Military architecture

“ By the close of the twelfth century architects had caught the inspiration of the great military works of the Crusaders in the East, and military architecture had progressed on the same lines as religious and monastic architecture. ”

“ Although military architecture in England, setting aside the works of the Romans, begins with the age, and probably with the actual period, of the Norman Conquest, the country contains numerous examples of military works of an earlier, and in many instances no doubt of a very remote, time. ”

“ The modern rifle has rendered the bow an useless weapon.
ARCHITECTURE, in a military sense, is the art of erecting all kinds of military edifices or buildings, whether for habitation or defence.
Military Architecture, instructs us in the method of fortifying cities, sea-ports, camps, buildings, powder magazines, barracks, &c. Military architecture is divided into regular and irregular fortification.
Regular fortification consists in having all its sides and angles equal among themselves. ”

“ But skill came with experience, and with advancing civilization and a surer mastery of construction came a finer taste and greater elegance of design. Meanwhile military architecture developed a new science of building, and covered Europe with imposing castles, admirably constructed and often artistic in design as far as military exigencies would permit.
CHARACTER OF THE STYLE. The Romanesque architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in Western Europe (sometimes called the Round-Arched Gothic) was thus predominantly though not exclusively monastic. ”

“ The south is square-headed, with shoulders. The north, of the same shape, is protected by a semicircular relieving arch in the wall above. This arch, in design and material, has a very Norman aspect, and may have been preserved from an older work. There are no remains of battlements on this gateway, but on its front are stone corbels, probably intended to carry the hoarding, a feature of military architecture so well described by M. Viollet-le-Duc. ”

“ Our engineers had to pass through a long epoch of gradual experiment before they could arrive at a finished system of flanking or of concentric lines of defence. The traditional mount-and-bailey plan provided the foundation of the plan of the stone castle. The traditional importance of the keep as the ultimate place of refuge dictated the arrangement of ward behind ward, culminating in the great tower. Meanwhile, the improvement of flanking defences led more and more to the concentration of engineering skill upon the curtain, so that the keep gradually took a place of secondary importance. ”

“ The use of such machines upon the walls themselves was as dangerous to the stability of the masonry as their use by the enemy, and hastened the chance of a breach: they could not be employed from the interior of the enclosure, without endangering the defenders on the rampart.94 The summit of the rectangular78 keep of the twelfth century was never constructed as a platform for artillery: here, again, engineers probably feared the effect of the constant vibration upon a flat wooden roof, and were content to conceal their ridged roofs within high ramparts. ”

“ Machicolated parapets were, as a rule, confined to the fronts of gateways, until the later part of the fourteenth century, when they began, as at Lancaster and Warwick, to show themselves in the towers of the gateway and curtain. They are very sparingly used in the Welsh castles, which are our noblest examples of military architecture; and an enceinte, like the city wall of Avignon, in which246 the whole parapet is machicolated and built out on long corbels of considerable projection, is unknown in England. ”

“ We should also find in military architecture the typical forms of the two classes of outlet and inlet windows in their utmost development; the greatest sweep of sight and range of shot on the one hand, and the fullest entry of light and air on the other, being constantly required at the smallest possible apertures. ”

“ Architecture is military, naval, sacred, civil, or domestic. Naval architecture, certainly, is of the highest importance to a commercial and navigating people to say nothing of its intimate and essential connection with the means of national defence. This science should not be regarded as having already reached its utmost perfection. It seems to have been for some time in a course of rapid advancement. The building, the rigging, the navigating of ships, have, within the knowledge of every one, been subjects of great improvement within the last fifteen years. ”

“ In this indeed there was nothing new, but not the less the principle was ignored in the construction both of keep-towers and their successors, the round towers, donjons, or juliets. But in the concentric system a good deal more than this was effected. The parts of the lines of defence were so arranged that the garrison could sally from one part, and so harass the attack upon another. Moreover each part, tower or gatehouse, and sometimes each stage of a building, was so contrived that it could be held separately for a short time. ”

“ This arrangement in the construction of the doorway more nearly approaches the plans for outlook and defence with which we are familiar in medieval military architecture. It is greatly to be regretted that no opportunity was afforded for more accurate observation. ”

“ The hall chapel, and other buildings, placed usually in the inner ward, were more ornate than in the Norman period.
In addition to the flanking defence afforded by towers upon the line of the enceinte wall, there was in general use a contrivance called a “Brétasche.” This was a gallery of timber running round the walls outside the battlements, and at their level, supported by struts resting upon corbels, and covered in with a sloping roof. Sometimes, in large towers, there were two tiers of these galleries, the upper projecting beyond the lower, and thus affording a very formidable defence. ”

“ The earliest signs of transition in England are seen in the strengthening of the masonry by the reduction and elimination of salient angles. It is obvious that, if a rounded or polygonal form is given to a projecting tower, or if the angle of a rectangular tower is rounded off, a wider field will be commanded by the artillery of the defence. ”

“ It is evident, from the unfinished character of the battlements, and the flat undressed coping, that they were intended to be masked by an exterior gallery, or brattice of wood, resting on the stone corbels which still remain.332 For this reason there are no machicolations in stone, or devices for dropping missiles through the floor of a projecting parapet—a contrivance which adds so materially to the grandeur of the towers of Warwick, Raglan, and Cardiff. ”

