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Attacking innovation, however, did produce defensive reaction, which in turn provoked counter-reaction from besiegers, and this greatly altered the nature of siege warfare during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Guns, of course, were not exclusively weapons of attack. Defensive firearms were an early experiment which had some effect in maintaining some sort of defensability of fortifications in two ways. Firstly, by firing at the besieging army from the castle walls, defensive marksmen and cannoneers could take advantage of the short range of early guns by making it very hard to position bombards close enough to the walls to cause damage. By refusing to give the besieging army the freedom to position guns wherever they liked, the defenders could in this way keep the enemy at 'arms length'. The second way in which guns could be used to defend fortifications was not to defend the walls from destruction by cannon fire, but to provide crossfire against enemy troops when the time came for them to attempt to storm the castle, a function which crossbows were able to perform, but were of inferior effectiveness and more expensive than handguns.

   This use of defensive firearms caused changes in the way in which attackers approached sieges. Guns being fired into the besiegers' camp necessitated the greater use of cover, in particular for the bombards which were placed nearest to the castle walls for much of the siege. To this end, trenches were dug and wooden shields or hoardings were constructed to protect the soldiers and their guns. Trenches provided some degree of effective protection against most weapons, while the hoardings gave protection to the guns, which usually had to be positioned in more exposed locations in order that they could target the walls before them, against everything but powerful firearms. "Jean de Bueil could advocate the siting of a besieger's camp before a beleaguered fortress on the model of the fortified entrenchments dug at Mauléon, Guissen, Cherbourg, Dax, and Castillon fifteen years before. Trenches, he wrote, were to be dug from one part of the siege to another, covered by hoardings. Ease of contact and movement between the units of the encircling forces could thus be ensured." Further success could be gained by the besieging forces by employing not only large bombards to break down the walls, but also smaller guns to pick off individual defending troops. This would not only prevent defensive gunners from having the luxury of completely free shots at their enemies, but would limit the effectiveness of attempts to repair breaches in the walls.

   The use of guns in both attack and defence produced perhaps the biggest changes in siege warfare in the form of changes to the fortifications themselves. The castles which existed before the widespread use of cannons were ill-suited to withstand the accurate and powerful impact of cannonballs. Trebuchéts had been of more use in lobbing stones over the walls to cause damage inside castles than in actually causing breaches, and so the walls were built tall and flat so as to be better able to resist being scaled by soldiers. Such walls provided a large target for cannon fire, and their flatness meant that the full force of the shot was directed straight into them. Rather than rebuild entire castles, lords were often forced through reasons of cost to opt for the next-best solution of adaptation. Scarping the walls with banks of earth or masonry was tried in an attempt both to thicken the walls, and to turn the blows of cannons into more glancing shots, with the added bonus that sloping walls meant that siege ladders became ineffective. While it was a sound theory to avoid square-on impacts from cannonballs, scarping was of limited value, and where this was an adaptation to an older castle, in many cases it weakened the walls by placing extra weight on them.

   Gunports were a further adaptation to fortifications which occurred as a result of the introduction of guns. These were holes put in the walls of the castles, often where arrow slits had been, to allow small guns to be fired from a position of relative safety. They were frequently positioned in the towers or gatehouses of castles to provide flanking fire along the walls where it was anticipated any attacking soldiers would have to stop before being able to push on into the castle. This modification was quite cheap and easy to put in place, and was used across Europe.

   One method of improving the efficacy of defensive fire both against attacking troops and forces sitting back and besieging was the greater use of defensive outworks built of earth or masonry. Not only could this 'forward defensive' strategy force enemy guns further back from the castle proper, but it also provided a further opportunity to enfilade soldiers as they advanced. Boulevards or artillery towers could be built in ditches forward of the walls with a clear line of fire along the trench. As the enemy soldiers advanced, they would have to spend time negotiating the ditch during which the fire from the outworks could take its toll. "At Dax, Guissen and Cadillac, in 1449 and 1451, the French encountered heavy resistance from such outer works constructed by the defenders."

