B A S 



16 



B A S 



the top of, or projecting towers at certain intervals along;, 

 tbe wall* of fortresses, that from thence the U-sii-y.-d might 

 get a view of and be able u> annoy the enemy, when ut 

 and most critical period of the siege the latter 

 should h.ivc gained the otherwise undefended ground. The 

 walls of Messene, built by Epaminondos (Pans, iv. 31). 

 which were all of (tone, and furnished with bati'inm-nts 

 and towers, were reckoned by Pausanias among the best 

 specimens of Grecian ruriific.it ion. 



From the account* given by antient writers of their forti- 

 fled places, and particularly from the precepts of Vitruvius 

 (Arcnitectura, lib. i. cap. 5), we learn that the projecting 

 towers were sometimes square or polygonal, but generally 

 circular, and that their distance from each other along the 

 wall* was regulated by the range of the weapons emplo\cd 

 in the defence. In the fortifications of cities this distance 

 seems to have varied from 80 to 100 paces, according to local 

 circumstances, and the power of annoying the enemy by 

 the arrows and javelins discharged from the towers ; but, 

 from the greater distance at which modern arms will take 

 effect, the bastions, measuring from the vertices of their pro- 

 jecting angles, arc now generally, and agreeably to the rules 

 of Vauban, placed at 360 yards from each other. It was a 

 maxim with the antient engineers that the projecting 

 quoins of walls were detrimental to the defence, from the 

 facility with which they might be destroyed by the battering- 

 ram ; and it is on this account that Vitruvius recommends 

 iwers to be circular, or to have faces forming with each 

 i tlier obtuse angles. These towers were placed indifferently 

 at the angles, or at any part on the line of the inclosing ruin- 

 part : in the latter case, when they were of a square form, 

 one side was parallel to the length of the rampart, and in 

 the former, one face was almost always perpendicular to a 

 line bisecting the angle between two adjacent sides of the 

 polygon surrounding the town ; that is, to what would be 

 now called the capital of the bastion. It must have fre- 

 quently happened, therefore, that this face was nearly un- 

 seen from any other part of the rampart, and that the enemy 

 made his assault against it in order to avoid, as mu< h as 

 possible, being exposed to annoyance from the defenders of 

 the neighbouring works. It is true that the smallness of 

 the towers rendered it impossible for the enemy to be wholly 

 c tncealed at their front; but the desire of entirely depriving 

 tin- enemy of the benefit arising from the undefended nature 

 of that ground probably induced engineers to dispose the 

 faces of their towers like those of a modern bastion, so that 

 two of them might form a projecting angle, whose vertex 

 Was on the capital. 



There is no reason to believe that any material change 

 took place in the manner of constructing the towers of for- 

 tresses during all the long period in which the antient arms 

 were employed; but it is easy to conceive that the invention 

 of fire-arms would render it necessary to enlarge the tower 

 for the purpose of receiving the guns, and to increase the 

 thickness of the rampart, that it might be able as well to 

 resist the concussion produced by the discharge of the ord- 

 nance placed upon it, as the shock of the enemy's artillery 

 when fired against it. On this account, also, the ramparts 

 were constructed of earth, and their exterior surface was 

 formed at such an inclination to the ground as would enable 

 it to stand unsupported, except where it became necessary t 

 prevent an escalade ; in which case a facing of stone, brick, 

 or timber was made sufficiently high and steep to create 

 a serious impediment to any attempt of that nature. An 

 opinion that the bastions arc the weakest parts of a fortress 

 remained in force, however, long after the modern artillery 

 was introduced in sieges. On this account they were at first 

 made very small, when compared with the extent of the 

 wall between them ; and the line of each face, when pro- 

 duced towards the town, was made to intersect that wall, in 

 order that the fire from the part intercepted between this 

 produced line and the flank of the next bastion might co- 

 iipcrate with that made from the latter in defending the 

 ditch in front of the former bastion. But when the ramparts 

 of a town were found to disappear almost instantly under 

 the weight of shot discharged from large ordnance, it be- 

 came necessary to employ ordnance of corresponding size on 

 the walls; and the dimensions of the bastions were finally 

 augmented to those at present assigned. The lengths of 

 the faces vary from 100 to 120 yards, and the Hanks are 

 usually about 50 yards long ; but the magnitude of the pro- 

 jecting angle in front, called the salient or ftun/ml angle, to 

 distinguish it from the angles formed by the luces and 



flanks which are denominated shoulder angle*, evidently 

 depends upon the kind of polygon on winch the rnctintr is 

 fohbtructfd. K.irli face of a bastion, if produced tin 

 the town, now falls at tbe interior extremity ut the Hank of 

 the collateral bastion, so thai the defence of a bastion de- 

 pends wholly upon the fires from those on its right and 

 left, 



ll is to Italy that we must look for the (mention of tho 

 modern bastion : the wars which rajcd in (hat counin 

 the commencement of the twelfth century, and .. 

