A Case Study of the Perfect Siege of Ath 1697
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- Опубліковано 18 бер 2023
- The art of siege warfare was perfected in the 17th century. Bastion forts had never been sturdier and more complex while the methods of attack became ever more standardized and increasingly effective. To be sure, sieges remained extremely diverse, but now there was a consistent thread running through them, culminating in an almost infallible method created by Sébastien Le Prestre de VaubanSebastien Le Prestre de Vauban. The great French engineer of Louis XIV demonstrated his masterful siege craft in the siege of Ath in 1697. It was considered “[…] not so much a siege as an idealized version of one.” This is quite convenient for us, because it saves us the trouble of re-constructing a typical 17th century siege in the way we’ve covered medieval and 16th century siege craft. For a better overview, we are going to structure this as an 11-Step guide. So, let’s look at the siege of Ath, a masterful example of how to lay siege in the age of Louis XIV.
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Sources: Bibliography
Allent, Histoire du corps impérial du génie . . . depuis l’origine de la fortification moderne jusqu’à la fin du règne de Louis XIV, Paris 1805.
Duffy, Ch., The Fortress in the Early Modern World 1494-1660, London 1979.
Lazard, P. Vauban, 1633-1707, Paris 1934.
Lynn, J., Giant of the Grand Siecle. The French Army 1610-1715, Cambridge 1997.
Ostwald, J., Vauban under Siege. Engineering Efficiency and Martial Vigor in the War of the Spanish Succession, Leiden/Boston 2007.
Parent, Michel et Jacques Verroust. Vauban, Paris 1971.
Rochas d’Aiglun, Albert de (ed.), Vauban, sa famille et ses écrits, ses oisivetés et sa correspondance, Vol. 2, Paris 1910.
Vauban, Sebastien le Prestre de, A Manual of Siegecraft and Fortification, trans. G.A. Rothrock, Ann Arbor 1968.
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I have two question, will be covering 19 and 20 century fortifications, and if you are well versed in this topic can you recommend me some books?
I love bastion forts so much I want to take them behind the middle school and get them pregnant.
@@simon2493 hmmm, maybe at some point but not any time soon. Can't really recommend books on that as we haven't read up on that topic!
Many congratulations and greetings from Colombia 🇨🇴😁 best historic warfare channel around.
How to build the "perfect" star shaped fortress
Vauban during the whole siege
"Not necessary. The guy in front of us is a fcking noob"
😂😂
The defenders had skill issue it seems
Can we talk about the fact that he was assaulting the fortress he built himself. I also want a bastion built for me by me only to destroy it :(
we move from the era of "the staggering siege of.." to the era of "the lightning siege of".. I still remember sieges that take years, if not decades, with dozens of thousands of deaths.. It is truly a revolution of siege warfare..
haha, if we ever cover an individual siege of that era we would definitely have to change the title format!
You must be a very old rabbit to remember those sieges. 🐰🧙♂️
@@SandRhomanHistory Maybe the Siege of Acre (1799)?
Siege of Candia took 21 years, probably a lot of dead Ottomans as well. What a genius this guy was for real
You dont know vraks my friend
Vauban's true mastery was revealed here in his ability to profitably break his own rules. By skipping unnecessary steps, he saved time and cost. To capture a modern star fort in two weeks with the loss of only fifty men is astonishing!
Vauban was one impressive person. In his last years, he determined that to secure the defense of France, it was necessary to lift the lower classes out of abject poverty by redistributing the tax burden. If the king had done as he said, the Revolution might not have been necessary at all.
The revolution wasn't necessary either way, though. I think you meant it could have been prevented.
@@eimantasbutkus5324 It was necessary, because the ancien regime clung to power at the cost of the people and the country. If the king had been able to see how miserable things had gotten and institute changes such as bread doles and criminal justice reform, the Revolution would have bee possible to prevent. Without, things were intolerable and the Revolution became necessary.
I would say The King's decision is exactly the reason for the reolution, not just the economic situation and the tax burden on the lower classes. Basically the French Monarchy always refused to reform and preffered to cling to old traditions, it was bound to happen as you cannot hold off change and progress (in the case of France change and progress is the Enligthenment)
@@yasserbencheikh2626 The very notion of "always refusing" to reform is unrealistic, especially in the case of 1- a great power and 2- a monarchy that owed its fall to unorderly reforms, such as with the liberalization of trade under Turgot, the assembly of notables and many other similar attempts.
