How To Lay Siege To A Star Fortress In The 16th and Early 17th Century | Early-Modern Warfare

from the 14th to the 17th century siege warfare became ever more important in Central Europe engineers and technicians developed fortresses that were more elaborate and more solid than ever before as a result siege warfare reached an immense level of complexity throughout the Middle Ages high and relatively thin walls were enough to protect against storming ladders siege equipment and projectiles but since the 14th century ever more effective firearms in artillery challenged the defensive potential of fortresses a to and fro of military innovation began improved fortifications countered improved gunpowder weapons and vice versa this meant on until the end of the 16th century when according to stefan hope a quote a successful solution to all important issues of defense had been found and put one famous type of stronghold that was crucial to this evolution was the truss italian better known as star fortress it was to be found quickly all over europe though in a variety of forms historian john a lane states that at the same time the numbers of fortified sites increased drastically so that central european warfare shifted away from open field battles and finally revolved above all around sieges during this time period sieges differed greatly from case to case just as the besieged cities themselves effort the complexity of this subject necessitates simplification this requires us to apply a technique that historians use frequently this technique is known as ideal type and it is based on the works of the great german sociologist Max Weber this is to say we will not look at every individual siege instead we take reoccurring elements from different sieges to construct a typical and ideal siege that we then use to explain the most important and most common tactics of siege warfare modern-day historiography explains the complex nature of siege warfare as follows the backbone of the defense on polygonal fortresses were the bastions a bastion had two phases that could accommodate several pieces of artillery with which approaching enemies could be shot that from a great distance the shoulders were built as depicted here to fire at the shoulder of the next bastion or along the piece of wall in between two bastions known as the curtain this was to make sure there were no blind spots in the defense yet the most essential strength of a fortress were relatively low and thick walls they were supported with earth that could withstand heavy artillery fire for a long time a quality direly needed in the early modern period a ditch sometimes filled with water prevented attackers from attempting to take the stronghold by storm revellings v-shaped outworks protected the curtains from direct fire it was only after around 1600 that sometimes further out works were added at the bottom of the wall there was a burn a small alleyway the covered way was a path which continued along the outer edges of the ditch and provided an advanced defensive position it was covered that a glass see a parapet of a man's height which on one hand covered the man fighting on the covered way from enemy fire but on the other hand and much more importantly matched in angle with the top of the wall so that an attacker could only fire at the wall from far away which was much less effective therefore the enemy was forced to take the glasses before he could attempt to breach the walls attacking such a fortress was very expensive it required a lot of manpower and an enormous amount of time the siege of Chania to name but one extreme example lost it from 1648 to 1669 that is 21 years according to historian john mulaney a determined siege almost always resulted in the fall of the fortress but the strategical value of the fortress was not that it was invulnerable its value was in the high price the enemy had to pay in money manpower and time to capture it because of this rather creative and sometimes unconventional ways to get hold of a fortress per preferred the most simple method was just to threaten a siege or direct attack in many cases the mere sight of an army alongside guarantee of safe conduct was enough to get the defender to surrender if it did not a stratagem of war was always a good alternative let's look at an illustrative example the French city of onion was conquered by the Spanish using a stratagem of war in 1597 the Spanish approached the city under the cover of night and blocked all roads to and from the city with detachments of infantry then 500 infantry man hidden houses thickets and barns in front of the city in the morning the citizens and farmers strolled into the city oblivious of the danger that was to come thirty Spanish men disguised themselves as women and farmers hiding their weapons under their clothes and pretending to take their goods to the market they entered the city with carts loaded with nuts for the market as they passed the city gates they threw one of the carts over which spread the stored nuts all over the grounds chaos ensued people were swearing at the clumsy farmers while stealing the nuts taking advantage of the confusion the intruders dropped their disguise killed some residents and neutralized the guards at the gate then they opened the gate in order to let in the man hiding in front of the city as well as four additional companies of cavalry in less than half an hour they had taken over the city the french van laid siege on the city to recapture it if such a stratagem of war didn't succeed army leaders took too much more violent alternatives these ranged from cutting off the fortress from supply lines and starving out the inhabitants to storming the walls with ladders however the option that interests us here is the formal siege when an army wanted to lay siege on a fortress it first established various quarter's beyond the reach of the defense's artillery the soldiers dug out entrenchments around these camps to secure them before the first offensive measures were taken then a contra and circum valachia was dug that is two lines of trenches which connected the various camps of the siege army around the city olefin invasion an expert on Dutch warfare states that this made it almost impossible to relief a beleaguered City because the entering the circum volition made sorties beyond this point virtually impossible while the outer ring the contribution protected the seating army from a text from the outside this is reminiscent of caesar's famous siege of Alesia in 52 BC where he had the rear of his army also fortified with an additional wall fan invasion statement is supported for example by Maurice of Nassau siege on the Spanish forces in the city of her freedom back in 1593 Maurice even ordered the circulation to be continued on the sea by ships so that the city was cut off completely after about a month a Spanish force tried to relieve the besieged but it was repelled by the entrenched procedures and weakened by an enemy for a starting at the circulation trenches so-called approaches were docked towards the walls to protect them against sorties small