Vauban Under Siege: Engineering Efficiency and Martial Vigor in the War of the Spanish Succession (History of Warfare) (History of Warfare (Brill))

Winner of the 2009 Distinguished Book Award of the Society for Military History Vauban under Siege is the first systematic comparison of the theory of Vaubanian siegecraft with its reality. It places Vauban's siege accomplishments back into their broader context, highlighting his continuation of the quest for ever-greater efficiency pursued by a century of military engineers. Based on a comprehensive inventory of sieges in the War of the Spanish Succession, it describes how both French and Allied military officers rejected this efficiency paradigm and embraced instead vigorous brute force tactics. Ignoring their over-worked and under-compensated engineers at key points, generals chose to save precious campaign time by sacrificing their soldiers'lives in siege after siege. This early modern cult of the offensive has influenced the Western way of war ever since. Frontmatter Acknowledgements (page ix) List of Maps, Figures and Tables (page xi) Notes (page xiii) Chapter One Introduction (page 1) Chapter Two The Perfect Siege of Ath 1697 (page 21) Chapter Three Efficiency and the Perfect Siege (page 46) Chapter Four The Transitional War of the Spanish Succession (page 92) Chapter Five Implementing the Paradigm Siege (page 123) Chapter Six Contesting the Paradigm Siege (page 173) Chapter Seven Vigor: An Alternative Paradigm (page 215) Chapter Eight Succeeding with Vigor (page 253) Chapter Nine The Vigorous Future (page 309) Appendices: Appendix A: Allied Campaign Lengths in Flanders (page 325) Appendix B: Siege Dataset Methodology (page 326) Appendix C: Siege Lengths Dataset (page 340) Appendix D: Non-Siege Positional Tactics (page 348) Appendix E: Length Estimates, Selected Sieges (page 361) Appendix F: Siege Artillery (page 367) Bibliography (page 371) Index (page 383)

Vauban under Siege is the first systematic comparison of the theory of Vaubanian siegecraft with its reality. It places Vauban’s siege accomplishments back into their broader context, highlighting his continuation of the quest for ever-greater efficiency pursued by a century of military engineers. Based on a comprehensive inventory of sieges in the War of the Spanish Succession, it describes how both French and Allied military officers rejected this efficiency paradigm and embraced instead vigorous brute force tactics. Ignoring their over-worked and under-compensated engineers at key points, generals chose to save precious campaign time by sacrificing their soldiers’ lives in siege after siege. This early modern cult of the offensive has influenced the Western way of war ever since.

Vauban under Siege is the first systematic comparison of the theory of Vaubanian siegecraft with its reality, contrasting military engineering's pursuit of the efficient siege with generals' contradictory search for rapid conquest, purchased at the cost of additional lives. A comparison of the theory of Vaubanian siegecraft with its reality. This volume places Vauban's siege accomplishments into their broader context, highlighting his continuation of the quest for ever-greater efficiency pursued by a century of military engineers