War and Game

The Zoo Flak Tower', by Horst Kesner, a sixteen-year-old Flakhilfer, describing the night of 22/23 November 1943.

There was a so-called Hüfszug Bayern, a column of lorries which brought food to the Bunker when a big raid was expected. It was named after the organization which had supplied the Nuremberg rallies and the May Day rallies of the Hitler Youth each year, hence the name, Hilfszug Bayern (Bavarian Relief Column). We soldiers had to unload the food; because it was so much better than our own rations, we naturally organized some of it for ourselves. The food was wonderful but, because so many people were so well fed, the toilet problem became terrible.

There was an Oberfähnrich who was in charge of keeping the passageways open to the toilets. He got a decoration for this, and for his other work of course, which included sorting people out with a megaphone when they were crowding in before a raid. But it was good for the people in the bunker; the good food satisfied them and the walls were so thick that they could not hear the bombs outside, only our guns on top, firing away.

The people were crammed in every room and in every section, right up to the fourth floor where the military section began. They crowded into the passages so that we had to step over them as they slept on the floor. I think we had up to 20,000 people on the worst night. In the morning, when the raid was over, it took hours to get everyone out.

The 'Battles' of Bomber Command were not fought out between two sets of formed adversaries as in conventional combat. It is true that the Luftwaffe tried to engage the bombers and wear down their strength, but more than nine out of every ten bombers usually reached the target area unscathed, and it was here that the true battle was fought, between the tonnage of bombs dropped and the target city itself. The true German 'side' in the Battle of Berlin were the city's air-raid organization and civil administration, the resilience of its public services and of its industrial and commercial firms and, above all, the spirit and will-power of the civilian population.

There is no need to devote much space to a description of Berlin as it stood awaiting the bombers in August 1943. It was huge, being not only the capital and largest city in Germany, but the third largest city in the world, with an area covering nearly 900 square miles and a pre-war population of more than four million of the tough stock of local inhabitants. Now, in 1943, it was the administrative centre not only of Germany but of the new empire that had been carved out of Europe by conquest. Those massive government departments alone would have been a sufficient attraction for the R.A.F. interest, but Berlin's war factories and its rail and canal communications, standing halfway between the Western and Eastern Fronts, made it both a major arsenal and the hub of Germany's interior lines of communication. The 'big five' in war industry terms were the Alkett factory at Spandau, which produced large numbers of self-propelled guns and half of the Wehrmacht's field artillery; the Borsigwerke, making locomotives, rolling stock and heavy artillery; the D.W.M. and D.I.W. combines, both producing large quantities of small arms, mortars and ammunition; and Siemens, the huge electrical firm not only located in its self-contained 'Siemensstadt', a huge area packed with various factories, but with other plants all over Berlin. A selection of some of the other well known names of firms with premises in Berlin confirms the obvious importance of the city to Germany's war effort: at least ten A.E.G. factories, the Arguswerke where V-1 engines were built, a B.M.W. and two Daimler-Benz motor factories, two Henschel and one Dornier aircraft factories, a Mauser weapons factory, three Rheinmetall and three Telefunken factories, V.K.F. ball-bearings, Zeiss cameras. Most of this had been hardly touched by the war so far. When Britain rearmed in the mid-1930s a bomber force was planned with the range to reach Berlin. But the first attack was delayed for nearly a year, initially by the general bombing restraint which held until the German offensive in the West in May 1940, and then by the R.A.F.'s preoccupation with the Battle of France and the home invasion threat. The first raid was carried out by about fifty Wellingtons and Hampdens on the night of 25/26 August 1940, in retaliation for a raid on London the previous night. It was a disappointing raid. Strong head winds, thick cloud and the navigation problems which were to hamper the bomber crews for much of the war resulted in only a handful of aircraft reaching the Berlin area to drop a few bombs in the countryside south of the city. But Bomber Command persisted for more than a year. The records for that period do not make it clear exactly how many sorties were dispatched to Berlin, but possibly a thousand aircraft attempted to bomb the city between August 1940 and November 1941. At least sixty-two bombers were lost in these operations. The climax came on the night of 7/8 November 1941, when 169 aircraft were dispatched to Berlin, despite a poor weather forecast. Twenty-one of these did not return. It was the culmination of a disappointing period and the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, Air Marshal Sir Richard Peirse, departed.

