Vauban Under Siege

Engineering Efficiency and Martial Vigor in the War of the Spanish Succession
Erscheinungsjahr 2006
ISBN: 978-90-04-15489-6
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 41, 394 Seiten, Format (B × H): 168 mm x 247 mm, Gewicht: 866 g

Reihe: History of Warfare

Winner of the 2009 Distinguished Book Award of the Society for Military History

Vauban under Siege is the first systematic comparison of the theory of Vaubanian siegecraft with its reality. It places Vauban’s siege accomplishments back into their broader context, highlighting his continuation of the quest for ever-greater efficiency pursued by a century of military engineers. Based on a comprehensive inventory of sieges in the War of the Spanish Succession, it describes how both French and Allied military officers rejected this efficiency paradigm and embraced instead vigorous brute force tactics. Ignoring their over-worked and under-compensated engineers at key points, generals chose to save precious campaign time by sacrificing their soldiers’ lives in siege after siege. This early modern cult of the offensive has influenced the Western way of war ever since.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ostwald, Jamel

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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

Über Autor(innen)

Jamel M. Ostwald, Ph.D. (2002) in History, Ohio State University, is Assistant Professor of History at Eastern Connecticut State University. His published articles have focused on the operational context of battles and siege tactics in the age of Louis XIV.