“ The right wing of the Roman army was especially open to attack from the city; and on this side the besiegers built a tower of brick, to serve as a base of operations and a refuge from attack. This tower, which was raised to a height of six stories, was built by workmen who were sheltered by hanging mantlets of rope. A roof was made of timber, covered with a layer of bricks and puddled clay, to protect it against fire, and with raw hides, to make it proof against darts and stones. ”

“ The material of this keep is, in substance, flint rubble, coursed, but it is faced largely with ashlar; and far more attention has been paid to ornamentation than is usual with military buildings. The forebuilding is faced wholly with ashlar, and richly ornamented. Over the outer portal are broad bands of hatched and chevron work, filling up an arcade of two arches, above which is a circle, with a centre carved as a head. The south-eastern angle is occupied by a nook-shaft. The east front, the wall of the staircase, is even more richly wrought. ”

“ The present roof of Richmond is modern, with a skylight to give light and air to the dark room on the second floor: the height of the outer walls above the roof suggests that the original roof was of unusually high pitch or rose above an intermediate attic. The angle turrets formed elevated platforms, approached from the rampart-walk by stone stairs. Their elevation afforded a greater command of the proceedings of the enemy at the foot of the tower ”

“ In the west wall is a garderobe chamber, 2 feet 6 inches broad by 10 feet long, looped, and with an external shoot, flush with the wall. In the south wall is an equilateral arched recess, with a ribbed barrel-vault and stone seats, and in it a two-light flat-topped window, trefoiled. In the east wall is a plain, square-headed fireplace, and a door, also square-headed, opening into a well-stair, which ascends hence to the battlements and the upper floor. ”

“ Strictly speaking, the foot of the whole curtain and its towers lies within a “dead angle,” as vertical fire from the rampart is impossible; but the wooden galleries attached to the rampart obviated this difficulty. But, if the lines of two adjacent faces of the tower are produced, it will be seen that the space contained by these is out of the defenders’ range, and within it miners can work securely, while the main attack is directed against the faces of the rectangle. ”

“ The three windows are unusually large, and being only 12 or 14 feet from the ground, must have much weakened the strength of the place. No doubt the framing or tracery filling up the apertures was heavy and strong, but still no tracery or mullion could have resisted a heavy stone from a catapult, nor indeed could the shell of wall containing263 the staircase. Probably the borderers, whose raids the tower was intended to resist, had no military engines at their command. ”

“ The application of architecture to the purposes of defence, would not take place till a comparatively later period in the history of the species. Men would previously have acquired ideas of the right and value of property, and divided into separate communities by political or moral distinctions. Mere defence would be the first object in military erections; a wall, a rampart, or barrier, of altitude and strength sufficient to resist, or rather to disappoint, any sudden attack, would be all for some time required ”

“ In these churches, therefore, architecture assumed its most utilitarian form and buildings are real fortifications, with battlemented walls, strong and heavy towers, and small windows, and are provided with the other devices of Romanesque architecture of a purely military type. ”

“ In the north-west angle, high up in the wall, is a round-headed arch which probably opened into a tower, capping the angle, but now gone. A part of the west wall seems to have been rebuilt436 when a new hall and kitchen were required, and in it are the remains of a large fireplace, and corbels either for a lean-to roof, or for an upper floor. The battlements are everywhere gone. The north and west walls are tolerably perfect, and much remains of the east, but towards the south the wall is broken down. ”

“ Square towers are sooner shattered by military engines, for the battering rams pound their angles to pieces; but in the case of round towers they can do no harm, being engaged, as it were, in driving wedges to their centre. The system of fortification by wall and towers may be made safest by the addition of earthen ramparts, for neither rams, nor mining, nor other engineering devices can do them any harm. ”

“ At the White Tower, for example, when it was found convenient to bring a railway from the river quay into the base of the keep for the shipment of stores, about 20 feet of solid138 masonry had to be cut through, and much earth removed, and this, with every aid, was found to be a very tedious and expensive operation. The defence of such a keep was its passive strength alone. The loops were nothing in its defence; the roof being on a slope and of shingle would support no military engine and no great store of stones or heavy missiles. ”

“ The side walls, prolonged backwards an additional 30 feet, terminate in two square turrets, which occupy the northern angles, and also rise above the battlements.
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Two doors on the north faces of these turrets, on the ground level, open into a mural gallery in each wall, looped on one face towards the ditch and on the other towards the basin. These galleries communicate with the southern turrets, and are continued within the south wall, having each two loops towards the Thames and two towards the basin. They do not meet, being stopped by the jambs of the sluice-gate. ”

“ There are barracks in it; recruits are drilling in its squares; the minister-of-war occupies some of its stately apartments; the American General Stone, the chief officer of the Khedive's army, uses others; in some we find the printing presses and the bureaus of the engineers and the typographical corps; but vast halls and chambers of audience, and suites of apartments of the harem, richly carved and gilded, are now vacant and echo the footsteps of sentries and servitors. And they have the shabby look of most Eastern architecture when its first freshness is gone. ”

“ Its strength consisted in its thick walls, its height, and its massive masonry. The Edwardian castle, on the other hand, presents certain structural improvements which mark a great advance in military construction. The walls, gates, and towers are so built as to present curved surfaces to the engines of the enemy, with the result that missiles hurled against them would glance off at various angles according to the direction of the curve at the point of impact. ”