When Sir Arthur Harris took over early in 1942, he ignored Berlin for the whole of that year, preferring to build up the strength of his force carefully and to experiment with new tactics against easier targets. Then, in early 1943, came a series of five raids, with 1,415 four-engined aircraft sorties being sent to Berlin. These raids produced moderate results; various residential areas were damaged and about 650 Berliners were killed. By no more than chance, all of these raids hit only the southern districts of Berlin; the administrative centre and the industrial areas which were mainly in the north were hardly touched. Now, in August 1943, after the shorter nights of summer, Harris was ready to start with his main effort against the German capital. The tonnage of bombs he would be able to deliver to Berlin in the coming winter would be more than fifteen times greater than the tonnage dropped in all of the preceding years of the war.

German historians stress how the slow expansion of the British bomber effort over the early years of the war enabled the German authorities to develop both the armed defences of their cities and the local air-raid services without ever being overwhelmed — at least, not until the recent disaster at Hamburg. Berlin, with its gradual introduction to the experience of being bombed and with the priorities afforded to a capital city, was particularly well prepared to meet the coming test.

The preparations received an urgent boost from the experiences of Hamburg three weeks earlier. Evacuation of children before then had been a voluntary matter; the result had not been effective, and many of the children sent away in the early days later returned. But after Hamburg, Goebbels, who besides being Minister of Propaganda was also Gauleiter of Berlin, ordered that all children and young mothers were to leave the city. Entire schools, children and teachers together, went off to the east, out of range of the British bombers. The school buildings thus emptied would become valuable emergency hospitals and collecting centres for the people bombed out of their homes in the coming raids. Because of the pressure on the railways, this mass evacuation was not complete by the time the first R.A.F. raids came, but it continued with even more urgency after the first series of raids and would be complete before the Battle of Berlin was resumed in November. A total of 790,000 women and children left, an exodus which saved many lives and reduced the pressure on Berlin's services during the main battle. This was in direct contrast to the recent Hamburg experience, when the children of that city had figured prominently in the huge death toll.

Berlin was and still is a city of flats (apartments to Americans), vast numbers of four-, five- or six-storeyed blocks filling street after street, and it would be in these flats and in their basements and courtyards that the outcome of the battle would be decided. The life of Hamburg had been temporarily stopped because its housing had been destroyed by fire. In those August days, the people of Berlin worked hard to learn the lessons of Hamburg and make their homes as fireproof as possible. Each family in a block had a partitioned section of the building's attic; now, all belongings had to be removed from these, and the Todt Organisation then came and ripped down the partitioned walls of the attics to enable incendiary bombs to be reached. Fresh supplies were added to the sand and water which every family was obliged to have in their flat and corridor. Berlin was particularly well equipped with air-raid shelters. As in London, the underground railway stations- in Berlin the U-Bahn - provided deep and safe shelter for thousands of people. But the Berliners had an advantage over the people of London; every block of flats had a large basement area and these became sturdy air-raid shelters for the families upstairs. No German city dweller of the war years will forget the countless hours spent with their neighbours in those basement shelters. To avoid being trapped in a shelter by rubble-blocked exits, holes were knocked through the walls separating each basement. These holes were then re-covered, to preserve the privacy of each shelter, but only with a thin layer of easily removable bricks. In this way, the people in a threatened shelter could move from one basement to another, the whole length of a street if necessary, to find an unblocked exit.

Again, comparison can be made with both London and Hamburg. Berlin was a more modern city, the streets of its residential districts were wider, with more room for an incendiary-bomb attack to waste itself and less chance of the rubble blocking the streets to fire-engines or of fire leaping from one side of the street to the other. There were more open spaces. There were no streets of the flimsy terraced houses which had suffered so badly from high explosive bombs in the London 'Blitz', and the Berlin blocks of flats were acknowledged to be of sounder construction than those in Hamburg which had burnt so fiercely in the Firestorm.

Then there were the Flak and the searchlights - the armed defence of the city. Berlin was known to all Bomber Command men as 'the Big City' because of the extent of that defence. Flying Officer R. E. Luke, of 426 Squadron, was a bomb aimer who had to fly over Berlin.

[The ranks and squadrons of R.A.F. contributors are those of the Battle of Berlin period.]

