Séré de Rivières system
The fort was built as part of France's Séré de Rivières system of fortifications to defend France against a recurrence of the Prussian invasion of the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War. The fort was among the most strongly armed forts in the northeast in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It received the first rotating armored turrets to be installed in a land fortification in France.