Table Of ContentSIEGE WARFARE
SIEGE WARFARE
The Fortressi n the Early Modern World 1494-1660
ChristopherD uffy
London and New York
First published 1979 by Routledge& Kegan Paul
Re-issuedi n 1996
by Routledge
II New Fetter Lane. London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneouslyp ublishedi n the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street. New York. NY 10001
Reprinted 1997
© 1979 ChristopherD uffy
Printed and bound in Sloveniab y
Mladinska Knjiga Tiskarna
All rights reserved.N o part of this book may be reprinted or
reproducedo r utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical,o r other means,n ow known or hereafter
invented, including photocopyinga nd recording. or in any
information storageo r retrieval system, without permissioni n
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguingi n Publication Data
A cataloguer ecord for this book is available from the British Library
Library of CongressC atalogingi n Publication Data
A cataloguer ecord for this book has is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 0-415-14649-6
Contents
Preface xi
Prologue: The Earliest Artillery Fortification 1
One Fortress Warfare in Renaissance Italy 8
Two Later Italian Wars and the Origins of Permanent Artillery
Fortification 1 530-1 600 23
Three The Frontiers of France 1513-59 43
Four The Eighty Years War in the Netherlands 1566-1648 58
Five The Apprenticeship of France 1560-1660 106
Six The English Civil War and the Subjugation of Ireland 140
Seven The Baltic Empires 163
Eight The Sultan and his Enemies 191
Nine Fortress Warfare beyond the Seas 220
Ten The Fortress and Humankind 247
Bibliography 265
General Index 277
Subject Index 288
Illustrations
I Late medieval fortification in decay 3 31 Dutch fortification 90
2 Exterior of one of Durer's roundels 5 32 Coevordena s rebuilt by Maurice 92
3 Sectiono f one of Durer's roundels 5 33 Progresso f an attack, with trenchesa nd
4 Deal Castle 6 redoubts 94
5 Renaissanceca nnon 9 34 Battery shootinga breachf rom the
6 Defenceo f a breacha t Siena 17 counterscarp 97
7 The citadel of Turin 24 35 Siegeo f Munster by the German
8 A bastionedf ortress unders iege 28 princes, 1657 98
9 View of the masonryo f a bastion 29 36 Final stageso f a siege 99
10 Caprarola 30 37 The siegeo f s'Hertogenbosch1,6 29 103
II The San BernardinoB astion at Verona 31 38 MontmeJian 115
12 Porta San Pietro (Lucca) 32 39 Errard'sf ortification 117
13 Oassicp entagonacl itadel 33 40 Siegeo f Montauban,1 62I 119
14 Ravelin at Sarzanello 35 41 La Rochelle 120
15 Defenceo f a bastion 37 42 La Rochelle 121
16 'Families' of Italian engineers 38---() 43 Fort Fuentes 122
17 Boulogne 48 44 Nancy 123
18 Salses 49 45 Siegeo f Turin, 1640 127
19 The siegeo f Metz 1552/53 51 46 One of the bastionso f Montmedy 137
20 Siegeo f Thionville 55 47 Berwick-upon-Tweed 141
21 Daniel Speckle 56 48 Plan of the Oxford fortifications 150
22 Spanishm assacrea t Oudewater1 575 67 49 Basing House 156
23 Statueo f Alva in the citadel of Antwerp 68 50 The fortifications of London 158
24 The demolition of the Antwerp citadel 69 51 CastleP ark on the Bandona t Kinsale 161
25 Parma'sa ssaulto n Tournai, 1581 75 52 Siegeo f Smolensk 168
26 Siegeo f Oudenarde,1 582 77 53 One of the Smolenskt owers 171
27 The Spanishb ridge at Antwerp, 1585 78 54 The gulyai-gorod at Moscow, 1606 172
28 Giambelli's infernal machined estroys 55 Vyrodkov's prefabricateds ieget ower at
the Spanishb ridge 79 Kazan, 1552 173
29 Maurice of Nassim'ss iegeo f Coevorden, 56 Gustavus'ss iegeo f Wolgast, 1630 176
1592 83 57 Tilly's siegeo f Magdeburg,1 631 177
30 Siegeo f Ost end, 1601-4 87 58 Gustavusis checkeda t Ingolstadt 181
viii Illustrations
59 The Swedishf ortifications at Augsburg 183 72 Turkish fortification in 'palanka's tyle 216
60 Fort Gustavsburga t Mainz 184 73 The bastioned' Citadel' of Hue in
61 Storm of Frederiksodde1, 657 186-7 Annam 233
62 Siegeo f the monasterya t Czestochowa, 74 Japaneseto wer at Odawara 243
1655 189 75 Himeji Castle 244
63 Zamosc 190 76 Starvationi n a besiegedt own 253
64 The GrandH arboura t Malta, 1565 193 77 Maidenly virtue under attack 258
65 The works at Valletta 194 78 Vienna in the later seventeenthc entury 262
66 Nicosia 195 79 Vienna. The first of a serieso f
67 Neuhausel 202 photographsta ken in about 1858 263
68 Komorn 203 80 The correspondingv iew westwards,
69 Chertaf ortifications 206 looking up the DanubeC anal 263
70 Turkish trench attack 212 81 Side view of the Karntnertor 264
71 Turkish cannon 213 82 Frontal view of the Karntnertor 265
Maps
Italy in the early sixteenthc entury: political 10 Denmark,w ith south Norway and south
Sweden 164
North Italian fortressesi n the sixteentha nd
early seventeenth centuries 26-7 Polanda nd westernR ussia 166
North and north-eastF rancei n the sixteenth Central Europei n the Thirty Years War 178
and early seventeenth centuries
44 WesternM editerranean 198
The SpanishN etherlandsin the Eighty Years
The theatreo f war on the Danube 200