The murmur which swept through the briefing room when the target map of Berlin was revealed paid tribute to the severity of the defences, which, particularly on a cloudless night, struck fear into the hearts of those crews ordered to attack it. It seemed to us that only the best German personnel were posted to defend the city. An enormous cone of searchlights ringed the city, which could be seen a long way off, and it did not seem possible to breach them. In all our thirty-three operations we encountered no target more heavily defended than Berlin.

Flight Lieutenant R. B. Leigh was another bomb aimer, in 156 Squadron.

Lying in the nose of a Lancaster on a visual bomb run over Berlin was probably the most frightening experience of my lifetime. Approaching the target, the city appeared to be surrounded by rings of searchlights, and the Flak was always intense. The run-up seemed endless, the minutes of flying 'straight and level' seemed like hours and every second I expected to be blown to pieces. I sweated with fear, and the perspiration seemed to freeze on my body.

A Bomber Command map of the period shows that the Flak area around Berlin measured forty miles across, and the searchlight belt around it was sixty miles wide! Certainly no other target in Germany was better defended than Berlin, though some Bomber Command men say that the Ruhr defences were of comparable strength.

Some aspects of the Berlin defences are of particular interest. The Flak defences had been installed early in the war, with an outer and an inner ring of guns. When the R.A.F. started to use a 'bomber stream' this system was no longer suitable, and the guns now operated under combined control and simply filled various ordered sections of the sky with a box barrage, although bombers which arrived early, stragglers or those caught in searchlights could still be engaged by aimed fire. The main feature of the old inner ring of guns was twenty-four massive 128-millimetre guns mounted in pairs on three Flak towers built in parks in the Zoo, Friedrichshain and Humboldthain districts. These guns had been developed by the local Borsigwerke factory. The eight guns on each tower could fire a salvo every ninety seconds, to a maximum ceiling of 45,000 feet (14,800 metres) and, when the eight shells exploded in the planned pattern, they had a lethal zone of 260 yards (240 metres) across. The gun platform crews on the towers were all trained German soldiers, unlike most German Flak batteries which had many pressed Russian prisoners and German schoolboys in their crews; the only Russians were down in the basement ammunition chambers, loading the shell hoists. Many of the gunners on the towers were from a Hamburg unit with much to avenge.

The construction of the towers themselves, by the Todt Organisation on plans by Speer, had commenced as early as 1940. Hitler wished to show the people of Berlin and of the world that the city was 'Fortress Berlin' which would survive the war and last forever. Hamburg and Vienna were the only other places to be blessed with such massive edifices. The Flak towers in Berlin were to be the first buildings of the proposed post-war remodelled city named Germania which would replace old Berlin. The towers had thick concrete walls, steel windows, air-conditioning and an independent Daimler-Benz generating plant six metres underground. All had a hospital floor, and the Zoo tower had one level in which the most valuable of Berlin's art treasures were stored. The local residents were, at first, not happy to see their parks disfigured in this way but they were later to be well pleased when certain levels in the towers were thrown open to the public as air-raid shelters. The Humboldthain tower had passages leading to the nearby Gesundbrunnen Station, one of the deepest of the U-Bahn system. Up to 21,000 people at a time would take shelter in the combined tower and U-Bahn during the coming winter.

Another interesting aspect of Berlin's anti-bomber defences is the extent of the decoy methods employed. Decoy fire sites were a feature of every German city, but Berlin is believed to have had fifteen such sites, including one particularly large one at Staaken, on the western approaches to the city, which was based on the sets of a prewar film studio. One wartime schoolboy Flakhilfer asked me about the wartime rumour that one night several bombers separated from the main stream and dropped some wooden bombs on the Staaken decoy site!

There was another, more serious 'decoy' story I was told in Berlin that I had not encountered before. The Germans realized that the lakes around Berlin were an important aid to the British H2S radar operators. Consideration was given during the summer of 1943 to covering over these lakes to prevent their distinctive radar reflections being used by the bombers. This was not possible because of the amount of material required, but the Germans did produce large numbers of timbered floats, each in a cruciform shape about five metres across, which were moored at about 300-yard intervals, certainly on the Tegeler See and probably on the Havel too. These two large lakes were on the westerly route into Berlin. The effectiveness of these floats — called Tripel- Spiegel— is not known, but they may have contributed to the difficulties encountered by the Pathfinders in establishing their positions on the marking runs into Berlin that winter.

