Fortificaciones - History Lab

Project to fortify Pamplona in 1756

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

Pamplona was a key place on the Spanish-French border from the beginning of the 16th century, being fortified on several occasions as artillery was introduced as a military warfare technique. The bastions were key to this task, simulating the great works of the citadel of Antwerp in 1567 and making Pamplona the first pentagonal citadel on the Peninsula.
During the 17th century, the difficulties in financing undertakings such as these meant that little work was done on the cities in the north of the peninsula. With the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War, the pressing need to fortify large fortifications in this area led Juan Martín Zermeño to be commissioned to draw up a series of projects in strategic locations such as Pamplona. The importance of this enclave led to a revision and modernisation of the previous works of Rez and especially Verboom in 1726, maintaining part of their objectives and working on the basis that the works were already well advanced. Zermeño’s modernisation came from proposals such as raising the bastions and varying the structure of the fort proposed by Verboom to give the defence a staggered form.

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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.

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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.

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The fortifications of Fuenterrabia around 1535

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

Once the conquest of Granada was over, the Catholic Monarchs took measures to protect the north of Spain in the face of a possible confrontation with the French troops, and this work was discontinued until the reign of Philip V in the 18th century. From Philip II onwards, major changes were introduced in the corps of engineers who would work for the crown, with technical training being promoted at the Academy of Mathematics in Madrid and not depending almost exclusively on importing these figures from abroad.
In July 1725, the engineer Jorge Próspero de Verboom arrived in Pamplona to work on the fortification of enclaves such as San Sebastián, Fuenterrabía and Pamplona. One of his most striking actions were his corrections to the engineer Luis de Langot in Fuenterrabía, introducing a whole system of outer forts and redoubts in strategic places, transforming Langot’s proposals to such an extent that it could practically be considered an independent project that would transform the square forever.
In this case, the importance of the enclave can already be seen graphically during the reign of Charles V, a time when some fortresses in the north of the peninsula such as San Sebastián and other coastal cities such as Mallorca or Cádiz continued to be reinforced. The post-medieval wall of Fuenterrabía would be attached to an interior defensive tower, it sat on a hill 250 metres in diameter and with the Bidasoa River covering its western part, it was in a strategically fundamental place.

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View of the town square of Fuenterrabía, its surroundings, and the state of the French camp, in the siege of 1638

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

During the second half of the 16th century, the fortification of Fuenterrabía was redesigned by the military engineer Jacobo Palear Fratín, designing a pentagonal citadel in the same style as the one built in Pamplona, enveloping the existing medieval defensive belt with a modern one to allow for a larger scale and artillery capacity. The medieval wall was preserved mainly due to the conditioning factors of the terrain, as it could not be directly adapted to the new needs.
The original elevation of the fortress made it impossible to establish surfaces suitable for the armament needs of the time. Successive bastions were built around the medieval wall, until the middle of the 17th century when Fuenterrabía was besieged by French troops and work was rushed, leaving the enclosure with the characteristics that can be seen in the representative image from 1638.

The post View of the town square of Fuenterrabía, its surroundings, and the state of the French camp, in the siege of 1638 first appeared on History Lab.

Royal engineer Fratín’s project for Fuenterrabía in 1572

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

Fuenterrabía demonstrated its great defensive power during the battles of the early 16th century, culminating in 1524 when the Castilian troops managed to recover it from the Franco-Navarrese army. In 1539 Charles V visited the damaged fortifications of Fuenterrabía, and shortly afterwards sent Captain Luis Pizaño to supervise the works in this square and in those of San Sebastián and Pamplona. One of the first actions was to raise the bastion of La Reina and the bastion of San Nicolás in 1545, partially modernising the fortified enclosure of the square.
During the reign of Philip II, work continued in the north of the peninsula, especially in Pamplona. These amazing works temporarily withdrew the focus of attention from Fuenterrabía, and its improvement work ceased until 1572, when a section of the old wall collapsed due to lack of maintenance. This caused Philip II to order his engineer Jacobo Palear Fratín to carefully analyse the square and give his verdict, which turned out to be rather unfavourable.
Under the king’s command, Fratín undertook a major reform project and numerous repairs. The aim was to extend the bastion in order to gain artillery capacity against the French in the east and to cover possible access from the sea. Although Fratín’s official layout is not available, the correspondence between the engineer and the Court has been analysed and a virtual reconstruction of the shape of the proposed plan has been made.

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City and frontier between the Mediterranean and the Hapsburg Atlantic

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:11 +0000

This audio explains the main characteristics of walled cities in the Hapsburg period and the cities that were the maritime frontier of Spanish possessions in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Caribbean. Firstly, the subject is approached from an architectural and construction point of view, making a comparison between the different port cities. Secondly, the importance of fortification goes beyond the simple defensive wall, they are also frontiers of power, with a strong symbolic character, where the city itself acts as a political, economic and military centre, especially in coastal cities. These are the gateways to maritime trade, in short, to the connection between continents.

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