Alicante - History Lab

The castle of Alicante and its fortifications in 1709

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:25 +0000

When the allied army took control of Alicante in the midst of the War of the Spanish Succession, they found weak and poorly planned fortifications that they had to carry out major works to improve. The priority was to repair the breaches that the British fleet had caused in its previous attack, and so it was.
A year later, when the French recaptured the town in 1708, they returned to work on the city’s defences, while devising a novel tactic to take control of the castle. The strategy was to build a mine to gain access from the base of the hillside to the castle at the top of the rocky mountain.
March 3, 1709 was the day chosen to detonate the mine, causing a huge explosion and killing 54 English soldiers stationed at the castle. Contrary to what the French commanders thought, the explosion made access to the castle even more difficult, as the extensive damage to the hillside continued to prevent upward entry.
It was not until 18 April that the capitulations were signed, with the English garrison leaving the castle with great military honours, which they would receive two days later, after more than a month under siege and managing the little water they had.

The post The castle of Alicante and its fortifications in 1709 first appeared on History Lab.

Bastioned fortifications of Alicante, 1708-1709

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:25 +0000

During the War of the Spanish Succession, the allied troops carried out important fortification work in Alicante. By applying a bastioned line, they modified the line of defence of Alicante compared to the previous ones of Charles V, which resulted in a too static defence against an attack of a certain size, as the French troops demonstrated when they assaulted the city from the inside without great difficulty. The defences had been designed with a great deal of effort, and rather than a compact bastioned belt, it ended up as a thin wall with no interior ramparts.
One of the first French objectives was to build a new defensive layout that was more in line with the new military tactics of the time. The works, although they were never completed, were aimed at improving the previous irregular layout and dealing with its poor construction, giving Alicante’s fortifications a new defensive appearance. In the documents found, the most immediate repairs after taking the city are listed, including the repair of the walls and bastions, raising the parapets and making them 18 feet thick, once again pointing out the weakness of the previous constructions.
Outside the 16th-century enclosure, a seven-foot-high earthen trench with a bench was proposed to repel any possible landings, which, if the situation overtook them, would be helped by raising the height of the walls to the same level as the bastions and thus prevent the English from finding weak points, as they did when they managed to take the city.

The post Bastioned fortifications of Alicante, 1708-1709 first appeared on History Lab.

Proposals by the military engineer Antonio Montaigut for the castle of Alicante, 1724

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:25 +0000

The explosion of the mine carried out by the French general D’Asfeld during the War of Succession in 1709 showed the weaknesses of one of the most solid fortresses of the Spanish Levante: the castle of Alicante. One of those in charge of drawing up proposals for its reconstruction and consolidation was the military engineer Antonio Montaigut.
Since ancient times, Alicante has been a key strategic point for controlling the Levantine coast. Surrounded by the capes of La Huerta and Santa Pola, it was governed from the top of the Alicante hill and its castle of Santa Bárbara. As mentioned above, one of those in charge of improving its defences was Antonio Montaigut, who worked on a previous project by Jorge Próspero de Verboom.
By the mid-1720s, Valencia and Murcia already had Montaigut as their chief engineer. His task was to carry out the defensive projects and inform the general state engineer about the steps to be taken: to complete the works proposed by Verboom in the city of Alicante, but also to work on the castle, which had been orphaned of work since the previous projects. As shown in the appeal, the most important thing was to replace the batteries with a new reinforced bastion and to protect the way up to the castle, where the Cavalry Corps and the soldiers, until now located in houses due to the absence of barracks, would be housed.

The post Proposals by the military engineer Antonio Montaigut for the castle of Alicante, 1724 first appeared on History Lab.

Map of the cordon sanitaire in Orihuela for the plague of 1676

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:18 +0000

The plague was one of the diseases that most decimated the Spanish population. The XVII century was the worst hit in demographic terms in Orihuela, Alicante: with the plague of 1647-1652 the population was reduced from 12,200 inhabitants to around 7,000. Against this background, the new outbreak recorded in 1676 in the surrounding towns was met with greater sanitary prevention. The city of Orihuela was isolated to avoid contagion and the accumulation of grain and foodstuffs was encouraged in order to deal with the possible epidemic. The danger for this city was in the market gardens, as many farmers crossed the municipal boundaries in the direction of Murcia or Elche to illegally supply produce. Faced with the danger of them becoming infected and returning with the disease, the Board of Health ordered quarantines to be imposed on those people who had been in areas at risk. Finally, a more effective cordon sanitaire was imposed, with 4 lines, linking Orihuela with Alicante: the first 2 lines were intended to isolate the outbreaks in Murcia and Cartagena, passing through the Segura River, the third line isolated the municipality of Elche, while the fourth was aimed at cutting off the outbreaks coming from La Mancha. Between the 19 leagues of the cordon sanitaire, 56 surveillance posts were set up with more than 100 operatives and men on horseback, who were permanently patrolling the containment lines.

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Evolution of the merchant navy of: Denia, Jávea, Calpe, Altea, Villajoyosa, Alicante and La Mata between 1626 and 1650

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:20 +0000

This table shows the evolution of the merchant navies of five towns located in the Kingdom of Valencia: Denia, Jávea, Calpe, Altea, Villajoyosa, Alicante and La Mata. Through the archive documentation, it has been possible to trace the type of merchandise, its volume and origin. With this data, statistical studies can be carried out to make individualised or overall comparisons of the commercial activity in one or several areas. The table highlights the strength of Alicante’s trade, whose volume of merchant ships was not only maintained, but managed to increase during the difficult years of the Thirty Years’ Conflict (1638-1645), when there was a general economic recession from which Alicante emerged less damaged.

The post Evolution of the merchant navy of: Denia, Jávea, Calpe, Altea, Villajoyosa, Alicante and La Mata between 1626 and 1650 first appeared on History Lab.