Ouvrage de Thiaumont, Fortification in Fleury-devant-Douaumont, France

Ouvrage de Thiaumont is a destroyed Séré de Rivières fortification on the ridge between Froideterre and Fort Douaumont, at 360 metres altitude. Built in masonry from 1887 to 1893, it was modernised from 1902 with a Casemate de Bourges armed with two 75 mm guns, a reinforced concrete shelter, a cuirassier observation post and a machine-gun turret, all surrounded by a 30-metre-wide barbed-wire network. Today only heaps of concrete debris with twisted iron rods remain, the shelter entrance is crushed and the interior inaccessible.

Built from 1887 to 1893 for 54,244 gold francs, the ouvrage was modernised from 1902 to 1905 with a Casemate de Bourges, a reinforced-concrete shelter, an armoured observation post and a machine-gun turret. Disarmed in 1915, it was pounded from 21 February 1916 and abandoned as a defensive work on 20 March. German infantry took it on 23 June; it changed hands six or seven times before the French retook the ruins on 24 October 1916.

The name Thiaumont comes from the vanished village of Fleury-devant-Douaumont, whose territory held the work. Its two 75 mm casemate guns and 500 shells were sent to the front in 1915, leaving only a small infantry garrison and 20 artillerymen. Visitors today see twisted iron rods and concrete debris where the casemate, machine-gun turret and armoured observation bell once stood.

The ouvrage no longer exists as a visitable structure: its concrete elements survive only as rubble heaps with twisted iron bars protruding, scattered across a cratered field. The Bourges casemate slab has collapsed and its embrasures are blocked; the armoured bell is broken and the turret cap lies on the ground. The site can be reached on foot from the Fleury-devant-Douaumont area, on the ridge between Froideterre and Douaumont at about 360 m altitude.

The fortification contained underground rooms that served as storage and shelter for soldiers, protecting them from bombardment. These underground areas show today how soldiers lived under extremely difficult conditions.