So Berlin - with its tough population of mainly Prussian stock, its great war factories and government buildings, its stoutly constructed housing, its gradual introduction to the bombing war, its well established fire and air-raid services, its Flak towers and underground shelters, its powerful gun and searchlight defences, its range of decoy devices — Berlin awaited the arrival of the bombers.

By MARTIN MIDDLEBROOK

The howitzer that was to become the 105-mm M2A1 was planned during 1919, but the first example was not ready until 1939. Thereafter it was produced in thousands and became the standard US Army field artillery howitzer. Rugged and basically simple, it was able to withstand all manner of use.

Janice E. McKenney.  Organizational History of Field Artillery, 1775-2003.  Washington DC Center of Military History, United States Army, 2007.  xviii + 394 pp.  $44.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-16-077114-9; $42.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-16-077115-6.

Reviewed by Boyd L. Dastrup

Published on H-War (December, 2008)

Commissioned by Janet G. Valentine

Organized to Fight

Over the years, the U.S. Army's Field Artillery has played a critical role in combat.  At the Battle of Trenton on December 25, 1776, during the American Revolution, Continental Army field cannons commanded by Captain Alexander Hamilton cleared the streets of Hessian soldiers.  Two years later on June 28, 1778, American field guns drove the British from the field at the Battle of Monmouth.

Almost sixty years afterward, at Palo Alto on May 8, 1846, American gunners under Major Samuel Ringgold and Captain James Duncan viciously repelled Mexican attacks at the outset of the Mexican War of 1846-48.  In these battles and others, including those of Operation Desert Storm of 1991 and Operation Iraqi Freedom during the first years of the twenty-first century, American field artillery played a key role in defeating enemy ground forces.  Such actions have attracted the attention of numerous historians.  Frank E. Comparato's _Age of Great Guns: Cannon Kings and Cannoneers Who Forged the Firepower of Artillery_ (1965), Fairfax Downey's _Sound of the Guns: The Story of American Artillery from the Ancient and Honorable Company to the Atom Cannon and Guided Missile_ (1955), and Robert H. Scales's _Firepower in Limited Wars_ (1990), to name a few, focus on battles and leaders, and the accomplishments of field artillery in action.

Former Chief of the Organizational History Branch, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Janice E. McKenney approaches the history of field artillery from a different perspective.  Rather than concentrating on battles, she examines the Field Artillery's organization since its creation in 1775, making her book a unique contribution to the literature that complements William E. Birkhimer's _Historical Sketch of the Organization, Administration, Materiel and Tactics of the Artillery, U.S. Army_ (1884), and Boyd L. Dastrup's _King of Battle: A Branch History of the U.S. Army's Field Artillery_ (1992).  With this focus, McKenney takes the reader behind the scenes.  She writes about staffing, training, organizing, and equipping field artillery units during peacetime and preparing them for battle. These activities, although unglamorous, provided the Field Artillery with the ability to supply effective fire support on the battlefield.  The author concentrates on different people than the more traditional histories about field artillery in combat.

The author, therefore, discusses the contributions of Captain Alfred Mordecai who served on a board to examine foreign artillery during the early 1840s.  The board's report, better known as the Mordecai report, detailed smoothbore artillery material with exact detail and specification, and divided American artillery into siege, coast, fortress, and field.  His system was eventually approved for adoption by the secretary of war in 1849.  Almost forty years later, the American army introduced its first steel field guns.  Here, the author examines the work of Brigadier General Stephen V. Benét, the chief of the Ordnance Department.  Under his direction, the Ordnance Department developed the M1885 3.2 inch steel field gun mounted on a steel carriage.  Although it gave the American army a long-range, powerful cannon, the M1885 still failed to keep pace with smokeless powder steel breechloaders with on-carriage recoil systems being introduced by the Europeans.

