Little France''Little France'' in the Dahner Felsenland brochure, Rhineland-Palatinate Tourist Board. Retrieved 12 Apr 2014 (german: Klein-Frankreich or ''Kleinfrankreich'') is the
ruin
Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...
of a
hillside fort
A hillside castle is a castle built on the side of a hill above much of the surrounding terrain but below the summit itself. It is thus a type of hill castle and emerged in Europe in the second half of the 11th century. As a result of the particul ...
in the German region of
Dahner Felsenland
The Dahner Felsenland, also referred to as the Dahn Rockland, is a landscape in the county of Südwestpfalz in the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is located in the middle section of the Wasgau, which in turn forms the southern ...
. It lies above the village of
Erlenbach bei Dahn
Erlenbach bei Dahn is a municipality in Südwestpfalz district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany.
Above the village is Berwartstein Castle on one side of the Erlenbach stream and the outwork Little France
Little France is a suburb of ...
in the county of
Südwestpfalz
Südwestpfalz is a district (''Kreis'' or more precise ''Landkreis'') in the south of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from west clockwise) Saarpfalz, the district-free city Zweibrücken, the districts Kaiserslautern and Ba ...
in the state of
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...
.
Location
The fort lies at a height of on the northern slopes of the 402-metre-high Nestelberg. Around 370 metres to the north, on the other side of a saddle-shaped side valley, is
Berwartstein Castle
Berwartstein Castle (German: Burg Berwartstein) is a castle in the Wasgau, the southern part of the Palatinate Forest in the state Rhineland-Palatinate in southwestern Germany. It was one of the rock castles that were part of defences of the P ...
. In the west, where it branches off the main valley formed by the water meadows of the Erlenbach, the side valley broadens into a bowl that is known locally as the ''Leichenfeld'' ("corpse field").
History
How Little France came to have such an unusual name is still unclear today; although from the castle at Berwartstein it lay in the direction of
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, whose present border is only 7 kilometres away. In 1511 it was recorded as ''Thurm Frankreich'' ("France Tower").
The little castle was erected in 1484 as an outpost of the Berwartstein by the knight
Hans von Trotha
Hans von Trotha also known as Hans Trapp (c. 1450 – 1503) was a German knight and marshal of the prince-elector of the Palatinate. He also bore the French honorary title of a ''Chevalier d’Or''. In 1480, the elector enfeoffed him with the two ...
, later also known in the local dialect as ''Hans Trapp''. This
outwork
An outwork is a minor fortification built or established outside the principal fortification limits, detached or semidetached. Outworks such as ravelins, lunettes (demilunes), flèches and caponiers to shield bastions and fortification curtains ...
enabled a piece of open ground known as the ''Leichenfeld'' ("Corpse Field") to be covered by a
crossfire
A crossfire (also known as interlocking fire) is a military term for the siting of weapons (often automatic weapons such as assault rifles or sub-machine guns) so that their arcs of fire overlap. This tactic came to prominence in World War I.
...
from two directions: from the north (Berwartstein) and from the south (Little France). This field was the only place where the cannons of that period could be deployed against the Berwartstein. In fact, until 1591 when the castle burned down as the result of a lightning strike and remained unoccupied for three centuries, the Berwartstein was never conquered despite numerous attempts, something which may be attributed to the existence of the auxiliary castle.
After the main castle had been empty for decades, the outwork was badly damaged in the 17th century, either during the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
or the
War of the Palatine Succession
The Nine Years' War (1688–1697), often called the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg, was a conflict between France and a European coalition which mainly included the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg monarc ...
. A restoration of the remains began in 2005.
Layout
The base of a large
battery tower
A battery tower was a defensive tower built into the outermost defences of many castles, usually in the 16th century or later, after the advent of firearms. Its name is derived from the word battery, a group of several cannon.
These, usually ro ...
, with a diameter of 14 metres and height about the same, has been well preserved. Its walls are 3.20 metres thick; and some of the stone ashlars show evidence of lifting marks, possibly from a three-legged lewis. The ground floor wall is pierced by three
embrasure
An embrasure (or crenel or crenelle; sometimes called gunhole in the domain of gunpowder-era architecture) is the opening in a battlement between two raised solid portions (merlons). Alternatively, an embrasure can be a space hollowed out ...
s, the first floor has four. These openings could have been used by
arquebus
An arquebus ( ) is a form of long gun that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. An infantryman armed with an arquebus is called an arquebusier.
Although the term ''arquebus'', derived from the Dutch word ''Haakbus ...
es and small firearms. The roof platform was wide enough to deploy
culverin
A culverin was initially an ancestor of the hand-held arquebus, but later was used to describe a type of medieval and Renaissance cannon. The term is derived from the French "''couleuvrine''" (from ''couleuvre'' "grass snake", following the La ...
s whose longer barrels increased their accuracy.
North of the tower are the remains of an
enceinte
Enceinte (from Latin incinctus: girdled, surrounded) is a French term that refers to the "main defensive enclosure of a fortification". For a castle, this is the main defensive line of wall towers and curtain walls enclosing the position. For ...
which used to surround it, and immediately to the northeast is a
castle well
A castle well was a water well built to supply drinking water to a castle. It was often the most costly and time-consuming element in the building of a castle, and its construction time could span decades.
The well – as well as any available cis ...
, now filled in.
Little France was linked to the main castle by a tunnel which, for much of its length, was a concealed ditch covered by stone slabs and concealed with earth and vegetation; it has almost entirely collapsed.
References
Literature
* {{citation, surname1=Marco Bollheimer, title=Felsenburgen im Burgenparadies Wasgau–Nordvogesen , edition=3., publisher=Selbstverlag, publication-place=Karlsruhe, pages=76–77, isbn=978-3-9814506-0-6, date= 2011, language=German
* Jürgen Keddigkeit, Ulrich Burkhart, Rolf Übel: ''Pfälzisches Burgenlexikon''. Vol. 3, I – N. Kaiserslautern, 2005.
* Günter Stein: ''Burgen und Schlösser in der Pfalz''. Frankfurt/Main, 1976.