readouts were constructed in which small detachments were placed often the approaches were dug from multiple sites at the same time so that defenders remained in the dark where the main attack would come from in the case of the Dutch army under Maurice and his half-brother Frederic Henrik each side was dug out by man of the same origin which turned to digging into a contest of Nations the English who fought in the Dutch army competed with their Dutch and German comrades to get to the walls the fastest once the approaches were within firing distance of the first defensive position the man began to SAP SEPs were shoveled out six segways so that the guns of the fortress could not shoot along them additionally up to three parallel trenches were dug out in regular intervals they functioned as strongholds and provided cover for the troops and platforms for artillery according to Gil Orton one major problem with all this earth work was that the soldiers didn't like digging it at all if the soldiers did the job themselves they demanded an additional fee but most of the time this laborious and dangerous work had to be contracted out because of the high risk involved in the task the contractors charged a lot sieges therefore required to have a substantial amount of money in reserve while the attackers slowly came closer to the walls of the fortress the defenders certainly didn't remain idle they shot at the sappers and try to disturb or destroy the constructions of the besiegers in sorties corresponding to this the main task of the artillery of the offenders during the first phase of the siege was to silence the guns of the defenders however the cannonade often aimed at the town itself in the hope of stirring up an uprising against the garrison the inhabitants tried to protect themselves in their homes against such Canaanites they reinforced their roofs with layers of earth and were ready to put out potential fires at all times one example for successful deployment of this strategy was the siege of Venlo in 1637 on the 24th of September the besieging Spanish managed to set the town a place where upon the inhabitants according to a letter of Frederic Henry quote sorts to take control of the person of the governor of the Arsenal and lastly of the Gateway and quote they forced the governor to negotiate with the besiegers and Venlo capitulated the next day this also shows the importance of artillery in such sieges the historian guild or even a novice quote artillery was widely considered the most important means of attack and quote the most frequently used siege cannons were full and Demma cannons however not too many of these heavy guns were deployed at the same time since they were very unwieldy a complete twenty four pounder for example required no fewer than 17 draught horses to be moved and used a tremendous amount of powder for American states the recoil of such heavy cannons was so powerful that it would roll back 5 to 6 meters after each round in addition to these giants but very slow pieces with a low frequency of fire smaller guns of various kinds such as coal rings and breech loading chamber pieces and early mortar pieces were deployed olefin invasion mentions that during the siege of Ostend from 1601 to 1604 very fender shot their way through an average of 2,000 pounds of powder each day thereby releasing 300 balls artillery pieces were usually grouped in batteries which were more effective when placed on elevated earthworks in a trench in front of each battery an infantry detachment covered the guns against an enemy sortie before the addition of revellings in the second half of the 16th century the middle of the curtainwall was the target the main battery tasked to dismantle the wall defences was placed in a distance matching its reach ie 450 to 600 meters its main objective was to destroy the enemy artillery and parapet it was the center of the whole operation and was reinforced by wings on each side which targeted the neighboring bastions while the cannons foundered over their heads the man in the trenches had to be on guard not to be overrun by a sortie of the defenders a sortie could be done in various ways and its main goal was to weaken the position of the besiegers for example by destroying their earth and artillery often the besiege try to catch their enemies of guard they try to take them out with a quick cavalry charge or invade the trenches on resorts daggers and other weapons suited for such confined spaces these weapons were even more of an advantage in rainy weather when the Musketeers of the enemy who couldn't light her gunpowder were defenseless the success of a sortie depended on two things firstly on the element of surprise and secondly on the number of man deployed small Garrison's had no chance to undertake effective actions against the besieged because all men were needed on the walls let's look again at the siege of amia in 1597 during the French reseating the beleaguered Spanish made several sorties on the 22nd of May 500 Spanish cavalry man left the fortress and headed for the main camp of the French they managed to get as far as the earthwork protecting the camp they took hold of the earthwork and were stopped only then by the French after a fight of two hours the French finally drove the Spanish horsemen back and pursued them by the skin of their teeth the Spanish just managed to close the gates before the pursuing French could enter the city it took 400 Spanish infantry men who rushed to the gates at the last possible moment to keep the French out the final phase of a siege began when the attackers gained control of the covered way while the artillery tried to reduce the defenders foothold on the bulwark engineers started to build a bridge or dam across the ditch a breaching battery was placed immediately at the glassy or as close to the wall as possible it began to shoot a bridge in the curtain wall or in the face of a bastion this was done by aiming at a point above the lower third of the wall the next shots will then be shot slightly to the left or the right this was usually repeated over an extended period of time this breach had to be big enough to let the man storm through it if it was too narrow the miners and sappers were called in viii specialists doc Thomas beneath the defensive works and the wall itself and then said the supporting pillars ablaze - coughs the tunnel and fortifications above it to collapse in many cases powder kegs were placed under the target sealed and lit to counter these hidden attacks the defenders dug tunnels as well when they detected enemy miners there were several ways to prevent them from accomplishing their work for example by invading their tunnels and taking them out in melee or by blowing up the mine prematurely when the attackers managed to breach the wall of the fort the last line of defense had fallen in most cases however the defenders surrendered before the storm of the fortress began holding on to resistance for too long could be a fatal error in those cases the defeated had to endure plundering and punishment rather than be granted safe conduct [Music]