Little fun fact about the grenadiers. Initially, the task to attack the breaches during sieges was done by the royal musketeers and even if they were rather successful in these missions they were also very costly, which was a problem since these musketeers were noble and were supposed to take officer roles in the army after their career in the musketeers. To diminish theses loses Louis XIV created a regiment of royal grenadiers, these regiments were special because while the regiments of the "maison du roi" were often mainly composed of nobility, this one was composed of veteran grenadiers of more common regiments, so of commoners. They became so effective that every time musketeers were charged to assault of fortified place they were accompanied by these royal grenadiers.
Noble losses were really high in that time, many families were impoverished because the dad died in the latest war. Very smart to mix in veterans though.
I like how Vauban just sieged Ath just to flex and bully others 😂 What a fitting subject of the fabulous Sun King!
*I am the only one, who can beat myself at this game*
I live in France and it’s a pleasure to visit the dozens of Vauban citadel from the Atlantic coast to the Pyrenees and alps
Great video as always
Tout gamin, j'ai fait ma première colonie de vacances à Belle île et nous avions visité la forteresse Vauban.
Une passion était née...
Fun facts : During the German Blitzkrieg a small group of french soldiers took cover in one of Vauban’s fortress while they were pushed by a German panzer division. Since his fortress were almost always conceived to allowed small groups of soldiers to hold the forts he designed, they were able to hold the german’s off with small arms, mortar and grenades against a far superior force until they were out of amo and forced to surrender. Vauban was truly the best engineer, a master in many ways.
Vauban: Methodically captures state of the art fortress in 2 weeks while losing 50 men.
Game of Thrones: Puts artillery outside the city walls and crashes its light cavalry in the enemy line.
So painful to watch. My gf couldn't understand why I was upset at this stupidity.
My headcanon is that what you see is the dothraki dousing their swords and leaving the field. This is why in the next episodes they are all back. It's not incredibly bad writing at all.
Vauban was a master, an artist in a kind of warfare often ignored. Definitely going to study him further.
It was very considerate of Vauban to execute a textbook siege of a textbook fortress for future generations to study his methods' effectiveness.
Also, for a two person team, you guys sure do put out an impressive amount of quality videos. I'd have guessed at least five.
Strictly speaking, there’s one more guy handling our french channel (translation and voiceover)!
@@SandRhomanHistory Oh you have a French channel ?! Which one ? So I might share it with my non-English speaking relations
@@SandRhomanHistory Wait... you have a French channel??
@@SandRhomanHistory Okay,Wheres the Link? Learn french wouldnt hurt my dictiionary
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
well, he also advised never to siege walled settlements
sun tzu, the live love laugh for weebs 🤣
@@zpacula based
When you design the perfect fortress, the king gives it away, and you have to re-conquer it...wonder if Vauban wished he had put "Easter eggs" in his designs? (secret entrance tunnel etc.) 😃
His method was the easter egg!
Obviously this was the plan all along as Vauban knew that only he could design fortresses that'd present a good enough challenge for him.
Better yet Vauban knew how to take any fortress and could calculate down to the day how long it would take to breach it.
He did if i'm not mistaken, but after
Ye, and then he had to kill the masons during castle's opening party to bury the secret with them :D
I live in Ypres, one of Monsieur de Vauban's other masterpieces! We are reaping the benefits of his work up til this day: first, our fortifications are magnificent and attract many tourists; we ourselves profit from them because they have been topped with trees all around our city, which gives us a very large park, larger than most bigger cities. And third: we never get our feet wet, eventhough we live in a very low part of Flanders: thanks to the remnants of Vauban's "inondations" around the city, that take in all the heavy rains, inside the city there is never any flooding. On top of that, the large inondations make lovely lakes for our leasure, and up to a few years ago the city could draw it's own drinking water from it, which made our water bills way cheaper than those of our neighbours. All that thanks to monsieur Sébastien!
(btw, the fine fortifications that he built around Ypres were never really taken to the test: we were never attacked anymore until the first World War. And then, of course, the fortifications were of no use against Kaiser Wilhelm's cannons... we were blown to smithereens, city and fortifications. But we built it all up again. Come visit us!
