How in the Middle Ages, warriors withstood the siege of fortresses so as not to give up to the enemy

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

From time immemorial, people not only worked for survival, but sometimes took a cudgel in their hand in order to hit the worker in the neighborhood on the head and take away everything he had. It was this “beautiful” part of human consciousness that pushed people to the idea that something needs to be done to protect the fruits of their labor and their lives.

Since then, people have understood that it would be nice to enclose their habitat with a wall. Better yet, two. And so that it all stood on a higher hill. And with a moat. And you can have more stakes just in case. Homo Sapiens reached special heights in the fortification business in the Middle Ages.

Instead of a preface

People have long understood that it would be nice to thoroughly strengthen the place where you live. Exclusively "just in case." And then suddenly the neighbors decide to check what you have in the barns and whether your girls are really more beautiful than theirs. Of course, at first there were no walls. They tried to settle somewhere near a natural barrier - so that there was a river or a mountain, or at least a hill. Then they figured out that it would be nice to climb higher, because hitting from top to bottom is always easier and more pleasant.

And then it came to the construction of the walls. Most often, earthen ramparts were poured. However, such a structure could not serve for a long time and over time, under the influence of bad weather, it crawled. The ramparts were reinforced with stones and logs, turning them into the first walls. The richest and most resourceful even in ancient times learned to enclose their cities with a huge stone wall. The Romans went farthest in this matter.

Interesting fact: a fragment of the first Roman city defensive wall has survived to this day. This fortification is called the Servian Wall or Murus Servii Tullii. Most likely, it was built around 390 BC after the Gauls invaded Rome.

These built “everything” and from “everything”. They erected stone walls around large cities, hid the camps of their legions behind earthen and wooden forts, and also built border earthen and stone fortifications in the most dangerous areas. Of course, along with the city fortifications, the means of assault were constantly developing. Wall-breaking machines of all stripes, towers on wheels, galleries, battering rams and everything would be fine, but Rome fell. And very soon the Middle Ages began.

All over again

Along with the fall of "civilized" Rome, the then Europe was fundamentally "degraded". First of all, in the issue of building "anything", including fortifications. Of course, Rome did not fall completely. Byzantium remained, and they more or less remembered how to stamp suitable fortifications. True, in the following centuries, the eastern part of the empire was not strong before the construction of new fortresses. But in vain.

But in Europe, things got bad. The fortification case rolled back, if not by a millennium, then by a couple of centuries for sure. Of course, life in the early medieval "European Non-Union" was extremely tense and fun. There the Franks are trying to build an empire, then the Vikings are all sorts of sailing. In general, the local electorate immediately understood what was needed: ramparts, ditches and walls. True, at first it was all very primitive. Even kings lived behind a wooden palisade.

But the region was bleeding and richer. Gradually, there were more and more wooden fortresses in Europe, and most importantly, they began to gradually be converted into stone ones.

Mahmoud, burn

We must be aware that even a wooden fortification in the right place is a serious obstacle, including for well-trained and properly motivated soldiers. The entire Middle Ages is, in fact, an arms race, where the masters of fortification competed with the masters of the siege. But in the early Middle Ages, sieges were bad. If someone had already taken refuge behind the fortress wall, then it was almost impossible to get it. It is always difficult to hold a siege and kill the enemy: the soldiers begin to get bored and scatter, they have bloody diarrhea, and look after a month or two you simply have no troops left.

They did not like to storm, too. Of course, the ancestors had enough brains to put up a ladder or pull out a couple of logs from the palisade, although at such touching moments the defenders of the fortification did not look quietly at what was happening, but all sorts of spoiled lives. Often, during the assaults, they lost up to half of the personnel, and this, according to Medieval (and not only) concepts, is already a fiasco in itself.

Still, the wooden fortress had one terrible drawback. This is the material from which it was made. A couple of dozen fires at the foot of the picket fence often made the entire fortress burn throughout the day. This is the main reason why our ancestors decided to build castles from stone.

Fortress in the fortress

Only at first glance, a fortress is something simple. In fact, everything in the fortification is thought out to the smallest detail. Very quickly, the ancestors realized that it would be nice to cover the walls with wooden galleries from enemy arrows. However, the walls are not the most important thing in the fortress. The most important thing is its towers, which are not at all for beauty and not for the imprisonment of beautiful princesses in them.

Pay attention to how the towers stand and how the loopholes are located in them. Everything is done so that several towers can create cross-firing sectors. Those inside the tower were virtually invulnerable behind the loopholes. At the same time, they themselves had every opportunity to pour a shower of arrows on the attacking warriors. By pressing against the wall, you can almost guaranteed to protect yourself from the one who stands at the top of this very wall. But you cannot protect yourself from the one who at this moment shoots at you from the left and right of the tower loopholes.

