MilitaryArchitecture.com Newsletter June 2011

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M ILITARY A RCHITECTURE NEWSLETTER

M A Y-JUNE 2011

FORTRESS 360 MilitaryArchitecture.com has linked up with www.maltain360.com to introduce a new feature on our website entitled FORT360. This feature consists of an interactive GIS map of Malta that allows the visitor to explore excellent 360 panoramic images of the various fortifications in Malta. Kindly note that this feature is still under construction and more 360 panoramas will be added in the coming weeks as they become available.

tage.

Do take the time to visit www.maltain360.com for it is truly an exceptional site that truly brings to the fore Malta’s astounding cultural and natural heri-

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1250 Articles and growing

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F R O M T HE W EB 3 MISCELLANEOUS

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M ILITARY A RCHITECTURE

P AGE 2

WWII P ILLBOX DISCOVERED AT S T P AUL ’ S B AY A World War II concrete machinegun post, or pillbox,

has been unearthed at St Paul's Bay, in the north of Malta.

A C HAPEL

Workers carrying out road improvements near the Sirens water-polo pitch came across the small concrete structure buried immediately under the modern road. The structure was found in a relatively good state of repair. Local residents remember that this pillbox was still visible in the decades after the War and was only buried beneath the present modern road sometime during the early 1960s.

beachpost as it was also called, was of the type built prior to, or immediately at, the onset of the Second War War as part of the antiinvasion defences prepared by the British military, then fearing an Italian invasion.

The structure can be dated to the early phase of pillbox building by its features which include concrete machinegun tables and semi-circular concrete benches as well as its plan.

The concrete pillbox, or

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ON THE

The Chapel of St Roche on St Michael Counterguard along the land front of Valletta’s bastioned enceinte.

Perched next to one of the echauguettes on St Michael Counterguard stand the re-

R ESTO RATION The Restoration Directorate in the Ministry for Resources

R AMPARTS

mains of a building which once assumed a role far removed from its military surroundings. Until the middle of the 17th century, the presence of a quarantine establishment on Il-Gzira ta’ l-Isqof (today Manoel Island) was merely a temporary facility. In1643 Grand Master Lascaris embarked on a vigorous overhaul of this important institution, constructing a complex of pur-

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pose-built edifices serviced with all amenities in order to ensure minimal contact with the outside world. The Lazzaretto, as it came to be known, housed both patients afflicted with various contagious diseases as well as visitors to Malta undergoing a period of isolation before being given a clean bill of health.

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S T C HRISTO PHER B ASTIO N

and Rural Affairs recently commenced with the restoration of St Christopher Bastion and its adjoining curtain wall, known as St Lucy Curtain, along the northern end of the Grand Habour enceinte of the historic fortress of Valletta. The works on this bastion, known more popularly as

the Lower Barracca Garden, are actually a continuation of another restoration intervention initiated a few years ago on the northern face and salient of the same bastion, just below the World War II Siege Bell Memorial, likewise undertaken by the same directorate.

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NEWSLETTER

P AGE 3

C HARLESTON ' S F LOATING B AT TERY Beneath leaden clouds that streaked across the sky over Charleston Harbor on the morning of April 12, 1861, white smoke curled from the fiery mouths of booming Southern artillery. The acrid smell of saltpeter permeated the air as cannon pounded Fort Sumter with what one newspaper described as an "iron vengeance."

belching forth fire and smoke," observed an eyewitness.

Union troops inside Fort Sumter, led by Southern -born Maj. Robert Anderson, did not reply until the third hour of the bombardment. They finally returned fire at 7 a.m.

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"Shell followed shell in quick succession; the harbor seemed to be surrounded with miniature volcanoes

F ORT C HAMELEON Of all the forts which have been built around Pretoria since the name was first placed on the world map in 1855, the remarkable Fort Commeline stands in a class of its own. A portion of its remains are still to be found on Magazine Hill which lies to the southwest of the Pretoria Railway Station. It is opposite the Voortrekker Monument and just west of present-day Potgieter Street.

The valley between Magazine and Monument hills was known as Skietpoort or South Poort and, at the time, the wagon road from Heidelberg ran through a drift at Six Mile Spruit (Hennops River) to join, further north, the road from Potchefstroom.

At approximately the site of the present Prison, the rough dirt track angled northeast-

wards towards the junction ofVisagie and Paul Kruger streets, then known as Markstraat. It was a little further along this way, on a rise commanding the town and Poort, somewhere in the middle of Jacob Mare*, between Paul Krugerand Bosman streets, that the British Army built a fort.