I visited Ypres many times, it blew my mind when I saw the pictures of the ruins of the lakenhal. I don't know how you rebuilt it so nice.
@@zacbru Yeah, we did a rather good job about it, didn't we? :-D Right now, we're busy with the next restauration. the last one was in the '60's. It ws greatly needed. The belfry is finished already (it looks glorious, especially in the sun!), and the right half of the Hall too, that is, from the front. There's still a lot of work to be done, and it's fascinating to watch. Behind the Hall building, they're doing excavations and they've found tonnes of stuff from the early Middle Ages! It's all in the city museum to be seen. You should visit us again! You British?
A fortress made by Vauban taken by Vauban. This is the siege translation of an unstoppable force encountering a unmovable object.
I never comment on videos but here I really want to salute the efforts to use the correct prononciations for names of cities, people and more. French, Dutch and all impressively correct, super work!
simply as an indication of just how sturdy a top tier fortress of this time was
Ieper (then likely refered to as yperen (y=e sound) (Ypres) had been put to the test during ww1 when the city featured continues fighting for pretty much the entire duration of the conflict. the city was turned into a ruin (one which the brittish actually had wished to be preserved in it's wartorn state as an open airr mausoleum)
but the walls and the chambers within withstood all of the shelling perfectly, this was something which modern fortresses had failed at and they were certainly shelled regularly. the brittish soldiers had in fact set up a newspaper, "the ypers times" in one of these rooms.
French here, just wanted to say that your prononciation of french names is really good. Keep it up
Vauban is a 6 siege siege specialist.
It is easy to see how trench warfare evolved from this.
As the static fortification itelf became less relevant, the defender had to rely more and more on forward trenchworks.
And firepower
This is THE source for anything in the pike and shot era. You videos are awesome and would be great resource for any European history major.
Kind of a sad watch, seeing the death of walled cities.
Also pretty wild thinking of these armies smashing apart walls that would now be considered priceless material history. My hometown in hungary has a medieval wall, and I love it so much.
Many fortresses of that era were kept intact or even rebuilt in the XIXth century in France, since the rapid changes of warfare with massive armies first, and smaller professional corps later, meant that a fortress able to delay for merely a week or two the enemy was an invaluable asset
On the other hand, with the advent of cars, many of these walls have been turned into roads.
As they were ideally located to serve as a ring road around the town.
Just look at Belgian ring roads of old towns (Ghent, Brussels, Leuven,...) , and see how many are called "vest" (=fort) or "poort" (=gate)
Awesome to have an entire siege video already, after the last one on Vauban.
Fortresses of that era are a thing of beauty. Praise the Sun King.
Didn’t work too well in 1710s when it took a French offensive to beat them off the frontier
They’re a unique example of the artistic beauty of simple mathematics and geometry
The overall shape of these fortresses is from Italy though.
Shame that these fortresses never saw conflict with the ottomans if the ottomans besieged them then that would be the true test of their design
@@Lavenderwave704 vauban was the best at siege warfare. The ottomans couldn’t hold a candle to vauban
i vote for a Ultimate Vauban Siege Simulator game wirh SandRhoman as design consultant. Always a nice journey into history!
Ath was one of his greatest masterpieces with Namur and Maastricht
Everybody gangsta till the cannonballs start bouncing on the parapet
I visited a lot of vauban's forts. Very impressive walls
You guys have outdone yourselves in this video. It was clear, entertaining, and very fascinating. Vauban's genius shines through, and your presentation did justice to it, especially since it was a step-by-step presentation that really hit home how calculated his methods were.
it's a bit depressing and ironic when Vaubon has to take down his own fortress. it's like playing chess against yourself
And winning 👀😂
I've been a subscriber for quite a while though I don't usually leave comments, so I'd like to say thank you for making such great content! As someone who's trying to finish his studies in Computer Science, I'd love to delve more into history but don't really have the time or energy to study another field. Fortunately, your videos are the perfect solution to that since they're well-written, well-researched and very easy-to-watch(the visuals help a lot!).
Wow, thank you!
This was amazing guys. You never cease to impress me with your uploads, but this one felt special. Your style has gotten as efficient as the brilliant siege methods that it was describing.
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@SandRhomanHistory Yeah, both of the Vauban videos were pretty inspiring. Would love to learn more about him.