McKenney discusses the evolution of equipment, including the adoption of nuclear field artillery cannons, rockets, and missiles in the 1950s; precision munitions in the 1990s; and automated fire control systems, such as the Field Artillery Digital Automated Computer, the Tactical Fire Direction System, and the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System.  In addition, she writes about the creation of the Corps of Artillery in 1901, and the separation of the Coast Artillery from the Field Artillery in 1907 as advocated by Brigadier General Joseph P. Story, chief of Artillery.  He saw the need for organizing the Field Artillery into battalions and regiments to bring it into line with the lessons learned from the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.  These actions placed the Field Artillery on equal footing with the Coast Artillery for the first time in American military history.  Beginning in 1775, when McKenney begins her analysis, with few exceptions, the Coast Artillery received most of the attention and funding because it was the country's first line of defense against an enemy naval attack.

Other of her unsung heroes are Major Carlos Brewer, Major Orlando Ward, and Lieutenant Colonel H. L. C. Jones who were directors of the Gunnery Department at the Field Artillery School in the 1930s.  With assistance from their instructors, these individuals' efforts led to the development of the fire direction center, a critical breakthrough that permitted shifting and massing fires effectively and responsively on the battlefields of World War II and after.  Major General David E. Ott, the commandant of the Field Artillery School in the 1970s is another key figure.  Under his supervision, the school developed the fire support team that revolutionized forward observation by making it organic to maneuver units for the first time.

Weighing over 30 tons, the US 240-mm howitzer originated from a project begun after World War I, but little progress had been made before 1940, and America had been at war 18 months before the 240-mm weapon was ready. However, once in action it proved very useful against German emplacements in Italy and north west Europe.

By discussing the evolution of equipment, organization, training, and staffing through 2003, McKenney's book adds a critical dimension by going beyond reciting the story of field artillery in battle, and furnishes a much needed corrective to the history of the American army's Field Artillery.  Equally as important, she examines the relationship between the Coast Artillery and the Field Artillery when they formed composite artillery regiments between 1775 and 1901.

In telling the history of artillery, McKenney takes the story from the days when small guns were attached to infantry brigades for close support to battalions or brigades, and concludes her analysis at the beginning of the twenty-first century when division and corps artilleries dominated field artillery organization, and when precision munitions were becoming more widespread to give the Field Artillery the ability to hit within six meters of a target to destroy it with a minimal amount of collateral damage. She also notes that the creation of brigade combat teams with their organic field artillery battalions replaced the division as the army's chief fighting organization, and, thus, decentralized Field Artillery operations.

McKenney does a solid job of describing how field artillery is organized to fight, how the fire direction center ties the firing batteries together into a team to facilitate massing fires on targets, and how the forward observer is tied to the fire direction center.  This explanation certainly gives readers without any background in field artillery organization and operations a fundamental understanding of the branch and its role on the battlefield.  Without a question, her book should occupy a spot on the bookshelf of any serious student of the Field Artillery.

Distressed by high taxes, corrupt local officials, and the recent loss of Normandy, the commons of Kent, led by a man named Jack (or John) Cade, rose in rebellion in the summer of 1450. Because HENRYVI and his advisors suspected that Richard PLANTAGENET, duke of York, had instigated the uprising, and because York later incorporated many of the rebels’ complaints into his criticism of the government, Jack Cade’s Rebellion is often seen as a prelude to the WARS OF THE ROSES.

In late May 1450, only weeks after the murder of the king’s unpopular chief minister, William de la POLE, duke of Suffolk, a large body of men from the towns and villages of Kent gathered at Blackheath, across the Thames from LONDON, to demand redress of various grievances. Composed of rural peasants, artisans, and tradesmen from the towns, and a small group of clergy and landowning GENTRY, the Kentish rebels were, at least initially, well organized and disciplined. Their elected leader was the mysterious Jack Cade, who also went by the names John Mortimer and John Amendalle. Although he was probably seeking only to attract the duke’s supporters to his cause, Cade’s use of the name Mortimer— the family name of York’s mother—led the government to seriously consider the possibility that York was somehow involved in the rebellion. The rebels denied any connection with York, but their demand that the king rid himself of all advisors linked to the late Suffolk and turn instead to princes of the blood like York only heightened the government’s suspicions. The idea that York was behind the Cade uprising, although generally rejected today, became a commonplace of Tudor PROPAGANDA and was even suggested by William Shakespeare in his HENRY VI, PART 2 (see SHAKESPEARE ANDTHEWARS OF THE ROSES).

