Pointe du Toulinguet

Kerbonn is a village in the commune of Camaret-sur-Mer in France, between the pointe de Pen-Hir and the pointe du Toulinguet, on the Crozon peninsula. As well as its fortifications, the site also houses the ruins of the manor of Coecilian.

The pointe de Pen-Hir (Breton – Beg Penn Hir) is a promontory of the Crozon peninsula in Brittany, to the south-west of Camaret-sur-Mer. On a clear day there are views to the Pointe du Raz and the islands of Sein and Ouessant and to Pointe Saint-Mathieu. The cliffs are as tall as 70 metres (230 ft) high. It is the site of the Monument to the Bretons of Free France, known as the Cross of Pen-Hir and inaugurated by General Charles de Gaulle in 1960. It is intended to bear witness to the group of Free French Bretons who founded Sao Breiz in Great Britain during the Second World War. It was created in 1949–1951 by architect Jean-Baptiste Mathon and sculptor Victor-François Bazin. « Aux Bretons de la France Libre – MCMXL – MCMXLV – La France a perdu une bataille, mais la France n'a pas perdu la guerre. Dans l'univers libre des forces immenses n'ont pas encore donné. Un jour ces forces écraseront l'ennemi. » "To the Bretons of Free France – MCMXL – MCMXLV – France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war. In the free world immense forces have not yet given up. One day these forces will crush the enemy." On the back of the cross is an inscription in Breton, "Kentoc'h mervel eget em zaotra", taken from the motto of Brittany: "death rather than defilement".

The pointe du Grand Gouin is a rocky promontory with vertical cliffs to the west of the inlet of Camaret-sur-Mer in France. It protects a port which, in Vauban's era, was vulnerable to possible landings. It is divided into the Grand Gouin (the top of the cliff) and the Petit Gouin (mid-cliff).

Camaret-sur-Mer (French pronunciation: [kamaʁε syʁ mɛʁ]; Breton: Kameled) is a commune in the Finistère department in northwestern France, located at the end of Crozon peninsula.

The Battle of Camaret, also referred to as the Brest expedition, was a notable engagement of the Nine Years' War. Expecting Brest to be unguarded as the French fleet stationed there sailed south to face the Spanish, an amphibious operation at Camaret Bay was launched on 18 June 1694 by a 10,000 to 12,000-strong Anglo-Dutch force in an attempt to take and occupy the city, which represented one of the most important French naval bases. The French, however, were well aware of their plan. The expedition was opposed by only a bit over thousand French troops led by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, in his only ever field command. Consisting of fierce exchanges of fire involving Anglo-Dutch ships and French cannons as well as a ground engagement which saw an allied landing party be repulsed back to the sea after a French counter-attack, the battle resulted in a prompt defeat for the Allies and their retreat.

The Tour Vauban (Vauban Tower), initially known as the tour de Camaret, is an 18m-high polygonal defensive tower built to a plan by Vauban on the Sillon at Camaret-sur-Mer, as part of the fortifications of the goulet de Brest. It has three levels and is flanked by walls, a guardhouse and a gun battery which can hold 11 cannons as well as a cannonball foundry added in the French Revolution period. Drafted in 1683, the tower was designed in 1689 by Vauban and construction was supervised by the military engineer Jean-Pierre Traverse from 1693 to completion in 1696. The 11 cannons in the battery are believed to have been forged with those for the battery on pointe du Grand Gouin, for the Quélern defensive-lines and the many neighbouring batteries. In the French victory in the Battle of Camaret on 18 June 1694, the battery and its two guard houses were only armed with nine 24-pounder cannon and three mortars firing 30 cm balls. On 18 June 1694 Vauban himself was in command of the garrison when they repelled an Anglo-Dutch attack. The battery put several British vessels out of action. On land, a charge by French dragoons scattered the British troops that had landed, and the local militia helped complete the victory. The French claimed to have killed 1200 attackers and captured 450 prisoners. Vauban's forces claimed to have only suffered 45 men wounded. British estimates were that they had lost 700 soldiers killed, wounded, and captured, and that 400 men aboard the ships were killed or wounded. A Dutch frigate of 20 guns also was sunk.The Anglo-Dutch fleet anchored between Camaret Bay and Bertheaume. Consequently, Tour Vauban also received some support from Fort de Bertheaume on the opposite side of the Goulet de Brest. Camaret-sur-Mer is a member of the network of major Vauban sites. Since 7 July 2008 the tour Vauban and 11 other sites have been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to their outstanding engineering and testimony to Vauban's influence on military strategy and architecture from the 17th through the 19th centuries.

