kwebtransPreview
Open in TheBrain

Vauban

Name: Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban

Achievements: Innovations in siegecraft and fortification

Born: May 15, 1633; Saint-Leger-de-Foucherest, France

Died: March 30, 1707; Paris, France (Aged 74)

Field & Discipline: Military Engineering

Language: French

Father: Urbain Le Prestre

Mother: Edmee Cormignolle

Siblings: Charlette

Spouse: Jeanne d’Osnay

Children: 2 daughters

Education: Carmelite college, Semur-en-Auxois

Major Work:

“De l’attaque et de la defense des places” (1705-6, first printed 1737, “On Siege and Fortification”)

Life & Times:

In 1651 Vauban was introduced to his father’s old commander, the Prince de Conde, who offered him a cadetship in his regiment. Vauban fought with Conde’s army in the uprising against the monarchy known as the Fronde and despite his youth his military abilities were soon recognised.

He worked on the fortifications of Clermont-en-Argonne,  and while Conde was beseiging St Menehould, Vauban swam across the river Aisne under fire to mount an attack. For this exploit he was offered a commission as ensign which he had to refuse because he did not have the means to support such a position.

In 1653 he and his troop of men were cornered by Royalist troops. Vauban escaped alone to a narrow lane where his pursuers could only follow singly. He then turned and with his musket aimed at their officer, he demanded to make his own conditions of surrender. These were granted and [a favorite of] Mazarin*, [served] Louis XIV*’s first minister, who had already heard about Vauban’s skill in fortifications, was so struck by his daring in defeat that he demanded to meet him.

Vauban then converted to the royalist cause and he helped to recapture St Menehould for the king. In 1655 he was commissioned as Engineer in Ordinary to the king in an elite corps of officers working on fortification and siegecraft. It was dangerous work and the life of an officer was reckoned to be about six sieges.

Vauban was badly wounded at Valenciennes but continued to direct operations from a litter. At Montmedy, where three engineers had been killed in the first week of the siege, he directed the works for almost two months despite being hit four times.

When [served] Colbert* succeeded Mazarin as first minister in 1661, he was equally keen to retain Vauban’s services. There was no training for engineers then and it was becoming an increasingly specialized job as defensive plans had to take into account the new knowledge of explosives perfected in the previous century and also required the use of mathematics to calculate trajectories and tangents, and scientific knowledge of the movement of water and the nature of the terrain.

It was a matter of experimentation, and each engineer combined the duties of draughtsman and contractor. Accusations that an engineer had profited from the execution of the works he drew up were often made, and Vauban was accused of this malpractice by a relative of Colbert.  [helped by] Louvois*, Louis XIV’s minister of war, intervened on Vauban’s behalf and so Vauban entered royal service under the protection of Louvois.

In 1661-62 he supervised the demolition of the fortifications at Nancy. He was given his own company in the King’s Picardy regiment in 1663 and from 1664-66 he was occupied in fortifiying Alt-Breisach on the Rhine.

When France invaded the Spanish Netherlands in 1667, Vauban accompanied the king as his engineer and was instrumental in the capture of Tournai and Douai where he was wounded in the face by a musket ball. After Lille had been taken in nine days, the king’s Director of Fortifications drew up a plan for its defense which Louis rejected in favour of one commissioned from Vauban.

For his services in the Dutch war, Vauban was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Guards, awarded a pension and appointed governor of the Lille citadel.

In the period of peace between 1668-1772, he continued his tour of the frontiers of France. He inspected the defenses of the French low countries, of Roussillon, Picardy and Lorraine. The technical reports, plans and surveys which Vauban sent back to Louvois and the king became the basis for military studies on defense in Europe for the following hundred years. In 1671 Vauban was sent to help the Duke of Savoy organize his defenses in Piedmont.

