Chapter 1 - Artillery Fortification at Home and Abroad

Summary

The introduction of cannon capable of battering down the walls of medieval fortifications caused an important transformation of European siege warfare and fortification design from the fifteenth century onwards. This chapter will lay down a baseline of the broad thrust of the development of European fortrification design to which the designs of the VOC's engineers can be compared. The chapter will argue that far from being static after the development of the basion, fortification design was a highly dynamic field. New developments in siege tactics required defenders and engineers to react. By the late seventeenth century there were a number of well-established rival styles of fortification design, all of which set out to achieve the same objective, but through opting for rather different design choices. If VOC engineers followed trends in Europe, which trends did they follow and what does this tell us of the background of the Company's engineers and the dissemination of engineering knowledge overseas? Merely looking at bastions does not suffice for us to judge whether fortifications were considered “up to date” by their contemporaries. Finally, the chapter will briefly pay attention to three different sources of inspiration for VOC engineers: Portuguese fortifications, South Asian traditions in fortress design, and the designs of its French and British rivals in the eighteenth century.

This chapter will of necessity focus on the work of a relatively small number of engineers to describe the development of fortification design in Europe over a long period of time and the debates between various schools of thought. This does not mean that I subscribe to what Janis Langins has called “the old heroic tradition of historiography of technology.” But there were some engineers whose influence surpassed that of others because either they could shape the institutional setting in which others would operate (Vauban), or they were in a position to publish their ideas, which could then be taken up by others (Specklin, Coehoorn and Landsberg for example). Since most of the engineers working for the VOC in Asia lacked first-hand experience of “regular” sieges (whether defending or attacking), knowledge of the written tracts was all the more important as reference to published siege journals or fortification treatises would serve both to stifle opposition to their proposals and to cement reputations as well-versed experts.