Armour Forts and Trench Shelters

Between 1870 and 1918 the Second German Empire oganized a substantial national defence system, in which fortresses along the Russian and French border saw construction of nearly 200 forts and interval works. The strategic framework for this system was laid out by the German National Defence Commission. Actual design of fortifications, however, was entrusted to the Prussian Ingenieurkomitee or Engineer’s Committee. This body guided German fortification out of the Explosive Shell Crisis of the 1880s by the design of standard bomb-proof shelters, of which over 500 were built.
Development of armour artillery, based on inventions by the Gruson firm and captain Maximilian Schumann, directed to new fortification forms like the Molsheim barrier fort near Strasbourg and the Festen around Metz.
Just before the outbreak of World War I the committee drew up some infantry works that eventually would be directional in the first drafts for Maginot Line works in the 1920.
The great War itself, finally, was not fought over fortresses, as expected, but in trenches, for which the committee designed a range of standard design shelters.