FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT . " Fortification " is the military See also:

• ART

Another See also:

• FORM (Lat. forma)

The art of the engineer who is about to fortify consists in appreciating and harmonizing all the conditions of the problem, such as the weapons in use, nature of the ground, materials available, See also:

• TEMPER (from Lat. temperare, to mingle or compound in due proportion, to qualify, rule, regulate, to be moderate, formed from tempos, time, fit or due season)

The feudal castles lost their importance when the art of See also:

• CANNON (a word common to Romance languages, from the Lat. canna, a reed, tube, with the addition of the augmentative termination -on, -one)

The latter were built in at right angles to the length of the See also:

• PARAPET (Ital. parapetto, Fr. parapet, from para, imperative of Ital. porare, to cover, defend, and petto, breast, Lat. pectus; the German word is Brustwehr)

Thus the finest examples of the See also:

• SYSTEM

They are not mentioned in connexion with the See also:

• SIEGE (0. Fr. sege, siege, mod. siege, seat, ultimately from sedere, to sit, cf. Class. Lat. obsidium, a siege)

The towers were preferred circular in plan, as this form offered the re-Conditions best resistance to the See also:

• RAIN (O.E. regn; the word is common to Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. Regen, Swed. and Dan. regn; it has been connected with Lat. rigare, to wet, Gr. 13pixeav)

The walls would consist of two strong masonry faces, 20 ft. apart, the space between filled with earth and stones. Usually when the See also:

• LIE, JONAS LAURITZ EDEMIL (1833—1908)
• LIE, MARIUS SOPHUS (1842–1899)

When the chambers were large enough the timber supports were burnt and the wall collapsed. The besieged replied to the mining attack by See also:

• COUNTER

The archers occupied the top floor. There also were placed reservoirs of See also:

• WATER

The mats protected the men working at the walls, and as these were built up the roof was gradually raised by the use of endless screws. The roof was made of heavy beams and planks, over which were laid bricks and See also:

• CLAY (from O. Eng. claeg, a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. Klei)
• CLAY, CASSIUS MARCELLUS (1810-1903)
• CLAY, CHARLES (1801–1893)
• CLAY, FREDERIC (1838–1889)
• CLAY, HENRY (1777–1852)

Huge stones and barrels of blazing See also:

• PITCH
• PITCH, MUSICAL

A long spar with a steel claw at the end, swung in the middle from a lofty See also:

• FRAME

In practice the ages. the great missile engines, contributed no new ideas nothing of it, and the efforts of See also:

• CHARLEMAGNE [CHARLES THE GREAT] (c. 742-814)
• CHARLEMAGNE, JEAN ARMAND (1753–1838)

I) the plan of one of these towers with the cur- tains adjoining. A is the plan of the ground-level ; B the plan of the first See also:

• STOREY (equivalents are Fr. etage, Ital. piano, Ger. Stock)

The See also:

• HUNS

This great castle, with ditches and escarpments cut out of the solid See also:

• ROCK
• ROCK (O.Fr. rake, Sp. rota, Ital. rocca; possibly from a Lat. form rupica, from rupes, rock)
• ROCK, DANIEL (1799–187t)

The experience of such sieges as that of Chateau Gaillard, and still more that gained in the See also:

• CRUSADES

Flanking towers were cut off from their walls and arranged for See also:

• SEPARATE

5 and 6 (reproduced from Violletle-Duc) show the plan of the defences of the town and castle, and a See also:

• BIRD

The siegecraft of the period was still that of the ancients. Mining was the most effective form of attack, and the approach to the walls was covered by engines throwing great stones against the hoardings of the parapets, and by See also:

• CROSS

See also:

• ARTILLERY (the O. Fr. artiller, to equip with engines of war, probably comes from Late Lat. articulum, dim. of ars, art, cf. " engine " from ingenium, or of artus, joint)

This was not so; Durer's work was published in 1527, and more than one See also:

• ITALIAN

This was an outwork usually semicircular in The bul plan, built of earth consolidated with timber and revetted See also:

• WART (Lat. verruca)

7). Another expedient of still greater value was the use of counter-forts. The earliest counterforts were simply buttresses built -inward from the wall into the rampart instead of outward (fig. 8). Their effect was to strengthen the wall and make the breaches more difficult of ascent. An alternative arrangement for strengthening the wall was an arched gallery built behind it under the rampart (fig. 9). This construction was in See also:

• HARMONY (Gr. dpµovia, a concord of musical sounds, dpA'ew to join; &plan midi (sc. TeXvil)

For this purpose it was necessary to find See also:

• ROOM

The ditch. Serving as it did for the double purpose of supplying earth for a rampart and allowing the wall to be sunk for concealment, it was found also to have a definite use as an obstacle. Hitherto the wall had sufficed for this purpose, the ditch being useful mainly to prevent the besieger from bringing up his engines of attack. When the wall (or escarp) was lowered, the obstacle offered by the ditch was increased by revetting the far side of it with a See also:

• COUNTERSCARP (_" opposite scarp," Fr. contrescarpe)

With this last addition the ordinary elements of a See also:

• PROFILE

Masonry galleries were constructed across the ditch, containing casemates which could fire to either side, and after this casemates were used in the counterscarps. Some use was also made of the fire from detached bulwarks. It was soon realized, however, that the flanking defence of the body of the place ought not to be dependent on outworks, and that greater freedom was required for guns than was consistent with See also:

• CASEMATE (Ital. casa, a house, and matta, dull or dim)

(We may also See also:

• NOTICE

3. The bastioned trace: Flanks facing each other and connected by curtains (fig. 18). In comparing these three traces it will be observed that unless casemates are used the flanking in the first two is incomplete. Guns on the ramparts of the faces cannot defend the flanks, and therefore there are " dead " angles in the ditch. In the bastioned trace there is no " dead " ground, provided the flanks are so far apart that a shot from the rampart of a flank can reach the ditch at the centre of the curtain. Here was therefore the parting of the ways. For those who objected to casemate fire, the bastioned trace was the way of salvation. They were soon in the See also:

• MAJORITY (Fr. majorite; Med. Lat. majoritas; Lat. major, greater)

In fig. 19 See also:

• ABCD

(Two demi-bastions with the connecting curtain make the bastioned front, defghi.) zd bisecting the exterior angle ABC is the capital of the bastion. xy is the perpendicular, the proportionate length of which to the exterior side BC (usually about one-See also:

• SIXTH

The following is the ex-planation of its figuring and lettering. I. Flat bastion: Placed in the middle of a curtain when the lines of defence were too long for musketry range. 2. Demi-bastion: Used generally on the bank of a river. 3. Tenaille bastion: Used when the flanked angle is too acute; that is, less than 70°. 4. Redans: Used along the bank of a river, or when the parapet of the covered way can be taken in See also:

• REVERSE

Demi-lunes: So called from the shape of the gorge. They differ from the ravelins in being placed in front of the bastions instead of the curtains. D. Counter-See also:

• GUARDS, AND HOUSEHOLD TROOPS

Hornwork: Much used for gates, &c. I. See also:

• CROWN

Traverses. R. Salient places of arms. S. Places of arms without traverses. T. Orillon, to protect the flank V. X. A double bastion or See also:

• CAVALIER
• CAVALIER, JEAN (1681-1740)

Traverses to protect the terreplein of the ramparts from See also:

• ENFILADE (a French word, from enfiler, to thread, and so to pass through from end to end)

22 is early 16th-century work much improved. There are no outworks, except the covered way, now fully developed, with a battery in the re-entering place of arms. The bastions are large, but the laces directed on the curtain get little protection from the flanks. To make up for this they are flanked by the large cavaliers in the middle of the curtain. The careful arrangement of the flank should be noted ; part of it is retired, with two tiers of fire, some of which is arranged to See also:

• BEAR
• BEAR, BLACK
• BEAR, BROWN
• BEAR, GRIZZLY
• BEAR, ISABELLINE
• BEAR, WHITE

His own ideas are large and simple, but rather in advance of the powers of the artillery of his day. At the beginning of the 17th century we find the Italian engineers following Paciotto in developing the complete bastioned trace; but they got on to a bad line of thought in trying to reduce everything to symmetry and system. The era of geometrical The 17th fortification (or, as See also:

• SIR

of the most important periods in the history of fortification, chiefly because it was illuminated by the work of See also:

• VAUBAN

Vauban's genius was essentially practical, and he was no believer in systems. He would say, " One does not fortify by systems but by See also:

• COMMON

(which, however, is a See also:

• MATTER

Here the main bastions and tenaille are detached from the enceinte. The line of the enceinte is broken with flanks and further flanked by the towers. The ravelin is large and has a keep. The See also:

• SECTION
• SECTION (Lat. sectio, cutting, secare, to cut)

Cormontaingne's work, therefore, represents the modifications of Vauban's ideas accepted works, between 1688 and 1698, he bastion idea. It will be convenient to take the " first system," as reproduced in the Royal Military See also:

• ACADEMY, GREEK
• ACADEMY, ROYAL

Chasseloup-Laubat tells us that, before the Revolution, to attempt novelties in fortification was to write one's self down ignorant. How far the general form of the bastion with its outworks had become crystallized is evident from a cursory comparison of fig. 27 with Vauban's early work. This figure is the front of the Metz school in 1822; by General Noizet. Since, therefore, the official view was that the general outlines of the system were sacred, the efforts of orthodox engineers from Cormontaingne's time onwards were given to improvements of detail, and mainly to retard breaching operations as long as possible. We find enormous pains being bestowed on the study of the See also:

• COMPARATIVE

Secondly, in order to get freedom to use longer fronts than those admissible for the ordinary bastioned trace, he proposed to extend his exterior side up to about 65o yds. and to break the faces of his bastions; the portion next the shoulder being defended from the flank of the See also:

• COLLATERAL (from Med. Lat. collateralis,—cum, with, and latus, lateris, side,—side by side, hence parallel or additional)

It is not on a few little contrivances carefully hidden that one can rely for a good defence. The fate of a place should not depend on the intelligence of a See also:

• CORPORAL

The bastioned system was the 17th-century solution of the fortification problem. Given an artillery and musketry of short range and too slow for effective frontal defence, a ditch is necessary as an obstacle. What is the best means of flanking the ditch and of protecting the flanking arrangements? If Vauban elected for the bastion, we must before criticizing his choice remember that he was the most experienced engineer of his day, a man of the first ability and quite without See also:

• PREJUDICE (Lat. praejudicium)

From the end of the 16th century the Dutch methods of fortification acquired a great reputation, thanks to the stout resistance offered to the Spaniards by some of their fortresses, the three years' defence of Ostend being sit o.1 tie perhaps the most striking example. Prolonged de- fences, which were mainly due to the desperate energy of the besieged, were credited to the quality of their defences. In point of fact the Dutch owed more to nature, and more still to their own spirit, than to art; but they showed a good deal of skill in adapting See also:

• RECENT

No further provision was usually made on the sides of the town which were additionally protected by a river or inundation. On the other sides the wet ditch was made still broader, and sometimes contained a counterguard, some-times ravelins and lunettes. These were quite irregular in their design and relation to each other. At the See also:

• FOOT

There is also the ditch at the foot of the glacis, and surrounding the rampart of the enceinte a continuous fausse-braie. This work, which partook of the nature of both boulevard and counterguard, served several purposes. It was desirable that the weight of the rampart should be drawn back a little from the edge of the ditch, and the fausse-braie filled what would otherwise have been dead ground at the foot of the rampart. It also afforded a grazing fire over the ditch, which was very important, and which the rampart supported by a plunging fire. See also:

• COEHOORN, MENNO, BARON VAN (1641-1704)

