Grudziądz Fortress or Fort Grudziądz is a system of forts, mainly from the 19th century, located in the area of Grudziądz and surrounding villages in northern Poland. Its central point is the Citadel, known by Germans as Courbière's Fortress (German: Feste Courbiere) – a stronghold in the northern part of the city, the construction of which began on 6 June 1776, on the order of King Frederick the Great of Prussia. Other forts were built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The purpose of the fortress was to defend Grudziądz and the strategic bridge over the Vistula river in case of Russian attacks. Most of the fortifications were only used in 1806, 1807, and 1945. Many of them, including the Citadel, have been preserved to this day in good condition. Fragments of the fortifications are accessible to visitors.
Location and construction of the Citadel After the First Partition of Poland, Grudziądz fell within the borders of Prussia. There arose the need to secure the lower Vistula to protect the communication lines between Gdańsk Pomerania and Prussian lands on the right bank of the Vistula, especially since the fortresses in Gdańsk and Toruń were not yet in Prussian hands. The fortress was built on a vast plateau 1.5 km north of the city center, at the highest point of the Vistula escarpment (68.1 m above sea level, 60 meters above the level of the Vistula). It is surrounded on the north and east by the Osa river, and on the south by the Trynka Canal. Paul von Gontzenbach, who had previously worked on the construction of the fortress in Srebrna Góra in Silesia, is considered the designer, with the construction project personally corrected by King Frederick II.
Construction began on 6 June 1776, commemorated by a stone on the bergfried, and work progressed rapidly at the beginning of August. Von Gontzenbach had a sufficient supply of building materials and, most importantly, well-trained craftsmen and laborers at his disposal. Miners were brought in for digging underground tunnels. In June 1776, there were 6,918 people working on the fortress construction (besides carters), including 367 masons. The construction was supposed to last four years, but the fortress was not yet ready by 1782 due to several reasons. In 1780, there was a shortage of bricks. At that time, old Teutonic castles in Rogóźno and Grudziądz were dismantled for the needs of the fortress, and the foundations of both sides of Bastion I were built with stone. The constantly growing demand for bricks (11 million were used for the fortress construction, with a total of 608,400 m³ of masonry work) could only be met by the fortress's own brickworks. Therefore, the brickworks located south of the fortress were expanded, and 180 bricklayers were brought in, mostly from Prussia. In 1821, the brickworks were further enlarged, and new kilns were installed, but by the mid-19th century, it was already inactive. There were also technical difficulties in setting up terraces and ramps on the Vistula escarpment – numerous springs and streams flowing from the mountain made the work challenging. Additionally, some buildings had to be founded deeper than originally planned. According to von Gontzenbach's estimate, the construction of the fortress was to cost about 1,800,000 thalers. However, this estimate quickly proved unrealistic, even though construction of some of the previously planned anti-mine tunnels, designed to destroy siege works, was abandoned. Of the planned length of 56,400 meters, only 1,246 meters of tunnels were realized, and demolition mines were also laid under the bastion ramparts and ravelins, which were used to blow up their own fortifications if they were occupied by the enemy. The construction of the fortress was completed in 1789, with the final cost of its construction amounting to 3,671,146 thalers.
The period of the Napoleonic wars The appearance of a patrol of Napoleon's army in Dragacz on 15 November 1806 caused panic in Grudziądz. Frederick William III and his wife hastily left the city, heading northeast. Wilhelm René de l'Homme de Courbière, the governor of Grudziądz, was preparing to defend the fortress. At the beginning of the campaign, he had a garrison consisting of two battalions and two companies. By the end of 1806, the Prussian forces were augmented by three infantry battalions and one squadron of hussars, and additionally, the Citadel had strong artillery (154 cannons, 35 howitzers, and 16 mortars). In total, General Courbière had a garrison of 5,808 soldiers under his command, but it was not a homogeneous force – a significant portion consisted of Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, and even Scots; this ethnic diversity caused significant problems for the Citadel's command. The first encounter with the French forces took place on 4 December 1806, in Mniszek, after which there were no contacts with the enemy for a month.
Siege of 1807
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