Réduit de Chenay, Military reduit in Chenay, France

Réduit de Chenay is a small pentagonal redoubt on the Saint-Thierry massif, built in 1880 as part of the Séré de Rivières system. Its single barrack facade, 40 m wide and 9 m high, has a ground floor with six barrack rooms and a basement with four main rooms. A 52 m well still supplies water, and the roof reaches 212 m altitude.

Dated 1880, the Réduit de Chenay belongs to the first generation of Séré de Rivières forts. It was a small redoubt covering the southern flank of the Fort de Saint-Thierry, 1,500 m north on the same massif. Disarmed in 1913, it was occupied by German troops on 4 September 1914; the French retook the Saint-Thierry massif on 12 September. In 1935 the state sold it to a doctor from Fismes.

The name on the oval plaque, "Réduit de Chenay", uses réduit in its military sense of a small keep or redoubt, and the carved "1880" above it gives the year of construction. The redoubt had no bakehouse of its own: its bread was made at the fort de Saint-Thierry, 1,500 m to the north. The well, about 52 m deep, still holds water and since the 2000s has supplied nearby stables through a modern pump.

The redoubt stands on the Saint-Thierry massif at about 200 m, on the heights of Chenay at the lieu-dit "Les Pourgeonnettes", on the Merfy boundary. The entrance is by a drawbridge over a small walled ditch, made fixed in the 2000s for safety. The site is private and the caponnières and most shelter traverses are dilapidated, with some vaults badly deformed.

During World War II, American forces took over the site and converted it into a military prison for their operations. This repurposing of a French defensive position shows an unexpected chapter in the location's history.