Fortifications And Siegecraft – Jeremy Black

These were techniques that looked back to the age before gunpowder and that had been much used during it, for example by Venetian and Dutch engineers. Vauban placed the main burden of the defense on the combination of fortifications and artillery, again not a new approach. Instead, it was the crucial ability of the French state to fund such a massive program that was novel. For example, New Breisach, built to control an important Rhine crossing, to offer a route into southern Germany, and to compensate for the loss of Breisach to the Austrians in the 1697 Treaty of Rijswick, cost nearly three million livres to construct between 1698 and 1705.

There was a “show” aspect to these fortifications. Vauban also played a role in the fortification of France’s naval bases. This was an aspect of the major buildup of the French navy under Louis XIV, and also a response to the threat of attacks on the bases. Indeed, both Brest and Toulon were unsuccessfully attacked during Louis’s reign (by the English in 1694 and 1707 respectively), as Rochefort was by the English under his successor in 1757.

The defense of naval bases and other ports was a major aspect of fortifications. It was made more necessary by the wealth produced by transoceanic trade and also by the extent to which attacking warships could bring considerable numbers of cannon to bear, as well as carrying the necessary ammunition. Thus, the Swedes fortified their new naval base at Karlskrona. Vauban’s reputation led to the publication of his works well into the eighteenth century, even outside France. The fifth edition of his New Method of Fortification was published in London in 1748, while an edition of his collected works was published in Amsterdam and Leipzig in 1771.

To this day, Vauban remains the best-known fortress designer and is the name most associated with fortifications, alongside the Roman emperor Hadrian, after whom the wall in northern England is named, although the most famous individual fortification is the Great Wall of China. The prestige of Vauban ensured that French architects played a major role in fortress design over the following century. Thus, in 1746, the design proposed by Louis Godin was selected by the Spanish government for the Real Felipe fortress in Callao, Peru.

The focus on Vauban is important to the construction of the orthodox Western-centric account of what fortification means. In large part, this account is a reflection of the significance of France within the conventional history of warfare and, in particular, of the, in part misleading, counterpointing of Louis XIV (in the example of Vauban) with the French Revolutionaries and Napoleon, and thus of the ancien régime as opposed to “modern” warfare.

As far as the ancien régime is concerned, the standard narrative moves from Spain under Philip II to France under Louis XIV, and then Prussia under Frederick II.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Black, Jeremy, 1955– author. Title: Fortifications and siegecraft : defense and attack through the ages / Jeremy Black. Description: Lanham, MD : Rowman & Littlefield, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017058552 (print) | LCCN 2017060288 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538109694 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538109687 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Fortification—History. | Siege warfare—History. Classification: LCC UG401 (ebook) | LCC UG401 .B565 2018 (print) | DDC 355.4/409— dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017058552 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America For David Miller OceanofPDF.com Abbreviations Add Department of Manuscripts, Additional Manuscripts AE Paris, Ministère de Relations Extérieures BB Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bland Burges Papers BCE Before Common Era, same dates as BC, before Christ Beinecke New Haven, Beinecke Library BL London, British Library CE Common Era, same dates as AD, anno Domini Cobbett William Cobbett, ed., Parliamentary History of England from . . . 1066 to .

. . 1803 (36 vols., London, 1806–20) CP Correspondance Politique CRO County Record Office JMH Journal of Military History IO India Office Library NA London, National Archives SP State Papers WO War Office OceanofPDF.com Preface As centers for defense and bases for attack, fortifications are a crucial aspect of military history. In practice, with all its ramifications, the history of fortification is, in one respect, a history of mankind, indeed a global history.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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