1090 by Count Guillaume Raymond of Cerdagne. It is the capital of the viscounty of Conflent and is situated along a route in the high country of the Pyrenees. In 1117, Conflent and Cerdagne were inherited by the Kings of Aragon.

The town occupied all the available space between the right bank of the River Têt and the foot of the steep slopes stretching down from the Canigou, forming a long plain between two parallel routes. The defensive perimeter was built from the early 13th century. The semi-circular watchtowers date from the 14th century, a testament to the battle between the Majorcan and Aragonese kings over control of Roussillon.

The town was handed over to French control in 1654 during the Franco-Spanish War. The population, hostile to the French, revolted leading to the Miquelet Movement and the Villefranche Conspiracy, in 1674, which revived the war and led Vauban to establish a fortification programme in the region from 1679. He reinforced the former wall along the mountain front. Elsewhere, it was replaced by a curtain wall with four bastions at the corners. This was supplemented by two flat bastions: one towards the Tech river protected the bridge and the other towards the mountain. Unable to build a glacis around the stronghold, Vauban reinforced the bastions. They were fortified and flanked by embrasures for heavy artillery fire. In order to shield sight of the covered way, it was covered with a slate roof. On the right bank, natural caves were converted into casemates.

The fortified town was temporarily reconquered in 1793 during the French Counter-Revolution.

Tourist Information Office

Place de l'Eglise 66500 Villefranche-de-Conflent

Tel: +33 (0)4 68 96 22 96

Fax: +33 (0)4 68 96 07 66

E-mail: otsi-villefranchedeconflent@voila.fr

In 1808, while inspecting the construction of Fort Boyard, Napoleon decided he wanted to complete the defence system protecting Rochefort harbour by erecting a fort on the highest point on Aix, at the furthest tip of the island. Square shaped, this fortified structure measuring over 90 metres on each side is made of brick and entirely fortified. Four galleries run from each corner of the interior courtyard to connect the casemates placed beneath the bastions, each curtain wall holding four casemates whose purpose was to provide shelter for the troops. Protected by a thick embankment covered in a grass glacis, the fort was surmounted by an impressive covered way. 

Due to the immense scale of the site, the restoration work was concentrated on the best-preserved sections but also and above all on the footprint of the “third" fort that would be precisely built in the “exploded” fashion that would spearhead an innovative approach to the organisation of fortified structures. The footprint covers an area of 20 hectares. The structures undergoing restoration house many original objects and items of technical equipment that are being restored one by one, returned to their proper context and explained.

Collioure’s château is built on top of ancient Roman buildings, transformed during the Visigothic period.

Collioure, located on a narrow coastal plain, held a strategic position for the defence of Roussillon and the border transport routes and its port that opens out into the Mediterranean. The Kings of Majorca, who used the fort as their summer residence, created its current layout between 1242 and 1280.

By the late Middle Ages, the château formed an irregular quadrilateral composed of four fronts.

Quizz : Forts et citadelles

The site of Port-Vendres has been occupied since the 8th century B.C. Its name comes from a temple dedicated to Venus - Portus Veneris - that in ancient times overlooked the inlet. The first urban settlements were established by the first king of Majorca, James I, in the 13^th. The wars against the Aragon kings destroyed the buildings, to the extent that when Roussillon came under Spanish sovereignty in the 15^th century, the city had to be completely rebuilt.

After the Treaty of the Pyrenees, the province became part of the kingdom of France once more. King Louis XIV and Vauban, recognising the potential of this port whose deep waters close to Spain made it unique along the Roussillon coast, classified Port-Vendres as a military port.

Budget limits forced French Secretary of State Marquis de Louvois to commission Vauban to carry out a more modest project: the port was slightly modified to allow part of the fleet from the Levant to stay on the Catalan coasts without too much risk. The province’s governor, Maréchal de Mailly, had the old sheltered dock dug out and constructed the Collioure road. De Wailly, the king’s architect, designed the plans. The redoubts built by de Mailly (above Oasis beach, modified during the Second World War to make place for the Lahitolle 1888 9-mm cannons, damaged in 1944 and listed as a historic monument in 1991), by Béar (completed in 1880) and by Fanal (initial construction by Vauban in 1673-1700) protected the access to the new site of Port-Vendres, whose works undertaken by Maréchal de Mailly, governor of the province of Louis XIV, lasted until 1780 and whose monuments were classified as historic monuments in 1933.

In 1838, France first set its sights on North Africa. Plans to extend and improve the infrastructure at Port-Vendres were put into action to make it an important Mediterranean commercial port: a jetty, Place Castellane, Fort Béar and a rail link were built in 1867, and a sea link consisting of liners was set up between the port and Africa in 1885.

The German navy used the French installations in November 1942, then constructed new ones from 1943. The occupation army set up an entrenched camp there enabling it to cope with amphibious operations as well as a land attack from the interior.

The Port-Vendres Stützpunktgruppe was therefore a major component of Germany's control system along the Pyrénées-Orientales coastal front next to Sète and Agde. The town of Port-Vendres was placed under the authority of a port commander led by Korvettenkapitän Kurt Stratmann, then later Fregattenkapitän Walter Denys. The battery in Ullastrel is one of the remnants from this period. On 19 August 1944, the German army retreated. The munitions and arms stores were destroyed, the docks blown up with dynamite to frustrate the Allies progression.

Fort Béar, a military base, erected on the hill between Collioure and Port-Vendres overlooks the town. Originally designed by Vauban, it was modified by Séré-de-Rivières in the 19th century. Converted into a radio compass in 1949, it became a radome in 1960.

Practical information:

Mairie 8 rue Jules Pams 66660 Port-Vendres

Tel.: 04 68 82 01 03

Fax: 04 68 82 19 62