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at peace. However, permanent peace was not expected, and work on the fortifications continued. As
early as 1556, four years after the successful defense of the stronghold, a citadel flanked by four bastions
had been constructed.
During the 18th century, engineers built a “Horned Redoubt” and added 11 new bastions to the
ones already guarding the citadel. They also made it possible to inundate the valley of the Seille by
using the vast waters of a Pool of Lindre.
Metz became the headquarters of the Department of Moselle in 1790 and, soon after the turn of
the century, work on a fortified ring to enclose the city was started. Luxembourg and Saarlautern were
to be the outposts.
Vauban, the celebrated French engineer, supervised the building of the first complete circle of
forts and fortified groups in the outer defense of Metz. Fifteen in number, and designed to withstand
any ordnance of that day, they were not completed until 1866 during the reign of Napoleon III.
From 1866 on, the Prussian menace became more threatening each day and Napoleon III had the
forts of Saint-Quentin, Plappeville, Saint Julien, and Queuleu built around the city.
They were to be put to use very shortly. On the 6th of August, 1870, three German armies
invaded France. Marshall Bazaine, commanding a large and well equipped French army, met and
soundly defeated the German First Army at Borny, east of Metz, on August 14th. Two other German
forces, meanwhile, were encircling Metz from the north and south.
Aware of the disproportion of the forces, Marshall Bazaine decided to withdraw toward the camp
at Chalons on the Marne, but his maneuver was too slow and the two Prussian armies cut his retreat at
Mars-la-Tour on the 16th of August. Furious battles were fought through the 18th of August along the
entire length of the road from Mars-la-Tour to Gravelotte. After the battle of St Privat, August 18, the
French were definitely encircled.
Backed against the walls of Metz, Bazaine could offer only feeble resistance and made no
organized effort to save the city. He was forced to capitulate on the 28th of October.
By the treaty of Frankfurt in 1871, Wilhelm I took Metz, five-sixths of the Department of
Moselle, and Alsace. However, the natives of Moselle never recognized that they were German
subjects, and continually dispatched protesting emissaries to the German government.
After the Germans occupied Metz in 1871, they added considerably to the circumvallation,
establishing 19 bastions surrounded by moats and protected by 13 advance works. The extent of the
fortified zone was increased to 21 miles and 11 new forts were added.
During world war I the Germans created a reign of terror in Metz. French suspects were
confined without trial and later sent to Koblenz even before mobilization and hostilities began. All that
was French was removed or destroyed. The German press assumed full control of information channels,
and there followed complete military occupation and a process of Germanization. It became a jail
offense to speak French.
When the armistice was signed November 11, 1918, American artillery was within range of Metz
and actually had fired upon some of the forts. Infantry was ready for an offensive against the fortress,
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