For thousands of years, human beings have built the most varied military buildings as defense elements of a territory.<\/p>\n
Fortifications from different eras often have certain characteristics in common, but there are times when one comes across fortresses that look strange and atypical. This is the case of Mj\u00f6sj\u00f6fortet, a large fortress built in the town of Boden, Sweden, in 1910<\/strong>, four years before the start of the World War I. This position had some features typical of 20th-century fortified lines, including four 15 0mm howitzers in dome-shaped armored turrets<\/strong>, and a further four 84 mm guns in smaller armored turrets, plus 8 57 mm guns in other positions.<\/p>\n From the data we have just reviewed, Mj\u00f6sj\u00f6fortet was very well armed. It was part of the so-called Bodens F\u00e4stning (Boden Fortress), a system of five fortifications<\/strong> also known as \"L\u00e5set i Norr\" (The Lock of the North). The five fortresses were about 30 kilometers from the coast and in the mountains around Boden, in northeastern Sweden, and their goal was to prevent a possible Russian (and later Soviet) invasion through Finland.<\/strong> Mj\u00f6sj\u00f6fortet had a trapezoidal shape, and its longest sides measured about 109 meters. An unusual feature of Mj\u00f6sj\u00f6fortet for a modern fortification is that it was surrounded by a high moat<\/strong>, typical of medieval fortresses.<\/p>\n Mj\u00f6sj\u00f6fortet once had a garrison of more than 500 men<\/strong>, divided into 251 artillery soldiers, 229 infantrymen and 20 engineering soldiers. It remained active during both world wars and the Cold War, being abandoned by the Swedish Army in 1978<\/strong> (the other four Bodens F\u00e4stning fortresses remained active until the 1990s). Today its galleries are plunged into darkness<\/strong>, and some of them are even flooded. The Swedish channel CM Exploration<\/a> published a few days ago an interesting video exploring this fortress:<\/p>\n
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