The era Vauban
The invention of gunpowder in the 14th century had an enormous effect on fortifications. When the Ottoman Empire under their commander Mehmet II besieged and softened Constantinople the military engineers were made aware violently that the town walls as they knew them had become history. The Fortress of the modern age had to be brought low to offer little target space as possible. Their star-shaped ground-plan was determined by the lines of fire. All walls were to be covered by their own guns to keep the enemy off the fortress. In 1572 Albrecht Dürer published one the very first tracts about fortifications.
The history of the fortress town Rocroi begins with the first constructions initiated by Henry II in the 16th century. These fortifications were mainly stone and earth walls in the shape of a pentagon. The decision to fortify Rocroi was made when the Emperor Charles V began the construction of Fort Charlemont at Givet. In 1643, the Spanish attempted to invade France, laying siege to Rocroi with a large force. A relief force led by the young Duc d'Enghien (the future Prince Condé) met the Spanish forces just to the south of the town, where the French routed the Spanish at the Battle of Rocroi. In 1675 Sébastien Le Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban (1633 – 1707) visited Rocroi and realigned the defences and added several outworks.
Vauban was born in Saint-Léger-de-Foucheret in the Département of Yonne, in Burgundy, into a family of minor nobility. At the age of ten he was left an orphan in very poor circumstances, and his boyhood and youth were spent amongst the peasantry of his native place. A fortunate event brought him under the care of the Carmelite prior of Semur, who undertook his education, and the grounding in mathematics, science and geometry which he thus received was of the highest value in his subsequent career.
At the age of seventeen Vauban joined the regiment of Condé in the war of the Fronde. His gallant conduct won him within a year the offer of a commission, which he declined on account of poverty. Condé then employed him to assist in the fortification of Clermont-en-Argonne. Soon afterwards he was taken prisoner by the royal troops; but though a rebel he was well treated, and the kindness of Cardinal Mazarin (actually Giulio Mazarini) converted the young engineer into a devoted servant of the king. In 1678 he was appointed Commissaire-General des Fortifications.
Pre Care
In the course of 50 years Vauban built the “ring wall of the French house”, the Pre Carre. It was an expression first coined by Louis XIII's chief minister Cardinal Richelieu. It expressed the ideal of a consolidated France, firm behind clearly defined and well defended borders. It was later to describe a particular area of Northern France, lying between the sea and the Ardennes, that was enclosed within two parallel lines of fortresses. Conceived by Vauban, it's purpose was to guard France's northern reaches from invasion. He built or reconstructed 120 fortresses and he became the foremost constructor of fortifications in Europe. His masterpiece is the garrison city New Brisac (Neuf Brisach), erected in 1708.
Vauban had no equal in the art of attacking and defending fortified places. In an era when the siege dominated military affairs, being far more commonplace than major field engagements, his genius for capturing places and his mastery of the art of fortifying them, guaranteed his place as one of the leading men of his age. Vauban's influence on history might be described as considerable. But his impact on warfare must be described as enormous, and not just in his own lifetime.
To support such a bold statement one simply has to cite Vauban's personal service record. He directed forty seven sieges during the many campaigns that shaped France's emerging frontiers under Louis XIV. Louis XIV paid tribute to Vauban when he appointed him Marechal of France and Directeur General des Fortifications du Royaume.
Central to these achievements were the methods he developed for attacking & defending fortified places - especially his method for conducting an attack. He carefully recorded everything so that it could be passed on to his compatriots.”De LÁttaque er de la Defense des Places” and his many other writings were later handed down to successive generations of grateful French engineers. A footnote of history: he besieged and took his own first fortress, Clermont. Vauban's method for the attack upon a fortified place remained influential a hundred years & more after his death. The sieges conducted by Napoleon's armies in the Iberian Peninsular in the second decade of the nineteenth century were clearly recognisable as Vauban Style assaults. Indeed, such was the esteem in which Vauban was held by the French engineer corps that, so far as the art of defence was concerned, they undoubtedly clung onto his methods too long. This completely stifled original thought. The irony being that Vauban himself, ever the original thinker, was constantly evolving his ideas. Accordingly, he would have been horrified at the thought of his successors' lack of originality.
Inventor Vauban
Another facet of his personality are the many inventions and innovations Vauban has been credited with, among which was the design of the first ever socket bayonet. This fitted around rather than inside the muzzle of the soldier's firearm, as the old plug bayonet had done. The result being he had enhanced personal protection without loosing the offensive capability of his firearm. It was Vauban also who encouraged the French Army to adopt the new flintlock musket in preference to the less efficient Matchlock. These two things together had a very significant influence toward ushering out the age of the Spanish tercio - the mix of musket and pike armed infantry. Instead foot soldiers began to be deployed in shallower formations, leading to a revolution in tactics and grand-tactics. Of great significance also to generations of soldiers - French and others alike - Vauban was perhaps the first since the classic age of Rome to systematically build proper, permanent barracks accommodation for them. This was a vital step in promoting their health, well-being and discipline. He also was made an honorary member of the French Academy of Sciences. Applying his knowledge he even correctly estimated and plotted out the growth of Canada, predicting its population would be about 30 million by the year 2000.
