Hobe Fort

Hobe Fort or Huwei Fort (滬尾砲台; POJ: Hō͘-bé/Hō͘-bóe Phàu-tâi) is located a short distance away from Fort Santo Domingo, near the town of Tamsui, Taipei on the island of Taiwan.

In the 1880s Imperial China (Qing Dynasty) and France fought a war over today's Vietnam. In October of 1884 in the Keelung Campaign, the French fleet sailed to northern Taiwan where it blockaded the ports of Keelung and Tamsui, and then landed troops at both places. The Chinese managed to turn back the assault at Tamsui, though Keelung fell to the French. Eventually the Chinese government signed a treaty granting the French extensive privileges.

Following the war, the Chinese government decided to strengthen Taiwan's coastal defences with forts at Keelung, Tainan - Fort Zeelandia and (Fort Anping) - and Tamsui. To ensure that the new forts would be up to date, the government commissioned the German military engineer Max E. Hecht to supervise the construction, which began in 1886 and finished in 1889. When Huwei Fort was finished it had a rectangular structure and commanded the Tamsui River; its armament consisted of a massive 10-inch, one 8-inch, and two 6-inch guns.

Because the fort never saw combat it remains almost entirely intact. The barracks that once stood in the central square are gone, as are the guns, but the outer walls, vaults and gate are close to their original conditions. One enters the fort through a gate that still bears the original inscription Beimensuoyao (北門鎖鑰), given by governor Liu Mingchuan, who was governor at the time of the fort's construction. The vaults inside the fort now contain a museum about the French landing in Tamsui.

External links

* [http://www.takaoclub.com/Tamsui/cemetery.htm The Tamsui Foreign Cemetery]