I don't often comment, but I just wanna say that I always enjoy your videos! For me, they're among the golden ideal of what history videos on this platform should be.
Thank you so much for this video! In particular Vauban's injury and subsequent "shrugging it off" were awesome. The proto-industrial, mathemical/logistical angles are super interestingly implied as well. All the best!
Vauban perfected siege warfare to an extend it removed all suspense, all "RNG". Given the time and resources and no relief army in reach, a fortress would fall. Incredible as a technique but I find the individual sieges of the previous era more interesting. Like Mantua or the 21 years of Candia. I would love to see a video on the siege of Breisach 1638, the masterpiece of Bernard of Saxe-Weimar. Not only did he starve out an impregnable river fortress, he also did fend off various relief attempts from all directions.
i have watched endless historical documentary videos but this has to be the best. well done
Thank you for the concise analysis of this "textbook" siege. The irony of Vauban's involvement in both designing and then defeating this construction helps to further illuminate both sides of this exercise quite well. A very enjoyable 18:30 for any student of history. Well done!
"Vauban," observed Stephen. "is like aniseed in a cake. A little is excellent, but how soon one sickens."
- Post Captain Patrick O'Brian.
You guys are the best! Absolutely love your siegecraft videos. Great details about the mechanics and concepts at play
Vauban is the historical embodiment of an actual general going, "I made you. I can UNMAKE you."
Always a joy to view a new video of yours. Cheers! I appreciate your dedicated work covering these topics many of us have not dug deeply into to learn.
Many thanks!
Such a good video! Thank you! This is amazing info that can still be used today effectively in combat. Lessons learned from our past serve us into the future.
Vauban would have won anyways but the weather helped him turn it into a masterpiece.
A longtime fan, i always enjoy new tactics and strategems from history.
Brilliant video! Thanks for taking the time to create this
Love the videos and appreciate the hard work that gets put into him. Keep it up!
Crazy how much cooler irl sieges are as opposed to fictional ones like Vraks and such
Hey ! Don't disrespect vraks. It only took 14 millions kreig to take it !
Vauban: Bastion Engineer, Siege Engineer, and first person known to perfect job security guarantee
Great video, also like your sense of humor. I usually do not comment, but just wanted to say keep up the good work. I will remember the steps next time I have to lay siege to a fortress!
As someone who has waster MANY hours of his life in Europa Universailis 4, these videos help bring that experience to life masterfully. Your continued work is very much appreciated!!!
This is what you get when the commander is also a brilliant engineer. And the king lets him do his thing.
Awesome video. I always look forward to your new upload notifications. ❤❤❤
Great video! Now I know exactly what to do next time I have to besiege a late 17th century fortress
My new way to take a nap, listen to things I'm interested in but not smart enough to understand on the first listen through
but this is a story about history.. there isn't much to understand
Hollywood siege: whole army immidiatly storms forward and punch the walls with fists.
Vauban: "Gentlemen..."
It's amazing that I've come across this video, because I was just planning to siege my cousin's bastion fortress later this month! He will never expect my Vauban-style approaches.
Fascinating, and well-presented!
17:22 *Mind blown* Of all the sieges you've uploaded this NEEDED to be titled as "Staggering"!
By far my favorite historical UA-camr! Fantastic stuff again! Keep up the Early Modern stuff! (I think thid is still early moden?)
I'm french, congrats for your almost perfect prononciation of french names !
This was fascinating to watch. I'm just getting into reading about siege works. Really engrossing material.
1:35 it is a detail but "your majesty" or "sire" is more accurate to apostrophize the king of France
Literally unwatchable.
@@correctionguy7632 what do you mean
Amazing introduction showed importance of Artilleries bombarding and complex angle castle 🏰 walls
Thank you for you video! I live in a neighborood designed by Vauban and that resonates a lot
Awesome work. I found myself quite staggered by the quality of your content. Thanks.
Glad to hear it!
Great video! Very clear explanation of a complicated siege.
This channel is a treasure
Time to use Vauban's methods in RTS games
Oh crap.... If only there was one that could support that.
Colossal work, many thanx!
Great video!
I'm also interested in sieges of the later eras, from 1700 to Napoleonic wars. It seems to me to not take as much time unless the army was quite small. I'm not sure if its technological progress, tactics, or both.
