Fort de la Chartreuse
THE ABANDONED MILITARY SITE IN BELGIUM
‘Fort de la Chartreuse’ is part of the fortifications line along the river Meuse. It was built between 1817 and 1823 to defend the city.
Fort de la Chartreuse was built in Liège on the hill ‘Mont Cornillon,’ which overlooks the Meuse valley. This valley was home to a Carthusian monastery, the Ordre des Chartreux, until the French Revolution. The Carthusians left the monastery in 1793. The fortification was constructed in 1817 by the Dutch, who administered Belgium at the time. Belgium split from the Netherlands in 1830. In 1891, the fort was decommissioned and became a Belgian military garrison.
World Wars
During the First World War, after intense fighting, Chartreuse was occupied. From 1914 to 1918, the Germans used it as a prison for Belgian patriots. In total, 49 people were executed and buried on the site. After the war, the fort was used as a military garrison again, with additional buildings constructed to accommodate over two thousand soldiers. However, during the Second World War, the fort was once again used by the Germans as a prison.
After the war the Americans used Chartreuse from 1945-1955, in fact the fort operated as the ’28th US Army General Hospital’. Eventually Chartreuse was abandoned in 1982. Parts of the fortification was demolished in February 2006. Also the future of the other buildings is uncertain. There are plans to reconvert the place. I visited the abandoned military complex in 2006 and 2007. Follow this link for more abandoned forts.
