Neuf-Brisach

Neuf-Brisach
Commune
An aerial photograph showing the layout of the town and the way it was built as a fortification.
Coat of arms
Location of Neuf-Brisach
Neuf-Brisach Neuf-Brisach
Coordinates: 48°01′04″N 7°31′43″E
Country	France
Region	Grand Est
Department	Haut-Rhin
Arrondissement	Colmar-Ribeauvillé
Canton	Ensisheim
Government
• Mayor (2001–08)	Maurice Zimmerle
Area 1	1.33 km2 (0.51 sq mi)
Population  (2012)	1,997
• Density	1,500/km2 (3,900/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
INSEE/Postal code	68231 /68600
Elevation	194–198 m (636–650 ft) (avg. 197 m or 646 ft)
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km2 (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Neuf-Brisach (German: Neubreisach) is a fortified town and commune of the department of Haut-Rhin in the French region of Alsace. The fortified town was intended to guard the border between France and the Holy Roman Empire and, subsequently the German states. It was built after the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, that resulted in France losing the town of Breisach, on the opposite bank of the Rhine. The town's name means New Breisach.

Today the town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

History

Work began on the fortified town in 1698, to plans drawn by Vauban, a military engineer at the service of Louis XIV. Vauban died in 1707 and this, his last work, was completed by Louis de Cormontaigne. The city's layout was that of an 'ideal city', as was popular at the time, with a regular square grid street pattern inside an octagonal fortification. Generous space was given to a central square across the four blocks at the middle, flanked by an impressive church. Individual blocks were offered for private development, either as affluent houses in private gardens, or as properties for commercial rent. Simpler housing was provided in long tenement blocks, built inside each curtain wall, which also had the effect of shielding the better houses from the risk of cannon fire. Access was provided by large gateways in the principal four curtain walls.

The fortifications are Vauban's final work and the culmination of his 'Third System'. There are two lines of defence, an inner enceinte de sûreté, the bastion wall around the city, and an outer enceinte de combat, a system of concentric star-shaped earthworks. The curtain wall was largely octagonal, with each flank separated roughly into three and the outer bastion projecting slightly, so as to flank the centre of the walls. Each corner had a raised outwardly projecting pentagonal bastion tower, the highest points of the system. The outer earthworks were deep and occupied a greater area than the city itself. The inner walls were surrounded by tenailles before the centres of the curtain walls and counterguards before the bastions. In front of the centre of each curtain face was a large tetrahedral ravelin, those in front of the gateways also being topped by a reduit to the rear. Outside all of these earthworks was a covered way.

The city suffered damage in World War II, but still represents a very clear example of the latest in fortification work at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

In 2008, the ville neuve of Neuf-Brisach was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as part of the Fortifications of Vauban group.

People

• François-Joseph Offenstein (1760–1837), commandant in chief of the town during the French Revolutionary Wars
• Louis Schlaefli (1938), librarian
• Vauban (1633–1707), military engineer who conceived the fortification of the city

Gallery

• 
  Plan of the city and fortifications
• 
  Plan-relief
• 
  The moats and fortifications conceived by Vauban

See also

• Communes of the Haut-Rhin department

References

• INSEE

External links

• All About Neuf-Brisach
• Neuf-Brisach. Trois siècles d'histoire de la fortification (French – Pictures – Animations)
• Neuf-Brisach: Pictures
• Webpage about the fortress of Neuf-Brisach
• A visit to Neuf-Brisach star fort