Fort George is the fortified summit of Citadel Hill, a National Historic Site of Canada in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. First established in 1749, during Father Le Loutre's War to protect the protestant settlers against raids by the French, Acadians, and Wabanaki Confederacy (primarily the Mi'kmaq), it was successively rebuilt to defend the town from various enemies. A series of four different defensive fortifications have occupied the summit of Citadel Hill since this time, with the construction and levelling resulting in the summit of the hill being dropped by ten to twelve metres. Whilst never attacked, the Citadel was long the keystone to the defence of the strategically important Halifax Harbour and its Royal Navy Dockyard. Today the fort is operated by Parks Canada and is restored to the Victorian period. There are re-enactors of the famed 78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot and the 78th Highlanders (Halifax Citadel) Pipe Band who were stationed at Halifax for almost three years (1869-1871). The first major permanent fortification appeared on Citadel Hill in the American Revolution. The possibility of attack during the Revolution required a larger fortification to protect the city from an American or French attack. Built in 1776, the new fort on Citadel Hill was composed of multiple lines of overlapping earthen redans backing a large outer palisade wall. At the center was a three-story octagonal blockhouse mounting a fourteen-gun battery and accommodating 100 troops. The entire fortress mounted 72 guns. Citadel Hill and the associated harbour defence fortifications afforded the Royal Navy the most secure and strategic base in eastern North America from its Halifax Dockyard commanding the Great Circle Route to western Europe and gave Halifax the nickname "Warden of The North". The massive British military presence in Halifax focused through Citadel Hill and the Royal Navy's dockyard is thought to be one of the main reasons that Nova Scotia the fourteenth British colony remained loyal to the Crown throughout and after the American Revolutionary War. Neither French nor American forces attacked Citadel Hill during the American Revolution. However, the garrison remained on guard because there were numerous American privateer raids on villages around the province, as well as naval battles just off shore, such as the Naval battle off Halifax. The French Revolutionary Wars that began in 1793 raised a new threat to Halifax. A new citadel was designed in 1794 and was completed by 1800. The top of the hill was leveled and lowered to accommodate a larger fortress on the summit. It resembled the outline of the final Citadel, comprising four bastions surrounding a central barracks and magazine, but used mainly earthwork walls. One bastion was constructed with labour from Jamaican Maroons. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent commissioned a clock tower in 1800 prior to his return to England. The Town Clock opened on October 20, 1803 at a location on the east slope of Citadel Hill on Barrack (now Brunswick) Street and has kept time for the community ever since. The Third citadel received hasty repairs and a new magazine during the War of 1812 in case of an American raid but a new fortification was not constructed as naval superiority provided by the British Royal Navy precluded any chance of an American siege. The current star-shaped fortress, or citadel, is formally known as Fort George and was completed in 1856, during the Victorian Era, following twenty-eight years of construction. This massive masonry-construction fort was designed to repel a land-based attack by United States forces and was inspired by the designs of Louis XIV's commissary of fortifications Sébastien Le Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban a star-shaped hillock citadel with internal courtyard and clear harbour view from armoured ramparts. Between 1820 and 1831 the British had constructed a similar albeit larger citadel in Quebec City known as the Citadel of Quebec. Fort George was constructed to defend against smoothbore weaponry; it became obsolete following the introduction of more powerful rifled guns in the 1860s. British forces upgraded Fort George's armaments to permit it to defend the harbour as well as land approaches, using heavier and more accurate long-range artillery. Fort George's two large ammunition magazine's also served as the central explosive store for Halifax defences making Citadel Hill, according to the historian and novelist Thomas Head Raddall, "like Vesuvius over Pompeii, a smiling monster with havoc in its belly". By the end of the 19th century, the role of Fort George in the defense of Halifax Harbour evolved to become a command centre for other, more distant harbour defensive works, as well as providing barrack accommodations.

• published: 01 Sep 2013
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