Channel: SandRhoman History

Views: 1,309,641

Rating: 4.9228263 out of 5

Keywords: siege warfare, sieges 16th century, star fortress, star fort, siege starfort, sieges star fort, trace italienne, educational, education, history, evolution of warfare, sandrhoman, early-modern warfare, early modern warfare, sieges early modern period, siege amiens, siege of candia, siege of geertruidenberg, siege venlo, 80 years war, sieges 17th century, sieges eighty years war, sandroman, sandroman history, sandrhoman history

Id: HqIa-NpzAfg

Length: 16min 35sec (995 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ApotheounX]

Read this as 'Star' meaning 'Space Fortress', instead of what it is, a Terrestrial Fortress shaped like a Star.

Still watched it, very interesting and pretty well presented.

[u/Xalimedius]

Just crash it into the surface of Cadia and forget about the whole siege thing.

[u/vanhaut0r]

the emperor protects ... ah wrong universe i guess

[u/rroach]

How does a 20 year siege even work?

[u/Ascott1989]

This is now a warhammer 40k thread.

Cadia stands.

[u/thmz]

Competetive tunnel diggin is the most hardcore thing I've heard in a long time. Holy shit. The most recent example of tunnel diggers is in the Syrian civil war. Enemy positions got dug under and then they place a shitload of explosives under it and boom. NSFL-ish but there's no visible bodies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3Fh8Afn0fw

[u/bauski]

Wow. I'm surprised nobody has talked about the quality of content and production in this. His meta explanation before beginning was quite refreshing and interesting. I'm very happy to jump in further.

[u/Indercarnive]

SandRhoman History is a great youtube channel. I highly encourage everyone to look at his videos. They are always well presented and researched. Especially because he deals a lot with medieval Europe rather than antiquity.

[u/nopantsdota]

wie heißt der studiengang den man belegt um das zu studieren, geiles video danke