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Fort Lytton is a national park located in Lytton, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, northeast of the Brisbane CBD. It is located near the mouth of the Brisbane River on the southern bank. It comprises the heritage-listed Fort Lytton and the hertige-listed Lytton Quarantine Station. Fort Lytton is a pentagonal fortress hidden behind a moat and grassy embankments.〔(Fort Lytton National Park - EPA/QPWS )〕 It is the only fort in Australia with a moat. ==History== Fort Lytton is the birthplace of Queensland's military history. Built in 1880-81 to protect Brisbane from an enemy, maritime attack, the fort is the principal remaining landmark of a reserve that for 40 years was the focus of Queensland's defence activity. It was designed by Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Scratchley. The fort was used for defensive purposes in Brisbane until the end of the Second World War. Fort Lytton was established in response to the fear of a Russian invasion in the 1870s and 1880s. To guard the river ‘two six-inch muzzle loading rifled guns and two 64-pounder cannons’ were installed and heavier guns were ‘to face the river and sweep the foreshore’. Barracks were established for the permanent garrison and the soldiers who came to train there. Fort Lytton was maintained for many years as a defence force and thousands of soldiers trained there during the Boer War and two World Wars. The fort is a typical nineteenth century garrison - a pentagonal fortress concealed behind grassy embankments - surrounded for greater protection by a water-filled moat. Located near the mouth of the Brisbane River, it was designed to support the controlled river mines and counter any determined effort by enemy ships to attack the Port of Brisbane and hold the city to ransom. The Australian colonies were part of the British Empire, which had made many enemies by the nineteenth century, when colonial powers were rapidly expanding their empires. At the time the fort was built, Brisbane had fewer than 100,000 people, with an annual trade worth more than four million pounds. Brisbane was more vulnerable to naval attack than Sydney or Melbourne as it was just three days' sail from the French naval garrison at Nouméa. Local defences were essential as Moreton Bay had numerous island on which the enemy could establish a base. Based on the recommendations of the illustrious British soldiers and military tacticians Colonel Sir William Jervois and Scratchley, Queensland opted to rely heavily on Fort Lytton as a fixed defence position for its capital and wealthiest port, Brisbane. The Commissioners favoured Lytton near the river mouth, ‘where there is a good site for a land battery, whence both a raking and a cross fire could be directed upon hostile gun-boats.’ Submarine mines would be strung across the river channel, protected by a battery of heavy guns at earthworks near Lytton. Jervois imagined the Queensland force in action: "To oppose a landing, I recommend, firstly, that a gun vessel of light draught should be provided ... to dash in amongst an enemy’s boats whilst in the shallow water between the anchorage and the shore, to which the enemy’s ships could not obtain access. Taking up a position in the boat channel at the mouth of the river, she would be very favourably placed for acting either to the north or the south, and for directing her fire also against the enemy’s ships, if desired." Given that enemy forces could land elsewhere on Moreton Bay, a field force of field artillery, engineers and infantry would also be required ‘to co-operate with the floating defence in preventing a landing, or in opposing an advance on the town if an enemy succeeded in obtaining a footing on shore.’ Smaller versions of the Brisbane plan were submitted for Rockhampton and Maryborough – torpedo defences of floating mines strung across the shipping channels, with artillery batteries nearby supported by mobile field forces. Approval for construction of a fort at Lytton was given by the Parliament of Queensland in 1878.〔 To effect this plan, a Naval Brigade and Torpedo Corps would need to be raised, a Garrison Artillery battery established for the Lytton defences, and a better-organised Field Force for operational deployments. The Commissioners did not favour cavalry, as mounted soldiers could be recruited from the police force in an emergency. It was also necessary to improve the telegraphic network along the coast, and purchase at least one armoured gun-boat, ‘a good, swift vessel which would be able to afford protection to places on the coast generally, and within the reef, against privateers or gunboats’, reported Jervois. The result was a scheme of fortified coastal batteries and submarine mines, supported by land based forces. Coastal forts had been built by the mid-1890s at Lytton, Kissing Point near Townsville, and Green Hill on Thursday Island. At Lytton the defences included submarine mines that could be submerged in the river. A small permanent battery of artillery for the forts and engineers to work the submarine mines was established. The permanent force also provided a cadre of experienced instructors who trained the part-time militia and volunteer forces, artillery batteries, infantry companies and mounted infantry companies, that were established in more than 40 towns across the colony. A small marine Defence Force also took shape, consisting of the two gunboats Gayunduh and Paluma, the torpedo boat Mosquito, and supplemented by Naval Brigade companies at various ports. In giving shape to many vague presuppositions and assumptions, Jervois and Scratchley’s reports directed Australian preparations for coastal defence for the remainder of the nineteenth century, with the British Colonial Defence Committee tweaking the details as circumstances required. Combination for mutual defence was one of the cornerstones of Federation. When the Australian colonies came together to build Green Hill Fort on Thursday Island in keeping with the Defence Commissioners’ scheme, it was an unprecedented collaboration that foreshadowed the movement to a Commonwealth. Initially, the fort had four heavy gun positions. Two faced seaward and another two faced the river.〔 By the turn of the century, it had six gun pits and two machine-gun posts. Its main ordnance was the 6-inch 5-ton breech-loading Armstrongs, called disappearing guns, which could be raised rapidly to fire over the fort's ramparts and lowered below the parapet just 20 seconds later. By Federation, Fort Lytton consisted of the following: * two 6-inch BL 5-ton Armstrong guns * two 6-pounder QF Hotchkiss guns * one 4-barrel 1-inch Nordenfeldt machine gun * one 10-barrel 0.45-inch Nordenfeldt machine gun * two 64-pounder RML guns The controlled minefield, supported by the guns, was operated from a concealed tunnel under the fort. The tunnel was built in the early 1890s and can be visited today. In the 1930s this system was replaced by a boom gate, which monitored all river traffic by a series of flags. The remains of the winch operating the boom are down near the riverbank, adjacent to the World War II searchlight emplacement. From statehood in 1859 until Australian Federation in 1901, Queensland relied mainly on volunteers for its defence. The Queensland Defence Force started with volunteers in 1860. By the time of Federation, Queensland was able to contribute a highly qualified military force for defence of the new nation. Before the Great War began in 1914, Lytton was the main training ground for the Queensland Defence Force. The first annual encampment held at Lytton in 1881 was the fourth annual training camp for Queensland's volunteer soldiers. The annual camps were run by permanent defence staff and provided the only regular training for the volunteers. They became a highlight in Queensland's political and social calendar. Every year, Brisbane's citizens would travel by train or boat to Lytton to watch the spectacular military manoeuvres and ceremonial displays. Tales of camp revelry, daring and fellowship survive that era. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fort Lytton National Park」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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