Vaberget Fortress

Story

Vaberget Fortress is a fortress located five kilometers west of Karlsborg Fortress, by lake Vättern, in Västergötland, Sweden. The southern fort at Vaberget Fortress was the first fort in the world that fully used the protection provided by the bedrock itself by having all of its functions embedded in the mountain.HistoryConstruction of nearby Karlsborg Fortress began in 1819 but was not in a defensible state until around 1870 and was not completely finished until 1907. During this time, artillery technology was rapidly evolving, and by 1861 it was realised that the nearby mountain Vaberget could now be used by long range artillery to fire straight into Karlsborg Fortress. It was thus necessary to build a satellite fortress at Vaberget to protect the main fortress. It took nearly 20 years before the first plans were drawn in 1879 and 1883, and funding for the project was granted by the Swedish Riksdag of 1888.Work started in 1889 at the main fort located on the southern part of the mountain and in 1899 at the smaller fort on the northern part. The whole fortress was blasted into the bedrock, having all functions embedded in the mountain, which was a completely new technique not only in Sweden but in all of Europe. Other European fortresses preceding Vaberget Fortress had been built into mountains, but those were concrete structures placed in excavated mountain shafts, and were not using the bedrock itself as the main structure. The start of construction for Vaberget Fortress preceded the two Swiss forts Fort Bühl and Fort Bäzberg (part of the National Redoubt), also completely embedded in the mountain, by a few months. Another new technique was the use of artillery in turrets on top of the forts that could be rotated 360 degrees, an idea conceived by Belgian fortifications engineer Henri Alexis Brialmont.