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Neuf Brisach - Neuf-Brisach , Alsace, France
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Cities and Villages in Alsace, France. Book your hotel on line in cities and villages in Alsace: Riquewihr, Ribeauvillé, Colmar, Barr, Strasbourg,...
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Neuf Brisach
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A visit of Neuf-Brisach and its riverine environment attracts all sorts of interests: historians, servicemen, engineers and poets. Neuf-Brisach is located east of Colmar, 4km from the Rhine River and not far from the German city of Alt-Breisach.
This latter city stands, majestically and beautifully, in a curious position: on an 80-meter high rock that overlooks the right bank of the Rhine River. From afar, you can see that it is strategically privileged. Originally, a Celtic fortress, called "Brisiacus" during the Roman Empire, stood on this boulder. This fortress's name explains the name of the surrounding German region: the "Brisgau".
Life in Neuf-Brisach revolves principally around the Rhine River which from Strasbourg to Bâle takes on all at once a savage yet industrial appearance. You can't help from dreaming while discovering its banks, revealing its fabulous history (that epitomizes in a way the development of Europe), remembering the myths and legends that spring forth from its mysterious banks?
Victor Hugo evoked so poetically those legends that "crossbreed and develop thanks to the history gaps, just like thornbushes and flowers between the cracks of rocks..." In the 14th century, women impregnated with paganism plunged their arms or even their entire bodies in the waters while singing or uttering prayers: "The Rhine River carries away complaining and suffering. The Po and Tiber Rivers cannot do that..."
It is true that these drops of water are, in a way, impregnated also with the European aventure. Indeed, all along the Alsatian Plain, the river is lacking mountainous banks, extraordinary places of interest, little villages and those charming cities (from Cologne to Mayence) that are the river's claim to fame. The Rhine flows through a rather flat and dull geographic region. Its banks are wild and often deserted.
But it is in this wilderness that a specific charm finds its home. Hedges of Poplar trees, marshes, brushwood, the river's swift flow and its impressive grandeur. And a whole world of animals haunts these parts... Between the Rhine and Ill Rivers in the marshy prairies of the Ried Region, the storks come to stock up for the winter. But unfortunately due to man's development, the little stork colony has slowly dwindled.
The Legend of Neuf-Brisach
In 1648 following the Treaty of Westphalia that put an end to the Thirty Year War, France was given possession of the city of Alt-Breisach, across the Rhine River on the right bank.
This particular clause, stating French possession of Alt-Breisach, was the most important part of the treaty for the King of France, because the city's fortress was a defensive and offensive post for the French armies.
On the 30th of August1673, Louis XIV, accompained by the queen "de Louvois" and a large number of princes, visits this stronghold across the Rhine. He was shocked not only by its strategic role but also its abandoned and depopulated condition... Its state is immediately repaired through different measures, so well that the city walls could no longer contain everyone. So with the king's consent, the authorities decide to build close by, but on the left bank, another city that would be soon called the "Ville Neuve", the new city.
Anyone who wanted to settle down here would receive special privileges. The city's population quickly reaches 1500 inhabitants. Every dream seem possible until 1697, when the Treaty of Ryswick abruptly put an end to this beautiful fairy tale. In fact, the treaty's 10th articl stated that Alt-Breisach should be given back to the Austrian Emperor and that Neuf-Brisach, as well as the Cadets Fort, should be destroyed so that it can never be rebuilt again.
The military and political union appeared to have been overthrown. Alt-Breisach was an excellent bridgehead where Hell's Valley, "la Vallée d'Enfer", opens out.
The military and political union appeared to have been overthrown. Alt-Breisach was an excellent bridgehead where Hell's Valley, "la Vallée d'Enfer", opens out. Because of the city's dominating location on the right bank, Alt-Breisach was thought to be chosen by the Imperials as the prefered point to cross the Rhine River and to bring war to Alsace, now that the city was in the hands of Emperor Leopold of Austria. Louis XIV immediately forsees this danger, and, without hesitating, sends Vauban on a mission to visit all the strongholds along France's eastern border and to analyse in particular what the French could do to protect Alsace.
As soon as he steps foot in Alsace, Vauban notices that Alt-Breisach is an optimal location for a possible Austrian bombardment of the left bank, then an easy entrance into Alsace. So it seemed necessary to secure this weak point by building a new fortress.
But where exactly should they build this new military post? Vauban hesitates between two cities: Biesheim and Colmar.
After revisiting the premises, the great military strategist realizes, however, that they shouldn't build the new fort too far away from Fort Mortier. The problem was that Colmar was too far away, Biesheim too close... So Vauban settles on a place that corresponds almost mathematically to the military's demands. This place was located in the middle of the Alsatian Plain, completely lacking human inhabitation and no other water than the wells supplied by the Rhine's infiltrations. All the same, Vauban believes this location has important economic advantages.
In fact, it seemed easy to him to simply use the materials from the destroyed "Ville Neuve" to build this new fortress. In short, it meant to pull back the town built on the left bank, to perform a kind of transfusion. And that is how the actuel city of Neuf-Brisach was born.
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