Moreover, the tower is also a fortress within a fortress. Climbing the wall is not very difficult. Here and ladders will help, and even cats. By the middle of the Middle Ages, Europeans remembered what siege towers were. Another thing is to take the fortress tower, where several people have settled and barricaded themselves. First of all, the besiegers always tried to take precisely these sections of the fortification, and not at all the fortress court. The battles in the towers could drag on for long hours, and in some cases even days. Often, when breaking through, the defenders of the tower simply hid on another floor and barricaded themselves there, continuing to methodically spoil the life of the besiegers from the loopholes.

It is interesting: with the advent of firearms in Europe, in the fortress towers before the onset of the attack, they sometimes made a powder store in case the tower was still taken. If the situation was not at all in favor of the defenders, the garrison did not shy away from blowing up its own tower along with unsuspecting stormtroopers.

They destroyed the wall - so what?

The wall has always been one of the most vulnerable places in the fortress. It could be broken with battering guns. With the advent of gunpowder artillery, this has ceased to be a problem at all. However, oddly enough, the fall of the fortress wall still means very little. A hole in the wall suggests an attack is coming soon.

Interesting fact: in its original meaning, the word "mine" did not mean at all some kind of bomb, but an engineering structure, more precisely - a digging under the fortress wall. The dig was made when the fortress was on soft soil, and not on a rock. It was not the easiest, but the safest and surest way to destroy the fortification. Moreover, unlike the shelling with battering machines, the destruction of the wall due to the undermining was very difficult to notice.

But the soldiers of the garrison were also not fools. When a wall breaks, even under cannon fire, it is a rather lengthy process. The defenders had enough time to leave the wall, and most importantly, to make a pocket barricade right behind the place where part of the fortification would collapse. As a result, the "happy" besiegers ran into the hole and immediately found themselves caught between three fires. This simple technique has saved fortresses from falling more than once.

Interesting fact: however, in the fortresses there were also funds from the mines. Very often, special tunnels were burst under the walls of the castle - anti-mine galleries. In them, in complete silence, the defenders were supposed to sit and listen to the sounds of a tunnel from somewhere. If suspicions arose, a pocket barricade was immediately erected in this place above.

Weakest point

At all times, the gate was the most vulnerable part of the fortification. Therefore, in the Middle Ages, their defense was given the greatest attention. The correct gate has always been equipped with a drawbridge and a lowering grate. It is much more important that they tried to make several gates in the best fortresses. When they took it alone, it didn't change the situation much. By the way, the corridor between the two gates was a real "zone of death", as in the correct locks it was literally shot from all sides. However, when the last gate was about to fall, the defenders often also erected another barricade behind them. Exactly the same as in the case of the collapsed walls.

Markers, tunnels and weapons of mass flooding

The besiegers over the defenders have always had one main advantage - the ability to initiate combat wherever it is convenient for them. In addition to walls, towers and ditches, the defenders had their own advantages: knowledge of the terrain and sighting. The fact is that both the throwing and later powder artillery were used not only by the attackers. The correct fortress had its own throwing machines. It could even be required, which in the social creation were entrenched (for some reason) as a tool exclusively for the besiegers.

The accuracy of Medieval Throwing Artillery was very low. It was very important to aim correctly. Garrisons that had throwing machines always "shot" the area in advance. Therefore, if the attackers collected a beautiful siege tower with the whole world for two days, and on the third day a huge stone flew into it from the very first hit from behind the wall, there was no need to be surprised.

However, it was possible to spoil the life of the attackers in many other ways. For example, a small detachment could leave the castle under cover of night and set fire to something in the camp of the besiegers. And the most resourceful and lucky defenders did not shy away from using even whole bodies of water against the storming ones. The fact is that the water moat was often a product of the establishment of a dam. And if the enemies set up their camp incorrectly, they could simply be taken and flooded. As neighbors below.

Wall bit coin

Even the smallest and simplest Medieval fortress is a thorn in the fifth point. Leaving a fortress in the rear is extremely risky, especially if there is at least a small knightly garrison in it. Trained and motivated people will leave the castle at the first opportunity and will find a hundred and one ways to spoil the enemy's blood with partisan methods, literally robbing the very same caravans. Keeping a fortress in a ring is also problematic. The siege can drag on for months. And then one of two unpleasant things may happen - either the approach to the fortress of the unblocking army or an epidemic in its own ranks. Fortress attack is all a lottery, which requires not only the availability of narrow specialists and equipment, but also a lot of luck.

Interesting fact: attacks of fortresses were always prepared long before the start of a military campaign. Wall-breaking machines, for example, require - these are very complex engineering mechanisms that could not be made from something there and sticks on the spot. Therefore, they were transported in carts. Even such a banality as the siege ladder was often brought to the place of the siege along with the same wagon train.

However, there was one weapon against which not every fortress could resist. And this is not an ingenious throwing machine, not a huge siege tower, or even chivalrous courage. And money. The practice of bribery of fortresses in the Middle Ages was absolutely normal. Moreover, it was a kind of "business". Some fortresses were so severe that, in principle, no one would even try to storm them. Therefore, the most "enterprising" defenders were not against a small monetary reward for their further inaction in the war.