   The ultimate defence against besiegers armed with guns, though, was the fortification based on the angled bastion. It was this defence which was coming increasingly into use by 1500 which decisively swung the balance of power back in favour of the defenders. The bastion was essentially a gun platform for siting heavy guns which needed the freedom to be turned and fired against the enemy camp wherever it was in relation to the castle, a freedom which could not be obtained firing through gunports. These towers were thrust forward of the walls to keep the enemy back and were built the same height as the rest of the castle (unlike traditional towers), perhaps to facilitate the movement of guns around the walls, or perhaps because of the high cost of taller towers. The entire structure was squat, making it a smaller target and allowing the guns at the top of the walls to maintain fire at targets close to the foot of the fortification, and scarped to produce more glancing blows from cannonballs. This last objective was also achieved by projecting the bastions at a different angle to the rest of the wall, so that in effect only the wall would receive square-on blows. It could be said that round castles and round towers would present no flat surfaces to be hit squarely, but to build such fortifications would make flanking fire along the walls at best difficult. Round bastions were built, but left dead ground where guns could not reach, while entire castles built on a circular model would need many projecting towers to provide fire along the walls. With the angled bastion, fire could be given along the entire base of the tower from guns positioned in the walls, while fire along the walls could be provided from gunports in alcoves in the bastion.

   It seemed for a while that the destructive power of cannons would lead to a decisive shift towards the attackers in siege warfare which would perhaps bring an end to the dominant role of fortifications in warfare. However, defensive tactics adapted to the situation in a number of ways, ensuring the survival of the castle and the siege. It can be said, though, that although the nature of warfare overall was not changed, the nature of sieges changed significantly as a result of the use by both attackers and defenders of gunpowder weapons, and because a new type of castle had been born. If guns provided a temporary revolution in the balance of sieges, then the bastion was equally as revolutionary in restoring the old balance. "By resisting the new artillery and providing platforms for heavy guns [the bastion] revolutionised the defensive-offensive pattern of warfare."

   While cannons produced many changes in the conduct of sieges, changes of similar magnitude cannot be seen in open field warfare. Cannons, lacking effective carriages to allow them to keep pace with their armies and to manoeuvre on the battlefield, were little used until the late fifteenth century. Handguns, despite coming to be as accepted a weapon as the crossbow, failed to produce any noteworthy changes. Possessing greater hitting power than the crossbow, but similar weaknesses, including slow rate of fire, they were unable to establish themselves as anything more than an auxiliary weapon. While the Swiss were to use handguns in their successful pike square formations, their role could be (and often was) performed equally well by crossbowmen, and European armies continued to be based on knightly cavalry and close-combat infantry. The handgun of the fifteenth century was simply another auxiliary shot weapon, and, "The arquebus, or match-lock musket, did not finally oust the crossbow from French armies until 1567.
Nonetheless, the importance of guns increased during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries until they became an essential part of major wars. One of the results of this was to make war a much more large-scale thing in terms of money, and to put serious warfare (involving conquest and therefore sieges) out of reach of the pockets of anybody but princes. Artillery was very expensive. "It was one thing, in accordance with ancient ways, to expect a man at arms to come to the host equipped with his own horses and armour, but no one, in the new conditions of war, expected a master of artillery to provide his own cannon." On a national level, the introduction of guns further widened the gap in military potential between rich and poor countries, underlining the superiority of countries like France over countries like the Italian states.

