Fort de Bron

Its history is linked to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Indeed, as a result of the Treaty of Frankfurt which ended the 1870 war, France lost Alsace and Lorraine, reducing its borders. To ensure the defence of Lyon, it built a strong cordon of forts encircling the city to the east, which included the forts of Bron, Vancia, Feyzin and Mont Verdun. These forts were equipped with significant amounts of artillery with all the hardware, staff, and powder storage that this then entailed.

When a defensive reorganization occurred in France in 1874, the commune of Bron was therefore included in the crown of detached forts, to protect the stronghold of Lyon.

From 1875 to 1885, the following were built successively around the town:

• Fort de Bron, placed on the heights above the Rhone valley, covering as far as Saint-Priest;
• Batteries at Lessivas and Parilly;
• A walled enclosure with four bastions.

The Fort de Bron is the only one remaining.

Fort de Bron was completed with two annexed batteries at Lessivas and Parilly. But advances in artillery quickly made these forts, and therefore that of Bron, ineffective, inadequate and unable to defend Lyon. During World War I, which did not see fighting in this region, the fort was used only as a barracks and equipment warehouse. During the Second World War the Germans used it as a prison. The French army used it until 1962 as an annex of the air base; it was decommissioned in 1963.

• 
  Ravelin protecting the entrance.
• 
  Barracks. The building is above a water tank constructed later.
• 
  Room housing the drawbridge when retracted.
• 
  Water pump.

The order was given on 8 May 1874 by General Cissey of the Ministry of War, to begin construction of the Fort of Bron. The stone came from Trept and from the Monts d'Or, a small mountain range to the northwest of Lyon. Construction began in 1875 and continued until 1877 for a total cost of 3,014,578 francs:

• 760,000 francs in 1875,
• 1,230,000 francs in 1876,
• 745,000 francs in 1877,
• 19,000 francs in 1878, and
• 260,578 francs for acquisition costs.

The greater Lyon council bought the fort in 1975 to build two water tanks, occupying 50% of the built area of the fort and 300 metres of a South divide as a spillway for security. On 23 September 1976 at the Extra-Municipal Planning Commission (CEMU), the COURLY proposed to transform the ditches to public landfill, to abandon the rubble, and to finally abort the project. The army still retained 6 hectares of woodland (including some of ditches and the Diamond gap) in order to build an extension of the Army medical school. Several attempts to negotiate with the army to retain all the fort intact failed, so an agreement was signed between the mayor of Bron, André Sousi, and the Prime Minister, Raymond Barre, proposing the purchase of the land totalling 9,878 m²) by the municipality at the price of 10 francs per m², i.e. 98,780 francs.

The purchase allowed the creation in 1983 of a fitness trail around the fort.

The Fort de Bron hosts a theatrical event every two years: the Biennial du Fort de Bron; for two months, a theatre company takes possession of the premises.[1] In 2009, The Odyssey of Homer drew nearly 17,000 spectators 15,000 in 2011.[2]

The Fort de Bron is managed by an association created March 25, 1982, which organises free tours on the first Sunday of each month. The association also participates in Heritage Days and organizes a craft exhibition in early October. A museum has also been built there.

The museum Société Lyonnaise History of Aviation and Aerospace Documentation is installed in three rooms of the barracks on the second floor.[3]

The fort has also been used as a filming location for video clips, movie scenes or interviews.[4] The TV movie The gate of heaven by Denys Granier-Deferre, broadcast 1993, and Under guard, the TV movie Luc Beraud, broadcast in 2002, and the short films Masquerade from Nicolas Brossette, broadcast 2007, and The décarquilleurs from Jean-Paul Lebesson[5] were partly shot at the fort.

• Ceintures de Lyon

• Dallemagne, François (2006), Éditions Lyonnaises d'Art et d'Histoire (ed.), Les défenses de Lyon: enceintes et fortifications (in French), Georges Fessy(photographer), Lyon, pp. 185–193, ISBN 2-84147-177-2{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Brunet, François; Vincent, Mathilde; Chavanne, André (April 2002), Association du fort de Bron (ed.), Le fort de Bron: Ah! quelle histoire! (in French), Bron, p. 17{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Chavanne, André; Pallas, Raphaël; Vincent, Serge; Lebel, Pierre; Annie Guillemot (2013), Association du Fort de Bron (ed.), Fort de Bron: les pierres témoigneront (in French), Bron, p. 35{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

• History of Bron
• Association du fort de Bron
• Fort Bron on fortiffsere.fr
• Quartiers de vie au Fort de Bron du 26 octobre 2010 on YouTube (in French)
• Fort Source on the website PSS-Archi. Accessed January 6, 2014.
• Fort Bron on the website and Memory Fortifications.fr