And I'm interested in post Napoleonic era especially late 18 and early 19 century
Doesn‘t it get somewhat repetitive after Vauban?
@@mariushunger8755 in a way yes, but at the same time forts designs became completely different than before when up to Napoleon era, they were towering above train after that they started to bury themselves deeper and deeper into the ground, like I've seen Prussia ring fort and you don't even realize you are seeing one all that sticking above ground is hidden behind earth.
They completely changed the way to lead seige. The common thing was to take a point near higher than the city you want to siege and then fire the city with artellery to force the city to surrender. Basicaly break by moral not by beating tacticely.
I had the honor of taking many of my undergraduate history classes with Dr. Ostwald. He’s definitely an expert in early modern warfare. It’s great to see him cited in this video!
As always, you've made a great video and it is nice to see an expansion into a period that you've covered less. Also such a great video demonstrating how and why Louis XIV could fight all of europe at once.
Thanks a ton!
« Toute ville assiégée par Vauban, ville prise, Toute ville défendue par Vauban, ville imprenable. »
Vauban
Great video as always
I wrote about Ath for my thesis… wonderful video.
Great video as always!
Outstanding video on a truly fascinating topic!!
Thank you!!
Our pleasure!
Just found out about your channel and will binge watch everything, its an amazing channel. Just a small request tho, can you do some video on the Portuguese? I find Portugal wayyyy too much overlooked in history videos.
The system of offensive trench’s seems to have worked extremely well to advance infantry towards the enemy position. What changed between here and 1914 such that WWI’s trench’s were less useful offensively?
most likely advances in artillery systems and the introduction of the machine gun
Pretty sure engineers would dig up tunnels to get closer to enemy trenches and blew them up with mines.
This system only works on fortresses, not armies or other trenches. Along with this this specific case is one of an undermanned and undergunned garrison, hardly a fair fight. Finally advances in guns such as the machine gun and more importantly explosive artillery made trenches go from a safe place to a very deadly one.
Also consider significant improvements in the accuracy of indirect fire. As manufacturing became considerably more precise, i.e. lower tolerances, dispersion of indirect fire became narrower. Advancements in metallurgy also allowed for much smaller and lighter artillery, like a simple mortar tube, which could be more widely fielded to troops. With the right training it became considerably more practical to shell an enemy trench as it got closer. Hence the armies started to resort to digging tunnels instead to approach enemy trenches.
Awesome work
2:50. Sebastián WHO?!?! Like what a name!!
love ur content!keep it up!
A masterpiece of the art of siege. Thanks for the choice!
Couldn't agree more!
how did it take me so long to find you, this shit's awesome bro, great stuff
Thanks this was really helpful!
Marvelous presentation and graphics. I thoroughly enjoyed this.
Thank you kindly!
I can’t see Vauban without hearing Marche pour la ceremonie des Turcs playing in the background.
You are a good creator.❤
Great one, guys. Keep going with the amazing job!
I'll add another one as a sacriffice for the lords of youtube. Amazing video!
One day, when I have the chance to travel to Europe I'll be sure to lay siege Ath!
Great work!
As a fan of 17th century warfare and the period in general, I thank you guys for covering this underappreciated and uncovered era. Keep up the good work and I look forward with anticipation your upcoming projects.
This was a completely new piece of history to me. Very interesting that a seemingly strong fortress succumbed so quickly due to poor defence & a masterful attack.
Having broken my collar bone I wonder how well Vauban coped with the injury.
Please more siege videos. They are my favorite
this is far superior to any movie or show being made today.... although thats not saying much, this is a wonderful channel
I really wish you cover sieges in the Napoleonic wars, it's not a part of that period that people usually cover so i rely on you to be the saviors!
I would advice you to take a look at Siege of Nagykanizsa 1601, as it is probably the most succesfull and perfect siege defense in history, it would be a great content for your amazing channel
After an hour of searching, I have identified the song played at 5:46 ish. It’s winter by Antonio Vivaldi. Great video
Vivaldi's Winter is XVII Century Fortunate Son
Your pronunciation of Dutch placenames like Rijswijk and Nijmegen is excellent! Dutch is quite hard for most non-natives but you do a great job! Call me an impressed Dutchman.
As always very nice video