Tulla, the man who tamed the Rhine (video in French):
Tulla, der Fluss Bau Meister (video in German):
The first works to rectify the Rhine (1817-1876):
In the past, the Rhine floods were very devastating in this area. Floods were frequent and the bed of the Rhine was mobile, it moved laterally with the floods. These floods were linked to weather conditions.
In 1812, the engineer Johann-Gottfried Tulla presented his first report on the correction of the Rhine. To do this, he wanted to unite all the arms of the Rhine into a single wide and deep bed. 25 loops of the river must then be drilled. The proposed route was very straight. To achieve its ambition, it will need the support and financing of the Grand Duchy of Baden.
The ultimate goal of this project was to gain arable land and reduce the spread of the river. The Rhine correction projects aimed to enclose the Rhine in a fixed and rectilinear bed 200 to 250 meters wide. The objectives of Tulla were to protect the riverside villages from flooding, clean up the marshes, ensure better flood drainage, create a continuous towpath and recover new land for agriculture. The dams were designed to contain a thousand-year flood of around 6000 m3/s.
The completion of the Tulla project came to fruition with the signing of the convention of April 5, 1814. The other engineers did not all agree with this project, and moreover, certain entire villages revolted for fear of losing their place of residence. fishing and others, for fear of crossing to the French side of the Rhine. For this, the army had to be engaged.
But the work was finally carried out between 1817 and 1876. In 1825, JG. Tulla writes a new memoir on the rectification of the Rhine. He died in 1828, probably of malaria, and never saw the completion of the Rhine works. But thanks to him, the river became the first waterway in Europe. Its correction resulted in a reduction of 81 km in distance between Basel and Worms.