FORTRESS STUDY GROUP

Casemate 76

Mike Osborne.

Photographs by author.

Like many islands, Sardinia has never lacked visitors. It is covered in the remains of settlements left by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, and later colonisers from Pisa, Genoa and Aragon. In fact, parts of the island retain a dialect very close to Catalan. Not surprisingly, then, a wide range of fortifications can be seen. The earliest are, of course, the Nuraghi; unique to Sardinia, consisting in their simplest form of a conical stone tower, usually about 50 foot [17m] high, not unlike a broch, with surrounding stone, circular huts.



The remarkable nuraghe of Su Nuraxi, at Baramini, with flanking towers, loopholes and machicolations, 1100-800 BC. Section and perspective reconstruction of the 'keep' with quadrilobate 'bastion'. (l.G Lilliu, below, Giovanni Ugas; from Su Nuraxi di Barumini by Giovanni Lilliu & Raimondo Zucca Archaeological Sardinia).

The more complex have up to five more towers clustered around the central one, contained within an inner circuit of lower bastions, all linked by a curtain wall. Quite sophisticated defensive arrangements can sometimes be seen, as, for example, at Losa, where the curtain is stepped to produce loop-holed projections which cover the base of the adjacent bastion. There were once some 8000 Nuraghi, built in the Bronze Age and roughly contemporary with the Mycaenaean civilization.


The island was contested by Pisa and Genoa throughout the C12th and C13th until it was gifted to Aragon by Pope Boniface VIII in 1297, as part of a deal involving Sicily and Corsica. Pisa gave up their fortress of Cagliari in 1323, but the Genoese Doria family hung on to parts of the island well into the 1400s. Pisan defences can still be seen on the island. Cagliari's two imposing gate-towers, the Torre San Pancrazio and the Torre dell'Elefante, stand, each with four open-backed storeys above a gate-arch. Large stretches of the town-walls of Iglesias stand too, with square towers and swallowtail merlons. Coast defence towers stand at Orosei and elsewhere. From the Genoese sphere there survive two towers of Oristano's town defences.



Torre dell' Elefante Cagliari, C14th, Pisan 1305.

Aragonese fortifications are well represented on the island. The walls of Alghero, an almost complete circuit, have bastions and large artillery towers, one octagonal, and others circular. On the corners of two bastions are round, domed turrets. The Castello area of Cagliari, already fortified by Pisa, was strengthened by the Spanish, with new gates and bastions.



Torre di Portocovallo, C15th Aragonese.

Around the entire coastline are dozens of Aragonese watch-towers, so characteristic of the Mediterranean in its perpetual struggle to defend against the Barbary corsairs.
Some were little more than elevated beacons, or temporary refuges; others, as at Portocovallo, were strong forts mounting artillery pieces, sometimes, as at Nora, with out-works.
In 1720, the island became part of Savoy, and Cagliari gradually took on the look of a defended port-city. Virtually all vestiges of these defences have gone from the port area, but the small, bastioned Forte S. Ignazio on the heights above S. Elia may date from the 18th C. There is a similar fort at Villasimius, which may be considerably earlier in origin.



Villasimius; Fortezza Vecchia, a small bastioned fort defending the harbour.

Apart from its gateway, most of the Savoyard arsenal in the Castello area has gone, replaced by new museum buildings, but further along the plateau, a bastioned enclosure with bartizans at the corners now serves the Ministry of Justice. The naval base on the Madalena archipelago is defended by several C18th forts as is, apparently, the port of Olbia.



Sometime in the late 1950's I remember reading an account of the planning of an airborne/amphibious invasion of Sardinia, by the Allies in 1943. Although this never took place, it is obvious, on the ground, that the Italian military authorities regarded such an event as a strong possibility.



Poetto:a circular WWII pillbox on the beach.

Beach defences abound, consisting in the main of circular pillboxes, as at Poetto, Cagliari's bathing beach, and canopied observation posts; and at least one, Nuraghe, Diana on the southern coast, has been converted into an observation post, with further strongpoints built into the abandoned tuna-fishing depot on the shore below. Routes into the interior are generally fortified where the road enters the hills.



Valico Nuraxi de Mesu; one of a pair of linked, camouflaged pillboxes built into a rocky outcrop, commanding a mountain pass in the SW of the island.

Sardinia is about 150 miles [240km] long by about 75 miles [120km] wide, and mountainous. Communications are confined to a small number of valleys, which can be controlled by strategically-placed defences.



S Antioco; travelling inland towards Giba, a line of blockhouses straddles the road; this is one of a group of four on a low hill.

Inland from S. Antioco, there is a line of mainly rectangular blockhouses straddling the main road. At least one is disguised as a farm-house. Where the Alghero road enters the hills, a group of circular pillboxes covers the approach. At the top of the 300m high pass between Teulada and Domus de Maria, a group of defences controls both the pass itself, and the radio station on the summit above. An anti-tank wall descends the hillside to a line of AT blocks along the road, all covered by a pillbox. On the opposite side of the road is a twin concrete gun-pit with underground magazine. On the hillside above, built into rocky outcrops, and camouflaged with rocks set into their concrete render, is a complex of inter-connecting circular pillboxes, constructed to a high standard. One outcrop contains two pillboxes, at different levels, accessed via a sunken corridor, and connected within the outcrop by stairs and passages. Another outcrop appears to contain at least three pillboxes. At the east end of Castello, overlooking Cagliari harbour, now an Italian naval base as well as a civilian port, is an AA battery with command centre, two gun-pits, and an underground magazine. Each gun-pit has a covered shelter section with a concrete cupola.



Cagliari; A circular WWII pillbox, one of a line of three on the lower slopes of Colle S. Michele.

On the eastern slopes of Colle S. Michele, crowned by a mediaeval castle with square towers with battered plinths, are three circular pillboxes overlooking what would, in 1943, have been open country stretching to the sea. WWII-vintage coast defence batteries have been reported at La Madalena.



San Antioco: Fort of 1812 built as a defence against corsairs.

Sardinia is clearly a fascinating place to visit, but to see everything it is necessary to have more than one base, as the distances to be traveled are quite demanding. I am intrigued by the part-remembered WWII invasion plan. For some reason, in my mind, it is associated with either Peter Fleming or Ronald Wheatley, both of whom, of course, wrote about Sealion. Perhaps the two topics were combined in some way. I'd love to hear if anyone knows.