In 1672 France entered into a war with the Dutch. Vauban was the most valued siege operator and the king was present during several of those he directed. In 1673, at the siege of Maastricht, Vauban introduce a system of extending trenches which gave protective cover to the attacking troops. Trenches were dug in parallel lines or concentric circles to the perimeter of the defenses and were connected by innovative zig-zag trenches.

This pattern of using dug -for defense was repeated during the [invented] trench warfare* which was later used to effect in the American defeat of [idea used against] Cornwallis*.

After Maastricht, Vauban was promoted and given a payment with which he bought the chateau of Bazoches near Vauban. By 1676 he had been promoted to “marechal de camp” (equivalent to a brigadier general). The following year, at the siege of Valenciennes, he advised the king to mount a daylight attack. This course of action drew strong objections from Louvois and no less than five Marshals of France.  Nevertheless, Louis trusted Vauban and adopted his plan,  as a result of which Valenciennes was captured and Vauban was rewarded with another large payment.

At the end of the Dutch war in 1678, Louis surrendered his claim to his more distant acquisitions but kept territory which rounded off the French kingdom. Louvois persuaded the king to spend the money previously used for troops on fortifications which would secure the whole of the newly delineated kingdom. Vauban was put in charge of these works and made Inspector-General of the Fortifications of France.

In 1684, Vauban directed the successful siege of Luxembourg and then redesigned its defenses. In 1687, he was on a rare spell of leave at Bazoches when he was recalled in the face of fears that the Germans could breach French defenses in Lower Alsace. Vauban selected Landau as the focus of defense and the model fortress he designed there with an octagonal plan and innovative bastioned towers is regarded by many as his greatest work.

In 1688 France was fighting against England, the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire. Vauban was made a lieutenant general and, under the nominal command of the Dauphin, he directed the siege of Philippsburg, one of the major Rhine fortresses. Among other distinguished persons, Louvois’s son was also present.

Vauban hated the presence of such people as he was aware that even staying in the trenches would not provide absolute cover against artillery fire. During this siege he introduced ricochet gunfire, in which a cannonball was made to bounce on its trajectory forward and make several hits before exploding.

He also promoted use of the socket bayonet, an invention of his which meant that the [improved] bayonet* did not have to be unfixed before reloading the musket.

After Mannheim was taken under his direction in the winter of 1688-89, Vauban wrote to Louvois expressing his disapproval of the plan to raze the town to the ground and render the entire population homeless, a plan which nevertheless was carried out.

In 1691, Vauban accompanied the king who conducted the siege of Mons (held by the Spaniards) in person. The French playwright [work observed by] Racine* was also present and described the event in letters.

At the siege of Charleroi in 1963 Vauban commanded an infantry division for the first time. He continued to fight until the peace of 1698-1701 during which he reorganized the defenses at Neuf-Brisach in Alsace, the last of the 160 fortresses he worked on.

Vauban always designed each fortress according to the local circumstances and all his fortresses are distinct. Although he was in poor health, and had for decades been suffering from aches and pains caused by long journeys on horseback and exposure to the elements, Vauban was keen to be employed in the wars of 1701-14. At his own request, in 1703 he was created a Marshall of France by Louis.

This was a highly unusual honor for an engineer since Marshalls were normally nobly born and customarily commanded an army in the field. After directing the recapture of Alt-Breisach in 1703 and he was recalled. His last commission was to direct the establishment of an entrenched camp at Dunkirk in 1706. In his retirement he wrote “Projet d’une dixme royale” (“Project for a Royal Tithe, or General Tax’), in which he advocated a general tax to replace the system of tax farming.

The latter system, although known to be riddled with corruption, was too lucrative for the government to consider giving up and publication of Vauban’s book was suppressed.

Extra Connections: He was involved in constructing part of the Canal du Midi by [collaborated with] Riquet*

Assessment: Vauban revolutionized the art of siege warfare and some of the defenses he devised were still being used in the twentieth century.

Oneliner: Vauban, who revolutionized siege warfare

Bibliography:

Attachments