Thanks to the obscurity of Cade’s background, and perhaps to government attempts to discredit Cade, rumors soon circulated that the rebel leader was an Irishman related to York, that he was a black magician, and that he had once fled the realm after murdering a pregnant woman. Whatever Cade’s history, his manner impressed the royal councilors who met him, and the rebel manifesto crafted under his leadership—the “Complaint of the Commons of Kent”—displayed his skill as a propagandist. Comprising fifteen articles, the “Complaint” focused on the corrupt practices of the king’s officials in Kent, who were charged with extortion, perversion of justice, and election fraud. The commons also called for an inquiry into the loss of Normandy and into the misappropriation of royal funds by the king’s household servants.

In early June, after submitting their “Complaint” to the COUNCIL, the rebels obeyed an order to withdraw from Blackheath. However, when an advance party of the royal army followed them into Kent, the rebels ambushed and destroyed their pursuers. At news of this repulse, a nervous council committed Lord Saye, the hated former sheriff of Kent, and William Cromer, the equally unpopular current sheriff, to the TOWER OF LONDON. The king then withdrew from the capital. On 4 July, the Londoners, who were sympathetic to many of the rebels’ grievances, allowed Cade and his followers to enter the city, where they immediately seized and executed Saye and Cromer. On the night of 5 July, as the rebels grew more disorderly, the citizens, assisted by the Tower garrison under Thomas SCALES, Lord Scales, drove the insurgents from the city and recaptured London Bridge. This action allowed the council to issue a free pardon on 8 July, and most of the rebels returned home. After invalidating his pardon by attempting to seize Queenborough Castle, Cade was killed on 12 July while resisting arrest. Although the rebellion was over, Cade’s name continued to spark unrest in Kent for almost a decade, and the rebels’ grievances lived on as the basis of York’s opposition to a royal government from which he felt himself excluded.

Further Reading: Griffiths, Ralph A., The Reign of King Henry VI (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981); Harvey, I. M.W., Jack Cade’s Rebellion of 1450 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991);Wolffe, Bertram, Henry VI (London: Eyre Methuen, 1981).

A–Z OF TERMS

ADULTERINE CASTLES

Built without official permission when kings and princes sought to control castle building. They claimed rendability—that castles in their area must be handed over if demanded. Many baronial castles were built in the civil war under Stephen without permission and are called adulterine. Henry II claimed the right to destroy them. Later licences were issued for crenellation or fortifying buildings.

ARCHÈRES

Arrow loops, slits in fortified buildings for archers to shoot through, often made by leaving a narrow space between adjacent stones. They allowed the defending archer a good range and protected him. The shapes varied to accommodate various weapons, including crossbows. Usually they were narrow on the outside, sloping to give space to the archer inside.

ARTILLERY

Various engines used to hurl, shoot or fire missiles. Medieval artillery consisted of a range of engines, including balistas, catapults, mangonels, trebuchets and cannons.  Artillery could be used in battle and sieges, for attack and defence. The two main medieval developments were the invention of trebuchets using counterweights and cannons using gunpowder.

ASHLAR

Prepared stone for building—usually cut, squared or shaped, and smoothed. Ashlar is a sign of more carefully constructed buildings. It is thought the term meant being like a prepared timber or beam.

BAILEY

A castle enclosure, courtyard or ward. In a motte and bailey castle the bailey was the larger and lower enclosure. Castles often had two enclosures. Some had a motte with two baileys, some had inner and outer zv3 00 baileys, some had more than two, perhaps inner, central and outer.

BALEARIC SLING

A weapon noted for its speed. Richard the Lionheart was said to move more swiftly than one. The nature of it is uncertain, and it is not clear whether the speed refers to quickness in use or speed of missile through the air. It was presumably operated by a sling, probably an engine rather than a simple sling. Since the trebuchet worked by a sling it is possible that these were early trebuchets. It is thought they originated in the Balearic islands, and the term was certainly used with this sense, but this is possibly a mistake with the term originating from Greek ballo via Latin baleare (to throw).  ‘Balearic’ in the Middle Ages was also used to mean satanic.

BALISTA (BALLISTA)

A shooting or throwing engine, otherwise a catapult. The name came from Greek ballo, Latin baleare—to throw. The Latin term balista could be either a crossbow or a catapult. The catapult operated like a crossbow, with a mechanism to wind back a string that, when released, shot a missile placed in its groove. Medieval chroniclers were often imprecise over names for engines. They often used this term for stone-throwing engines in general.