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P AMPLO NA C ITY W ALLS Founded by Pompey in 74 B.C., Pamplona has since the time of its origins been considered as a City-Fortress owing to its strategic location.

Its location, close to France, Aragon and La Rioja, made it "the key to the Spains" according to documents dating from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Its prominent position above the Arga River to the north and east facilitated its defence. However, the flatter lands to the south and west demanded greater intervention. Thus, since the time of coexistence of the city of La NavarrerĂ­a and the burgh of San Cernin and San NicolĂĄs to our times, Pamplona has continually evolved.

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M ILITARY A RCHITECTURE

P AGE 4

R ECONSTRUCTION This work is dedicated to the computer reconstruction of Roman fortress Nag el-

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EL -H AGAR

Hagar in Egypt.

This fortification was situated to the south of Luxor (ancient Thebes), not far from Kom Ombo (ancient Ombos). Apparently the fortress was built during Diocletian's rule. Its architectural features are similar to other examples of Roman military architecture of the period of tetrarchy in Egypt. We chose Nag el-Hagar for the reconstruction because this fortress is a

F ORTRESS

specimen of the classical Roman castrum which belongs to the period of Diocletian and at the same time it has some original architectural features.

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I RON A GE G ATE S TRUCTURES Usually when we think of gates in the biblical period,

M ARC R ENÉ ,

we think of massive defensive structures to protect the town or city from outside attack. And realistically, the gate is probably the most vulnerable part of a town's defenses, simply because it stands at an opening into the town. In addition, the gate was often located at a low point in the town's layout for several reasons: the low point would provide the easiest access to the town by

MARQUIS DE

Marc René, marquis de Montalembert (16 July 1714 – 29 March 1800) was a French military engineer and writer, known for his work on fortifications.

He was born at Angoulême, and entered the French Army in 1732. He fought in the War of the Polish Succession on the

travelers or merchants— they wouldn't have to maneuver their animals and wares to higher points in the town; the market was often located just inside the gate for the same reason; and the low point would offer a good drainage channel for rainfall throughout the town to run outside the city walls through the gate.

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M ONTALEMBERT

Rhine (1733-34), and in the War of the Austrian Succession made the campaigns of 1742 in Bohemia and Italy.

In the years preceding the Seven Years' War, Montalembert (who had become an associate member of the Academie des Sciences in 1747) devoted his energies to the art of fortification, to which Vauban's Traité de l'attaque attracted

him, and founded the cannon foundry at Ruelle, near his birthplace.

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NEWSLETTER

P AGE 5

T HE F ORTIFICATIONS The early settlers of Paris no doubt thought that they had secured for themselves a safe environment in which to found their city. the first fortifications around the Ile de la Cite and later to the north and south of the Seine may have been sufficient through to the end of the medieval period but come the era of gunpowder and heavy artillery and the presence of continental enemies to the north and east, particularly Germany, the

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natural advantages of the site became insignificant compared to the technological resources required to defend the city.

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E ARLY N ORMAN C ASTLES The study of earthworks has been one of the most neglected subjects in English archaeology until quite recent years.

It may even be said that during the first half of the 19th century, less attention was paid to earthworks than by our older topographical writers. Leland, in the reign of Henry VIII., never failed to notice the " Dikes and

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Hilles, which were Campes of Men of Warre," nor the " Hilles of Yerth cast up like the Dungeon of sum olde Castelle," which he saw in his pilgrimages through England. And many of our 17th- and 18th-century topographers have left us invaluable notices of earthworks which were extant in their time. But if we turn over the archaeological journalsof some fifty years ago,

we shall be struck by the paucity of papers on earthworks, and especially by the complete ignoring, in most cases, of those connected with castles.

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AL -B ARQIYYA

The Ayyubid Wall, as it stands under restoration today, runs for 1.5 km at a slight arc from south to north on the eastern side of Cairo.

It is part of the urban fortifications built by Salah al-Din in 1176. The wall acts as boundary for the Darb alAhmar district to the west and the newly opened

(2005) Al-Azhar Park on the eastern side. The southern edge of the wall is anchored by two important nearby monuments restored by the AKTC, the Khayrbek Mosque and the Aq Sunqur (Blue) Mosque. The north part of the restored wall is attached to the Archeological Triangle Park which contains ruins and artifacts from the Fatimid era in its sunken

site. The restored wall itself contains fourteen towers and two gates.

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