It was founded on the principles of Dtirer, Speckle and especially Rimpler, and much influenced in execution by Montalembert. " The German engineers desired a simple trace, a strong fortification with retrenchments and keeps, See also:

• BOMB

He left unfortunately no designs to illustrate his ideas. Landsberg the younger (167o-1746), a See also:

• MAJOR
• MAJOR (Lat. for " greater ")
• MAJOR (or MAIR), JOHN (1470-1550)

For a dry and level site he recommended a bastioned trace; but for wet ditches and for irregular ground, tenaille traces. Both of these latter differ from his 1797 trace in that the re-entering angle is reinforced by a tenaille whose faces are parallel to the main faces and reach almost to the salients. There are also counterguards in front of the salients, whose ends overlap the ends of the tenaille. (N.B. To avoid confusion between the tenaille trace and the tenaille, it should be noted that the latter is a low detached parapet placed in front of the escarp of the body of the place, partly as a shield, and partly as an additional line of defence, It is used in front of the curtain in the bastioned trace, and in the re-entering angle in the tenaille trace.) Other important features of Carnot's work were: a continuous general retrench- ment, or interior parapet, following more or less the lines of the main parapet; the use of the detached wall in place of the escarp revetment; and the countersloping glacis. This last (of which Carnot was not the inventor), instead of sloping gently outwards from a crest raised about 8 ft. down to the natural level of the ground, sloped inwards from the ground-level to the bottom of the ditch. The advantage of the additional obstacle of the counterscarp was thus lost to the defence. On the other hand, the besiegers' saps, as they progressed down the glacis, were exposed to a plunging fire from the parapet. Carnot was also, like Coehoorn, a great believer in the mortar; but while Coehoorn introduced the small portable mortar that bears his name, Carnot expected great results from a 13 in. mortar throwing 600 iron balls at each See also:

• DISCHARGE (adapted from the O. Fr. discharge, modern decharge, from a med. Lat. discargare, to unload, dis- and earn care, to load, cf. " charge ")

The leading idea of Montalembert was that for a successful defence it was necessary for the artillery to be superior to that of the enemy. This idea led him to the See also:

• ADOPTION (Lat. adoptio, for adoptalio, from adoptare, to choose for oneself)

The polygonal system in fortification implies straight or slightly broken exterior sides, flanked by casemated caponiers. The caponier is the vital point of the front, and is protected in important works by a ravelin and keep. The essence of the system is its simplicity, which allows of its being applied to any sort of ground, level or broken, and to long or short fronts. The final period of smooth See also:

• BORE

The Austrians covered part of their masonry with earth and gave more attention to detail. .es Reliefs in feet,.aboee or -below 14.p/See also:

• ASS (O.E. assa; Lat. asinus)
• ASS, FEAST OF THE

It has two floors of gun-casemates and one for musketry, and Posen. on the top is a parapet completely commanding alike the outworks and the body of the place. It contains barrack accommodation for a See also:

• BATTALION

The early conception of the role of detached forts in connexion with the fortress was to form an entrenched camp within which an army See also:

• CORPS (pronounced as in French, from which it is taken, being a late spelling of tors, from Lat. corpus, a body; cf. " corpse ")

In 183o, in See also:

• AUSTRIA
• AUSTRIA, LOWER (Ger. Niederosterreich or Osterreich unter der Enns, " Austria below the river Enns ")
• AUSTRIA, UPPER (Ger. Oberosterreich or Osterreich ob der Enns, " Austria above the river Enns ")

The enceinte of See also:

• PARIS
• PARIS (also called ALEXANDROS)
• PARIS, ALEXIS PAULIN (1800-x881)
• PARIS, BRUNO PAULIN GASTON (1839-1903)
• PARIS, FRANCOIS DE (169o-1727)
• PARIS, LOUIS PHILIPPE ALBERT
• PARIS, TREATIES OF (1814-1815)

During the period 1855–187o a considerable impulse was given to the science of fortification, both by the See also:

• CRIMEAN