The story of Kluže

An enemy marching up from Bovec would not see this fortress until rounding the last bend, and then, at a distance of a hundred metres, would find himself under rifle and cannon fire. That was the plan behind Kluže, set in the narrowest part of the Koritnica gorge.

The Venetian Republic built a fort here in 1471, the Habsburgs a new one in 1509. In 1797 Napoleon's troops attacked it repeatedly in vain, until they climbed onto a ledge on the slopes of Mount Rombon, fired down and rolled stones onto the defenders, and French artillery set the fort ablaze. The present stone fortress was begun on 28 March 1881 and finished on 14 November 1882; Emperor Franz Joseph I came to see it that September.

It was the first Austro-Hungarian fort with hardened cast-iron shields for its gun openings. Above it, on Rombon, stands Fort Hermann, linked by a path and a tunnel, which Italian artillery wrecked in 1915.