 more systematically conducted there than in any other 

 of Europe, gave rise to this, as well as to many other inven- 

 tions for military purposes. Tho precise date of it- 

 formation is quite unknown : but if we omit the n. 

 story related by Folard, that the Turkish commander, Ai h- 

 met Pacha, caused bastions to be constructed about O;i 

 when he took that place in 14M>. we may observe thai 

 spoken of under the name of Balvardo, as an HI; 

 ot nival importance in the military art, by Tart.i;/ 

 (Juesiti ed inventi diverti, which was published in l 

 and in the same work is given a plan of the tort;: 

 Turin, which exhibits a bastion at each of the four am:. 

 the rampart. Both Yasari, in his Lirr\ <ifthf Arch. 

 aud Mallei, in his Verona Uluttrata, ascribe the invention 

 to San Mic.hioli of Verona: one of the bastions of th;.. \-\\\ 

 has on it the date 15-7, and its construction is still ascribed 

 to that engineer, who, in (act, was about that time emj : 

 in the erection or repair of several of the fortresses in Italv. 

 From the word Balvard.i, denoting a stronghold, the earliest 

 Krcnch engineers gave to this work the appellation of 1 

 rartl; and such is it- n in the treatise of Errard, 



which was published in 15U-4. The term Bastion u\ . 

 to have been taken from the Italian writers, for Muggi, in 

 his treatise Delia J-'orliJicatione delle Citta, applies the term 

 BaiKoni to redoubts constructed of earth ; and, according 

 to 1'ere Daniel, the French subsequently gave to such 

 works the name of Halt/lies, or Bustides. Froissart also 

 uses these terms in speaking of the forts executed during 

 the siei;e of Ventadour by the Due de Berri, under ( 

 VI. It should be remarked, however, that Errard a, 

 the name of Bastion indifferently to works in the situation 

 of those now so called, and to those to which the name of 

 Racelin is generally given ; and doubtless it denoted origi- 

 nally any work of earth constructed on the exterior of one 

 more antient. 



It appears that it had been the practice from the earlie-t 

 times to form a rampart, or bank of earth, in front of tin- 

 walls of fortresses, in order to secure the latter from the 

 destructive effects of the ram ; and it is easy to conceive 

 that, by forming such a bank in front of the old towers of a 

 place, so as to connect those previously existing in front of 

 the adjacent curtains, t :e work would assume a figure like 

 that of a modern bastion ; and indeed would very much 

 resemble one of the detached bastions in what is called tin- 

 second system of Vauban ; the original tower of the fortress 

 occupying the place of the interior bastion of that sy-tcm, 

 and constituting a sort of retrenchment to the new work. 

 The construction was proposed in 1584 by Castn 

 ingly as if it had been his own idea ; but probably he meant 

 only to recommend the adoption of a kind of work which 

 must have been then a novelty. 



The Italian engineers, immediately after the invention of 

 the bastion system of fortification, became celebrated for 

 their skill in military architecture, and th< 

 been extensively employed in the construction or repair of 

 fortresses beyond the Alps : one of the first of their labours 

 in the north of Europe was the fortification of Landivci, 

 with bastions, for Francis I.; and the like works were exe- 

 cuted about New Hcsdin, on the frontiers of Artois, for 

 Charles V. In 1*68, the Duke of Alva employed Patriot to 

 in the construction of the citadel of Antwerp, a regular for- 

 tress, whose bastions still rv-i within those subsequently 

 erected at that place; and, during the reign of Elizabeth, 

 Gcnebella was brought from Flanders to this country in 

 order to luperintend the formation of a bastioncd enceinte 

 about the antient castle of Carisbrook, in the Isle of Wight. 



Albert Durer, tho celebrated engraver, proposed, in 1.', jr. 

 to fortify places with circular towers only, like those of tho 

 ant lents, but of larger dimensions ; and in most of the plans 

 published during the sixteenth century by Italian engineers, 

 there appears to be a union of the old and new methods: 

 fir the angles of the polygons are furnished with round 

 towers, and these arc protected exteriorly by bastions. 



