- When Belgium gained it's independency in 1830, it was surrounded by enemies, the Dutch in North looked the Belgians in contempt, after all it was "their" land. In East, giant was just awakening, Germany. The real threat however during the early years of the Belgium independency was coming from South and West, from France. Later the threat from France came much less and the giant in East had waken.

- One of the most extensive fortification rings in Belgium could be found from Antwerpen, even when the fortifications were situated too close to the city and thus were outdated to a modern warfare. Liège on the other hand didn't contain nearly any fortifications, just two completely outdated fortifications which were nearly inside the city by that time. With this hard reality in hand, the Belgians started to improve first of all the fortifications around Antwerpen and to build a chain of forts around the city of Liège. From these two projects, the Fort de Pontisse stands as an empty and nearly forgotten memory of the fortification ring around the city of Liège.

- The fortification ring around the city, contained 12 forts, which followed a four different patterns of construction: Large/small triangular fort, or large/small quadrangular fort. Fort de Pontisse was build in a shape of quadrangular and is a large one. The real test for these 12 forts came in August 1914, when the giant, Germany had asked "politely" to march it's troops through Belgium soil to France, which the Belgians rejected immediately.

- The first contact that Fort de Pontisse made to the Germans was on 4th of August, when it opened fire with it's artillery guns, answering to the German artillery fire, which was hitting the retreating Belgians. From 5th of August to 13th of August the Fort de Pontisse and the other eleven forts were under a constant bombardment from the German artillery. Finally the German siege artillery was on place 13th of August and after a fifteen rounds of 42cm shells had hit the fort, the garrison was forced to surrender, as the none of the 12 forts around Liège were designed to sustain such an massive artillery bombardment. At that time the Fort de Pontisse had suffered very serious damage, although it's garrison had not suffered too many casualties. The bombardment from these huge German artillery guns, had only lasted some four hours. Finally on 16th of August all of the forts around Liège and the city itself, had surrendered to the relentless German attack.

- Next time that Fort de Pontisse would face the Germans again, things would be a very different from the August of 1914. On 10th of May 1940, the fort participated to the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael, by firing the superstructure of Eben-Emael with it's artillery. The enemy had not taken the conventional way to attack against the fort...they had landed from the sky on top of the fort and quickly ended any resistance from the Eben-Emael, that was thought to be the most mightiest in the world.

- After the second world war, ammunitions for the Belgian army were stored here, but it was completely abandoned quite soon, with trees and bushes taking over the place. Today, it's slowly being cleared from the vegetation, but the future for the Fort de Pontisse is still open.

- The doors to the old ammunition storage rooms. This area, close to the main entrance, had been already cleared from the vegetation, but the other side of the fort is completely covered with trees and bushes, making it very difficult to walk through.

- On the exterior of the fort, you can still very clearly see the holes, made by shrapnel flying from the artillery shells.