   It can be asked to what extent gunpowder weapons revolutionised notions of chivalry and whether the attitudes of people altered as a result of their experiences of the new guns. There is a good deal of late mediaeval literature which shows that many people despised them. They were an indiscriminate weapon which had no respect for social status, meaning that princes could now be killed from afar by peasants and artisans. This went against the traditional chivalric notion of individual combat among equals. Guns were also seen as cowardly, because of the belief that the gunner, hiding behind the smoke from his gun, did not put himself in mortal danger by firing, yet could still take the lives of others. Many saw guns as being instruments of the devil, with the noise and fire created being seen as having come from Hell itself. A popular attitude during the early days of guns in Europe is shown by Cervantes when he wrote, Blessed be those happy ages that were strangers to the dreadful fury of these devilish instruments of artillery, whose inventor I am satisfied is now in Hell, receiving the reward of his cursed invention, which is cause that very often a cowardly base hand takes away the life of the bravest gentleman; and that in the midst of that vigour and resolution which animates and inflames the bold, a chance bullet (shot perhaps by one who fled, and was frightened by the very flash the mischievous piece gave, when it went off) coming nobody knows how, or from where, in a moment puts a period to the brave designs and the life of one that deserved to have survived many years...

   It is unlikely, however, that this attitude was held by the majority of people at the time. Shot weapons were nothing new, and had been in existence and used on a large scale for many years. There was little difference between a knight being killed by an arquebus or by a longbow. The large-scale use of guns by most European armies demonstrates that while there might have been some degree of chauvinism against firearms, princes were still quite prepared to use them, and indeed the church positively encouraged their use at a time when the Turkish threat to Christendom was increasing. There is little evidence that captured gunners were treated any differently to any other captured commoners (and by 1500 it was by no means guaranteed that gunners would not in fact be noble), and overall, society had little difficulty in accepting the place of artillery in modern warfare. Guns were 'domesticated' and given names, taking on characters of their own, and, "By the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the early modern era, gunpowder weaponry had simply become a feature of everyday life. Guns had become so conventional that they began to be used in celebrations, in fashion, and in crime. Ultimately, guns even became virility symbols." This growing acceptance represents in part a change in attitudes brought about by the realisation that guns were of considerable use, but mainly it is a result of the rather superficial nature of chivalry at that time. There was a tendency for people only to behave according to the rules of chivalry when either it suited them to or when they could afford to. Princes, when faced with an adversary armed with artillery could not afford to confine themselves to criticising such 'bad sportsmanship' but had to respond in kind, an option which they were more than willing to take.

   In assessing whether gunpowder's introduction caused revolutionary changes in Europe before 1500, it is necessary not only to examine the specific changes which arose, but moreover to assess whether warfare in 1300 had significantly changed in character by 1500 as a result of the use of guns. The answer to this has to be a definite no. The armies of 1500 made extensive use of guns, but these had not revolutionised the makeup of armed forces. The dominance of cavalry had persisted throughout the two centuries, and its only serious challenge had come in the late fifteenth century with the pike square, which by no means relied on guns. While the use of cannons had transformed the methods used in conducting sieges, only temporarily had there been the prospect of altering the nature of war away from the innumerable fortress battles which characterised the period. Gunpowder weapons had failed to bring an end to the siege as an important aspect of war, and could only act as a supplementary weapon on the battlefield. Overall, despite the numerous changes which the increasing use of guns had caused, it is possible to agree with J. R. Hale's assertion: "Gunpowder, in short, revolutionised the conduct but not the outcome of wars."

BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. T. Allmand (ed.), War, Literature, and Politics in the Late Middle Ages (Liverpool 1976)
P. Contamine, War in the Middle Ages (Oxford 1984)
K. R. DeVries, Medieval Military Technology (Peterborough 1992)
J. R. Hale, Renaissance War Studies (London 1983)
M. H. Keen, Chivalry (London 1984)
G. Parker, The Military Revolution (Cambridge 1988)
Col. H. C. B. Rogers, Artillery Through the Ages (London 1971)
S. Toy, A History of Fortification from 3000 BC to AD 1700 (London 1966)
M. G. A. Vale, War and Chivalry (London 1981)
T. Wintringham, The Story of Weapons and Tactics (New York 1971)

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