Subject: | |
From: | |
Reply To: | |
Date: | Sat, 3 Feb 2007 12:27:20 +0000 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
Not sure what I unleashed when I posted the original mail on Vauban-
clearly a lot of closet fortress buffs out there but one should note
garrisons often included families and had considerable impact on
civilian populations going far beyond the obvious concentrations of
brothels. For those who can read French a short introduction with lots
of illustrations is* Places fortes: Bastions du pouvoir *by Nicolas
Faucherre published by Rempart. In fact I highly recommend all his
publications on French fortifications. I suspect he is already at work
on the French submission re World heritage status. The book *Patrimoine
Militaire* by Francois Dallemeagne et al, Editions Scala puts Vauban in
a wider context of French military architecture of all types not just
fortifications and has superb photographs. To lighten things up (snooks
to the over serious members of Histarch- archaeology should be fun or
why bother) I went with my wife on a trek around the fortifications of
Brittany and nearby seafood restaurants a few years ago and stopped on a
minor road to view a c19 brick fortified line across a peninsula. My
wife offered to jump over the fence to get a better photo but I pointed
out a) a sign saying something like Military Zone - entry forbidden and
b) remembered that the French special forces trained in the area and not
the 18 year old conscripts one so often met on trains. At that moment a
car screamed to a halt on the gravelly road and a hard looking guy guy
in civvies but clearly army stared at us until we got back in the car
and departed. Talking of which has anyone a digital image of the C18
barracks in St Augustine used by the modern National Guard- my nerve
failed me at the sight of so many armed guards outside though I should
have asked nicely.
paul courtney
Leicester, UK
|
|
|