The Taarbäk Fort

The Taarbäk Fort was constructed during the years 1913 to 1916.

Drawings of the Fort

It was a triangular fort with a dry moat pit and an underground connection to the caponiere outside the northern tip.
The fort was designed for a crew of 250 men.

It was placed in the forest “Dyrehaven” so it could both serve a land- and coastal fort. This, however, was not very appropriate. The purpose of this was to close the defence gap in the Northern Front. This gab had been at suject for discussion since the 1890’es.  

Both Land- and Coastal Fort

Aerial photo 1954

The Taatbäk Fort was supposed to cover the coast north of Taarbaek against landing attempt, but could not see the shore because of the cliff above the coast, and the residential buildings along the coast. Furthermore, it should assist the Middelgrunds Fort  to prevent enemy ships from sailing to Copenhagen, but did not have sufficient visibility over the waters. To remedy this, a 33 meters high observation tower was constructed on the top of the fort.
As a land fort it was supposed to cover the Eremitage Field and the areas north of it, but since the fort was hidden behind the highest point (where the Eremitage Palace is situated), the main part of the forts battle area was hidden from the fort.

A weak Coastal Battery

The armament as an coastal battery was generally too weak.
The fort had four 29 cm iron howitzers M.1910, with a range of 10,300 meters. These were located on top of the northeastern rampart of the fort.

120 mm. steel howitzer

As a land fort, it had two 120 mm quick firing steel howitzers M.1914, with a range of 8400 meters mounted in armored turrets.
In addition, six machineguns in three armored turrets, three 37 mm Hotchkiss revolving cannons M.1880 and thirty-four 8 mm machineguns M.1903 to in caponieres defend the dry moat and the throat.

When the fort was scrapped in 1937, it was rebuilt to store mines for the Navy.

The 29 cm haubits was the same type of haubits which can be seen at the Charlottenlund Fort today.

In 1969 the Taarbäk Fort was covered of 300,000 tons of dirt.
In 2012 some people dug into the fort in cooperation with the Danish television Broadcast Company.
Some of the pictures are brought here with permission.

Pictures form the Fort

Pictures from the buried fort 2012