Fort Bourtange (Vesting Bourtange)

Fort Bourtange (Vesting Bourtange)

Fort Bourtange (Vesting Bourtange in Dutch) is a textbook example of the “star fort” or “bastion” fortification type which grew to prominence in the later Renaissance. Construction began during the Dutch Revolt in 1580 under the orders of William of Orange, who wanted a fort on the road between the Spanish-held city of Groningen and the German border in order to prevent the Spanish from controlling the only easily-traveled route through what was otherwise marshy country. Due to its (at the time) modern design, which combined the traditional moats and ditches with a series of angular fortifications, Fort Bourtange was able to withstand an attack by Spanish forces soon after its completion in 1593. Over the next several centuries the fort was continually expanded and served as part of the Netherland’s network of border defenses, before it was eventually decommissioned in 1851. In 1960 the village on the site, facing depopulation and economic woes, restored the bastion to its appearance circa 1750 (Fort Bourtange, History of the Fortress).

The existence of Fort Bourtange is testament to both the sad necessity of architecture in war as well as peacetime and to the technological advancements which had begun to occur at an accelerating pace during the Renaissance and which were put to deadly effect during the Wars of the Reformation. Due to the adoption and improvement of firearms, both handheld and artillery, in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries, military engineers were forced to find ways to counter the new threat posed to their fortifications by the stone-shattering power of cannon as well as waves of shoddily-trained but numerous arquebusiers and, later, musketmen. The solution which Italian engineers developed was the star fort or bastion, a design which replaced the rounded turrets of medieval castles with pointed structures that served two purposes: first, they allowed attackers nowhere to hide from defenders’ fire by eliminating “blind spots,” placing every part of the exterior wall’s base within view of another section of the wall; and second, they forced cannon to be moved between two of the fort’s projections in order to line up a perpendicular shot at the wall, exposing the slow-moving siege engines and their crews to fire from multiple directions. The walls of these forts were also made shorter and thicker in order to further frustrate cannoneers. This new design rapidly spread from Italy to the rest of the continent, and was critical in several conflicts over the next centuries (Britannica, Bastion). Among these were, of course, the Wars of the Reformation, and indeed Fort Bourtange was built as part of the rebellion of the Protestant territories of the Netherlands against their Catholic overlords in Spain (Fort Bourtange, History of the Fortress). Even today, mainland Europe is littered with quaint villages built among old walls on star-shaped islands, the legacy of the many turmoils of the Early Modern period.

Matthäus Merian

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bourtange_1657_Merian.jpg

Vesting Bourtange, Fortress: History, 2018. https://www.bourtange.nl/bezoekersinformatie/de-vesting

Bastion, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/technology/bastion-fortification

First built 1593, continually expanded until 1742.
Engraving is of the fortress in its original state.

Brendan Glenn

Public domain; free re-use

Engraving

17 x 13 cm