War: political and strategic 60
Siberia 208---<)
Fortressesin the northern Netherlandsin the
sixteentha nd seventeenth centuries 62 Persia 208
Francei n the Religious Wars 108 Africa, the Indian Oceana nd the Spice
Islands 221
Ireland 142
South-EastA sia 231
Englanda nd Wales in the Civil War 148
China under the Mings 234
Oxford and its satellite posts 152
Japana nd Korea 241
Preface
Many solemnv entureso f mankind are impelled by reaching ways in which fortress warfare has in-
impulses which are more trivial than the voyagers fluenced statecraft, strategy, architecturea nd or-
would care to admit - the rationalisationsa re often dinary humana ffairs. A study of this kind ought to
left until later. It so happenst hat the presentw ork, rangeb eyondW esternE uropea ndt ell us something
for all the pomposity of its title, was inspired by of how the ScandinaviansR, ussiansa ndA siansw ent
nothingm oree xaltedt hant he sight of a traffic-island about their business.I n spano f time we should be
of turf and stonei n my native Blackheath. allowed to travel over the centuriesf rom the dateo f
Fortunately it was not difficult to find ample the appearanceo f the first truly mobile siege
justification for writing a book aboutt he fascinating artillery, in the later fifteenth century, and go on to
and still very little known subject of artillery see (in further studies) how fortification has been
fortification. Fifteen years ago, when I first began transformed by seventeenth-centurya bsolutism,
work, the darknessw as complete.M ost peoplew ho and the advento f the 'heavy' Industrial Revolution
were interestedi n the history of war or architecture of the nineteenthc entury and the 'light' Industrial
would have agreed with the man who said that Revolution of the twentieth.
'nothingi s morec onspicuouslyla cking in the field of Most importanto f all we shouldb eari n mind that
military studiest hana well-illustratedh istory of the the phenomenono f fortressw arfarei s not explicable
arts of fortification and siegecraft'( Guerlac, 1944). in purely technical terms. Fortresses rose on
There was certainly a plethora of studies on particular sites because of certain strategic or
'Crusader Castles' and the like, but when we economic considerations;t hey were defendeda nd
inquired about fortresses of the artillery age the attackedb y living engineersa nd armies; they were
authorities took us on a gentle guided tour of usually peopled by civilian urban communities;
sixteenth-century Italy and seventeenth-century their successful resistanceo r fall could well de-
France,a nd usheredu s out againw ith the inevitable terminet he preponderancoef ones tateo vera nother.
referencet o Sterne'sU ncle Toby. An examinationo f walls and trenchesw ould be a
In recenty earst hingsh avec hangedfo r the better. valuablee xercise,t o be sure,b ut by itself it would be
Not only have we had good technical overviews of as deficient as a history of religion which drew its
fortification from Q!Ientin Hughesa nd Ian Hogg, evidencee xclusivelyf rom ecclesiasticaal rchitecture.
but the military history of the early modernp eriod Thesec onsiderationsh ave determinedt he form
has 'comea live' in a remarkablef ashion, as you can of the present work. We shall hear more about
see from our bibliography. policies, strategiesa nd the lives of soldiers than
However, there is still a need for a reasonably aboutt he technicalitieso f the thousandso f 'systems'
concise and readable commentary on the far- of fortification, of which only a few were ever borne
xii Preface
in mind by the serious engineer,a nd which even Kemp of the FortressS tudy Group have helped to
then were carriedo ut in a radically simplified shape. create an atmospherei n which it is possible to
I could not have entertained the thought of enthusea bout artillery fortification without being
writing this book without the help of the London thought a complete lunatic. Valiant work is also
Library and the Army DepartmentL ibrary of the being done on the Continent by the French
Ministry of Defence. I also owe a great deal to Lt.- Inspection du Genie, and organisationsl ike the
Col. Alan ShepperdM BE, who has built the Library Stichting Menno van Coehoorn( Holland) and the
of the RMA Sandhurst into one of the finest Stichting Simon Stevin (Belgium). The beneficial
collectionso f its kind in the country. resultso f their concerna re alreadye vident. On the
~ite recently I expresseds ome very gloomy far side of the Atlantic the membership of the
sentimentsa boutt he historical and physical neglect Council for AbandonedM ilitary Postsi s numbered
of some of the architectural gems of fortification in the thousands,a nd many impressive works of
(Fire and Stone, 1975, p. 198). I would not write in restoration have been carried out by the national
the same unreservedlyp essimistic tone today. In parks serviceso f Canadaa nd the United States.
Britain my friends Quentin Hughes and Anthony