The Childers Incident of 2 January 1793 marked the opening shots between British and French forces during the French Revolutionary Wars, the first phase of a 23-year-long war between the two countries. Following the French Revolution of 1789, diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the French Republic had steadily deteriorated and France was in political and social turmoil. One of the strongest hotbeds of republican activity was the principal Atlantic naval base of the French Navy at Brest in Brittany, the scene of a significant mutiny in 1790. On 2 January a small British warship, the 14-gun brig HMS Childers under Commander Robert Barlow, was ordered to enter the Roadstead of Brest to reconnoitre the state of readiness of the French fleet. As Childers entered the Goulet de Brest, the vessel came under fire from French batteries flying the tricolour. Although Barlow clearly identified his brig as a neutral British vessel the fire continued until he was able to withdraw. Although Childers had been struck by a 48 lb (22 kg) cannonball, none of the crew were wounded. The incident was of itself inconsequential, with minimal damage and no casualties on either side, but it marked a symbolic moment in the deterioration of relations between Britain and France in the approach to war, which broke out on 1 February 1793.

Camaret Bay (French: Anse de Camaret) is a small bay on the north coast of Brittany, France. In 1694 it was the site of the battle of Camaret, a naval action between French and English forces, which culminated in a disastrous amphibious landing by the English as part of an attempt to seize the nearby port of Brest.

Built between 1694 and 1697, the Fort du Petit Minou was a fort built in the commune of Plouzané in France to defend the goulet de Brest. It consists of 6m high masonry bastions, surrounded by a 3m deep and 9.5m wide moat. Vauban completed the defences along the goulet and at this fort installed 240 cannons and a command post for directing fire and coordinating the defences' magazines. It was reinforced in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the phare du Petit Minou being added nearby in 1848. The fort was occupied in 1940 as a German blockhouse and after the point's liberation at the start of September 1944 the remains of a former hôtel were demolished. After losing its military purpose, the fort was acquired by the commune and opened to the public in October 2007.

Îlot des Capucins (Islet of the Capuchins) is a rocky islet at the foot of a cliff in the commune of Roscanvel on the Crozon peninsula. Its name comes from a rock near the island, shaped like a praying monk. It has a strategic position at the entrance to the goulet de Brest and so a fort sited on it controlled the whole of Camaret Bay, with views stretching from pointe du Grand Gouin (to the southwest), to fort de Bertheaume (to the northwest). The fort was built in 1848 after plans drawn 150 years earlier by Vauban, built in schist and granite and made up of an underground battery (1890) and a rapid-fire battery (1890) It was linked to the mainland by a bridge in 1859.On the heights overlooking the islet is an upper battery (1885) to the islet's right and left, a platform battery with an underground magazine (1897) and a mortar battery (1889).

Le Minou is the site of a popular surfing beach and a lighthouse at the entrance to Brest harbor in France. It is part of the commune of Plouzané, on the north side of the Goulet de Brest. "Le Minou" means "pussy cat" in French. Le Minou is the site of the landfall of the first French transatlantic telegraph cable in 1869.

Tremet is a hamlet on the Roscanvel peninsula in France. The gun batteries located here are part of the defences of the goulet de Brest, forbidding ships from entering the bay of Camaret-sur-Mer. The site had been occupied by the military since 1694 (a battery was probably sited here in Vauban's defensive scheme) and was updated several times in the 18th and 19th centuries. The battery became a heavy anti-aircraft post in 1955 as part of the outer defences of Brest's military fort - part of that battery is still part of the military land around Quélern and not open to the public.