Vauban under siege : engineering efficiency and martial vigor in the War of the Spanish Succession

407 Pages·2007·3.224 MB·English

by  Jamel Ostwald

VAUBAN UNDER SIEGE
HISTORY
OF WARFARE
General Editor
kelly devries
Loyola College
Founding Editors
theresa vann
paul chevedden
VOLUME 41
VAUBAN UNDER SIEGE
Engineering Efficiency and Martial Vigor
in the War of the Spanish Succession
BY
JAMEL OSTWALD

LEIDEN BOSTON
•
2007
Cover illustration: Planches du second memoire de l’attaque et deffense des places de Mr. de Vauban
[early 18th century] (Courtesy of the Society of the Cincinnati).
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISSN 1385–7827
ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15489 6
ISBN-10: 90 04 15489 2
© Copyright 20 07 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill,
Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
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Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
For my parents Sharon and Mel Ostwald, and my wife Liz

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements .................................................................... ix
List of Maps, Figures and Tables ............................................ xi
Notes .......................................................................................... xiii
Chapter One Introduction ...................................................... 1
Chapter Two The Perfect Siege of Ath 1697 ...................... 21
Chapter Three Efficiency and the Perfect Siege .................. 46
Chapter Four The Transitional War of the Spanish
Succession .............................................................................. 92
Chapter Five Implementing the Paradigm Siege ................ 123
Chapter Six Contesting the Paradigm Siege ........................ 173
Chapter Seven Vigor: An Alternative Paradigm .................. 215
Chapter Eight Succeeding with Vigor .................................. 253
Chapter Nine The Vigorous Future ...................................... 309

Appendices:
Appendix A: Allied Campaign Lengths in Flanders .......... 325
Appendix B: Siege Dataset Methodology ............................ 326
Appendix C: Siege Lengths Dataset .................................... 340
Appendix D: Non-Siege Positional Tactics ........................ 348
Appendix E: Length Estimates, Selected Sieges ................ 361
Appendix F: Siege Artillery .................................................. 367
Bibliography ................................................................................ 371
Index .......................................................................................... 383

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work would not have been possible without the assistance and
support of many individuals and institutions, and I owe them all my
deepest thanks.
My mentors at Ohio State University provided the necessary back-
ground and support for me to embark on this project. These include
the historian of Louis XIV’s France John Rule, a Renaissance scholar
of all periods and places but particularly 16th century Mediterranean
naval warfare Joe Guilmartin, quantitative historian Randy Roth,
and Geoffrey Parker, who provided (among other things) the needed
impetus to just finish the damn thing when I was mired in my own
never-ending quest for ever-greater efficiency. The research for this
project was also supported by grants from the Ohio State University
Department of History, the OSU Graduate School, and the OSU
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
John Lynn of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign also
deserves many thanks for his unfailing support of a Buckeye who
shared an interest in the Giant of the Grand Siècle. While a post-
doctoral fellow at George Mason University I also received unflagging
support from Jack Censer, Mills Kelly and Mack Holt, as well as
the crucial time and resources needed to flesh out several aspects of
the project.
History is built on its sources, and this work would not have been
possible without supp ort from the holdings and staffs at the follow-
ing institutions: the research collections of the Service Historique de
l’Armée de Terre, Archives de Guerre at Vincennes; the Bibliothèque
nationale in Paris (and their amazing Gallica digitization project at
http://gallica.bnf.fr); the British Library in London; the Public Record
Office (National Archives) at Kew; the Koninklijke Bibliotheek at
The Hague; the Algemeen Rijksarchief (now Nationaal Archief) at
The Hague; the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.; and most
warmly Ellen Clark at the Society of the Cincinnati Library in D.C.,
a truly invaluable and unique resource for all students of 18th cen-
tury military history. I must also thank the staff and supporters of
the various university libraries I have frequented over the past many
years, including the Ohio State University Libraries, the George
x acknowledgements
Mason University Library, and especially the general holdings and
Special Collections of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
The following individuals have been friends to provide valuable
suggestions and insight into their own periods, places and topics of
study: Ben Trotter, Derek Croxton, Olaf van Nimwegen, Michiel de
Jong, Guus Veenendaal, George Satterfield, Steve Walton, Ron
Martin, Mark Danley, Erik Lund, Pat Speelman, Jean-Pierre Rorive
and most of all John Stapleton. My new colleagues in the Department
of History, Political Science, Philosophy and Geography at Eastern
Connecticut State University have also warmly supported my efforts
to delve into the minutiae of far-off wars from long-forgotten times.
I would also like to thank those associated with Brill for seeing
this project through its various stages, including Kelly DeVries of
Loyola College and Editor Marcella Mulder.
Finally, I must express my deepest gratitude to family and friends
that have provided encouragement and support over the many years
that this project has taken. These include Karen Straits, Shawn
Steene, the Mindels and Mindegros, my parents and sister, and most
important of all, my wife Liz, without whom none of this would
have been possible.