page_title: Ouvrage Cap Martin
section_title: Casemate du Pont Saint Louis
hierarchical_section_title: Ouvrage Cap Martin / Casemate du Pont Saint Louis
caption_attribution_description: English: Crew of the casemate of Pont Saint-Louis
context_page_description: Ouvrage Cap Martin is a work of the Maginot Line's Alpine extension, the Alpine Line, also called the Little Maginot Line. The ouvrage, located on high ground in Roquebrune, consists of two artillery blocks and one combination block facing Italy. The ouvrage was at the southernmost end of the Alpine Line and overlooked the Mediterranean Sea coastline at an altitude of 21 meters between Nice and Menton, facing towards Italy. The ouvrage and its advance casemate at Pont Saint Louis controlled the coastal roads along the Mediterranean.
context_section_description: The Casemate du Pont Saint Louis was an advanced defensive work supported by Cap Martin and manned by the 96th BAF. It was the only fortification directly on the seacoast, located at the frontier between France and Italy, and was intended to block any advance along the coastal road. The CORF-designed post was equipped with a rolling anti-tank barrier, a 37mm anti-tank gun, and two twin machine guns.
  The anti-tank gate was a rolling barrier which slid from a slot in a fortified concrete housing along the side of the road, forming a barrier some meters from the post's blockhouse. The road and post occupied a narrow shelf between a cliff and a steep slope to the sea. The gate housing included two small arms ports, while the blockhouse could cover the gate and the road beyond with its guns firing through embrasures in the heavy concrete guardpost.  Tunnels in the cliff wall behind the post contained a magazine, living quarters, and an escape tunnel, like a Maginot ouvrage on a much smaller scale.
caption: Crew of the casemate, 1940
exif: {"Image Tag 0x5100": "0", "Image Tag 0x5101": "1", "Image ExifOffset": "50"}