As was to be expected, Vauban's King was extremely pleased with him. Louis XIV bestowed on him a variety of ranks, titles, and offices. Some of the latter Vauban retained. Others, as was usual in France at that time, he sold on to countrymen. It was an accepted part of public life that one might buy & sell office. Especially marketable were those allowing the holder to come close to the King. Louis no doubt bestowed some offices suspecting the recipient would only sell them on to realise a cash sum. It was simply one of the many ways in which he would reward those who'd served him well. However, in Vauban's case, he also bestowed some huge cash sums, principally as reward for cities captured. Also of note, the King permitted Vauban a considerable degree of familiarity. There could scarce be any better indication of his affection for, and trust in, his servant: "... Continue to write to me about anything you have in mind, and do not be disappointed if I am unable to see my way to adopting your suggestions, or if I do not reply regularly. ... It is impossible to have more regard, esteem and friendship that I have for you."
However, one of the most gratifying aspects of Vauban's life is that he was renowned as a man of great humanity. Indeed, seldom does one encounter in history an individual who can truly be counted among the "greats" yet still stands out as a thoroughly likeable and decent human being. One measure of how high a regard in which he was generally held was the fact that, even at a time when France & England were at war, writings attributed to Vauban were published in London - actually there is some doubt whether it was Vauban's work, but the fact remains his enemies thought enough of him to want to imitate his methods. He never once treated his men like cattle. He was horrified whenever they risked their lives unnecessarily. He constantly strove to protect them from enemy fire and otherwise generally improve their lot. He astounded the world, and won the undying love of the French soldier, when he took pains and devised means whereby he could capture an enemy fortress with fewer losses than those he inflicted on the besieged. A gesture that shows how much he was appreciated even a hundred years later: on 28 May 1808 the Emperor Napoleon I honoured Vauban by arranging to have his heart placed within a grand monument erected under the dome of the Invalides church in Paris. Here Vauban's heart still rests today - now only a few yards from the Emperor's own mortal remains!
Finally in 1867, in accordance with an Imperial Decree signed by Napoleon III (Great-nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte), Saint-Léger-de-Foucheret, the town in which Vauban was born, was renamed Saint-Léger-Vauban in his honour.
Only once Vauban ran out of luck. The aggressive foreign policy of Louis XIV was a huge burden on the French economy, above all clergy and nobility were not paying any taxes as substitute for the loss of political influence and power. In 1707 Vauaban published a tract which called for the repeal of all taxes and the imposition of a single tax of 10% on all land and trade with no exemptions. He backed up his argument with a mass of statistics.. It was not well-received at the time (the king shunned him thereafter), but it inspired later Enlightenment economists, such as Forbonnais, Mirabeau and the Physiocrats.
The layout of fortress Rocroi
But now back to the fortress town of Rocroi. As mentioned before the layout of the city is an almost symmetrical pentagon with five bastions and five demi-lunes. This is a work constructed beyond the main ditch, opposite a curtain, composed of two faces and forming a salient angle. It has its own ditch and usually a counterscarp. Alternately called a ravelin. There are two gates, the Porte de Bourgogne in the northeast between the Bastion du Roi and the Bastion de Petit-Fort, as well as the Porte de France in the southwest between the Bastion de Nevers and the Bastion de Montmorency.
The Bastion de Montmorency and Bastion du Roi are protected by Contreguardes. A counterguard was a triangular outwork, like a demi-lune, but it protected a bastion instead of a curtain wall. These counterguards both join the demi-lunes adjacent to them, thus forming a series of connected outworks, almost a second wall in the ditch between the main wall and the covered way. The covered way was the first line of defence. In front of the ditch, it consisted of little more than a path that was 'covered' from the enemy on one side. The guns on the wall were angled so as to fire over the heads of defending troops on the covered way. . Two lunettes - a triangular work placed forward of the main defences, sometimes to protect a demi-lune - were constructed, one in 1744 and one in 1838, to protect the Bastion de Nevers and the Demi-Lune de Geoff Frevale. An unusual occurance in this kind of fortification is the second ditch (on the inward side of the gatehouse) behind the Porte de Bourgogne. As this entrance is hard up against the flank of the Bastion du Roi, perhaps Vauban decided it needed extra protection to prevent it being an easy way in for attackers. (contributions by Dominic Goode)
