Vauban The Man Who Fortified France
He was a
genuine Renaissance man; one of France’s greatest military heroes; a master
builder; a humanist; an agronomist; a philosopher and even an economist who,
three hundred years before it came to pass, proposed creation of a single
European currency.Soon the United Nations Economic and
Social Council (UNESCO) may honor his legacy as a world heritage.
At the moment, however, probably few
Americans who visit France have the slightest idea of who he is. That well may
change soon too.
Born Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban in
1633, he is known better to historians as Marechal Vauban, the man who
designed or reinforced for France’s King Louis XIV in the 17th century some 300 fortresses or other military strongholds around the country,
French officials estimate that roughly
eight million residents of France still live within or adjacent to his
fortifications.
Many, like the walled defenses of the city
of Besançon in eastern France, still stand as some of the most imposing
structures in the nation.
To mark the 300th anniversary
of his death in 1707, France this year has selected 14 of Vauban’s most
significant military constructions as a group nominee for UNESCO’s World
Heritage title. In terms of location they form an almost perfect circle around
the frontiers and seashores of France.
Visitors or passers by usually will find
them surrounded them with posters and banners highlighting their candidate
status in what the government has decreed to be the “Year of
Vauban.”
Although the nomination process began
months ago, UNESCO will not make its choices until the summer of
2008.
If Vauban’s work then is awarded the World
Heritage label it will take its place alongside existing French World Heritage
sites better known to tourists such as the monastery of Mont-Saint-Michel on the
Normandy coast and the French royal palace in Versailles.
UNESCO has not awarded the World Heritage
title to any location in France since 1998 and usually candidates are a single
structure or a composite of several attractions in a single location. The banks
of the Seine in Paris, for instance, earned the award in 1991.
The decision to present simultaneously 14
of Vauban’s sites spread across virtually all of France’s frontier areas as a
single group is unusual but it is designed to highlight the evolution of
Vauban’s defense system and the variety of types of fortifications that bear his
name.
The nominated sites in fact are just a
sample of Vauban’s various works, which still exist in some 150 French cities,
40 departments and 16 French regions
Furthermore, Vauban’s military engineering
genius was not confined to France alone. His conceptions were widely copied in
other countries in various kinds of fortifications often referred to as “a la
Vauban.”
Among them: Fort Ticonderoga in New York;
Fort McHenry in Baltimore and the Citadelle in Quebec.
Vauban’s defense techniques were deemed so
effective that during his life and long after his death they were taught in
military training institutions in France and other nations as far away as Russia
and Turkey.
French Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte who had
studied them early in his own military career particularly praised them in later
years.
In 1808, more than a century after
Vauban’s death, Napoléon, as a sign of respect, had Vauban’s heart removed from
his body and his tomb in Burgundy and placed in Les Invalides in Paris where
Napoléon’s own body eventually would be laid to rest.
During Vauban’s era, France was frequently
in conflict with her neighbors, Spain to the south, Austria and Savoy to the
east, Holland to the north and England just across the English Channel.
Defending the nation’s borders was a royal
priority and in the king’s service as a young military engineer Vauban quickly
won praise for his expertise in winning and withstanding sieges plus admiration
for his personal bravery
In the space of only seven years he
participated in 14 major battles, was wounded several times and, his personal
valor and talent as a military strategist and defense planner quickly earned him
the rank of General Commissar of Fortifications.
A determined humanist, he always was
anxious to avoid unnecessary death or injury to the simple soldiers of the
king’s armies and he excelled in devising tactics that led to the capture of
fortified and besieged enemy bastions in record time.
From that
followed a logical progression to the design of usually five or six or
eight-pointed, star-shaped and high-walled fortifications that could best
withstand such sieges or attacks by France’s enemies.
It was common in his time to say that a
city besieged by Vauban was a city sure to be taken while a city defended by
Vauban was a city impossible to take.
Often his fortifications virtually
surrounded entire cities such as Briançon, often considered the most prestigious
of his works.
That bastion, still a popular French
tourist attraction, took 20 years to complete and cost so much that Louis XIV
once sarcastically asked Vauban if it had been built of gold.
Others, like that of St. Martin on the
Ile-de-Ré just off France’s coastal city of La Rochelle, blocked possible
maritime assaults by the English.
Vauban’s concern for the simple soldier
defenders of his fortifications led him also to develop an elaborate system of
living quarters for them within his fortresses walls, an unprecedented
innovation at the time. . .
In recognition of his talents, Vauban
quickly was given the coveted and rare title of Marechal de France and,
traveling constantly to his various military sites, he covered some 4,000
kilometers (2,500 miles) a year and some 180,000 kilometers (112,500 miles)
during his lifetime.
To really grasp the extent of that travel
one needs to remember that it all was done on horseback or by horse-drawn
carriage. It provided Vauban, however, with an understanding of the conditions
and needs of common people in France rarely possessed by his peers at the royal
court.
Despite all this, he still found time to
write books on economic themes, diplomacy and strategy, on agriculture and on
navigation and acceded, in time to the French Academy of Sciences.
Vauban served his king well and loyally
although not necessarily meekly.
Often he put forward controversial
suggestions for changes in the way France was run that would have gotten someone
less in the king’s favor banned from the royal court. One, for instance, was the
idea of a general tax, even on the nobility. That didn’t please his monarch or
the nobility at all.
Nor did his public call to Louis XIV to
reconsider his renunciation, in 1695, of the Edict of Nantes, which, in 1598,
had promised religious freedom to both Catholics and Protestants in the country.
Louis ignored Vauban’s advice to his own
disadvantage. The return of limits on religious freedom quickly drove many of
the nation’s intellectuals into exile and triggered among her neighboring
Protestant nations increased enmity toward France.
Although the king was rankled by
Vauban’s unwelcome comments on the religious freedom issue, he was conscious
enough of their author’s stature and contributions to his realm to openly mourn
his loss when Vauban passed away at the age of 74.
There’s no guarantee that Vauban’s work
will gain the coveted UNESCO World Heritage title next year. But if it doesn’t,
it won’t be for lack of trying.
