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The Territoire de Belfort in the Franche-Comté
region is a department with a very special history, a cross-roads situated
at the very heart of Europe, close to the German and Swiss borders and
providing the gateway to the south of Alsace.
It is a land of encounters where the last peaks of the Vosges mountains
caress the mountains of the Jura and where the broad Alsatian plain narrows
to a small strip before entering Franche-Comté.
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Franche-Comté
location |
The gateway called "Trouée de
Belfort" |
It was the only part of the "Haut-Rhin" department
to remain French following the Frankfurt Treaty in 1871 and was put in the
hands of an administrator. In 1918, when Alsace and Lorraine came back
under French jurisdiction, Belfort retained its special status.
In 1922, the legislator appointed a prefect, thus conferring departmental
status on the Territoire without passing a law to specifically create the
department of the Territoire de Belfort. It
provides the axis of communication between Germany and Switzerland, Alsace,
and Paris way and the beginning of the Rhône valley. Its geographical
location thus makes an ideal trading centre but at the same time a target
for invasion.
This is the reason for the large number of fortifications to be found in the
area. |