BARBICAN

Outwork of a castle or town defences, usually protecting the gate or sometimes a bridge over a moat. Its main purpose was to make entrance more difficult. It was often a carefully fortified walled passage to the entrance, commonly open to the air to allow defenders to attack from above those entering. Barbicanawas a medieval Latin word, its origin unknown.

BASTIDE

In origin a new town, but mostly seen as a small, strongly fortified settlement. The medieval Latin term was bastida, our form being from French (from which bastille also derives). In modern French bastidemeans a country house or shooting lodge. Themedieval bastide was a concept from 13th-century France. Edward I built over 50 bastides in English-held Gascony. Bastides were usually rectangular with a central square.

BASTION

A projecting mural tower, earthwork or structure from which the curtain wall can be defended. In early modern forts the bastion was commonly angled. The term is from Latin bastire, to build.

BELFRY

A siege tower on wheels used against town or castle walls, constructed to the height of the wall or greater. It was pushed close to the wall so men on it could use weapons against the defenders. A bridge could be lowered from the belfry to the wall so that the castle or town could be entered. The belfry could protect men mining the foot of a wall.  Belfries were usually made from wood in several storeys. Wet matting or skins might cover the wood against fire. Belfries date from ancient times and were common in medieval sieges, as at Lisbon, Mallorca or against Constantinople.

BERGFRIED

A high slender tower, like a keep, found in some German castles. It translates as ‘peace tower’ but probably derives from the same base as belfry. It probably originated with the Roman watchtower and stood in isolation. Later it was often incorporated into a castle.

BERM

The space at the foot of the castle wall, a platform in front of the ditch or moat. It could offer a space for attackers to use for mining. Late castles used it as a gun platform for defence. The term probably means brim.

BORE

A device for demolishing walls, similar to a battering ram but with a pointed end zv3 01 (usually of metal) to pierce gaps between stones.

BRATTICE (BRETÈCHE)

The same as hoarding, work in wood overhanging the top of a wall—a breastwork or gallery—allowing defenders to deal with attackers below. Machicolation was stonework with the same function. ‘Brattice’ was sometimes applied to any wooden work in the defences.

BRIGOLA (BRIGOLE)

A Saracen engine mentioned by Jaime I of Aragón. It had a beam, cords and a box and was probably a trebuchet.

CANNON

A medieval invention that revolutionised warfare. Cannons appeared in the west in the 14th century though gunpowder was known in the previous century. The 1326 Milemete Manuscript shows a cannon shaped like a vase, shooting a bolt rather than a ball.  Cannons became more efficient and by the late Middle Ages were essential in battle and siege. The Bureau brothers in France improved cannons during the Hundred Years’ War. They were produced in a variety of types and sizes, for example, bombards, serpentines, crapaudins, mortars and ribaudequins. By the end of the Middle Ages large cannons were produced, as by the Turks at Constantinople. The word comes from Greek kanun via Latin canna,meaning a tube.

CASTELLAN

The holder of a castle, generally holding it on behalf of a king or prince. In the 10th and 11th centuries central authority was less dominant and some castellans were virtually independent.

CASTLE-GUARD

A feudal obligation to defend a castle for a specified period as service to a lord—a means by which lords could garrison their own castles. The service was often performed on a rota system.

CAT (WELSH CAT)

A covered roof on wheels to shelter men so they could approach walls, as for mining.  It was sometimes attached to the wall by iron nails. Other names for the same device were mouse, sow and tortoise. One at Lisbon in the Second Crusade had a roof of osiers; a group of youths from Ipswich moved it in the wake of a siege tower. One at Toulouse in 1218 had an interior platform and housed 400 knights plus 150 archers.

CATAPULT

An engine used from ancient times, shooting missiles by a string drawn by mechanical means, otherwise a balista. The missile was normally a large bolt placed in the groove of the machine.

COMBUSTIBLES

Fire was much used in siege warfare, especially against wooden structures. Hurling fire in one form or another was common practice, whether as fire-arrows, Greek Fire in jars, or bundles of flaming material such as tow. Fire-wheels were used in the Baltic crusade and in Malta against the Turks: a wheel or hoop covered with pitch or other combustible material and bowled against the enemy.

CONCENTRIC CASTLES

Castles with more than one surrounding curtain wall. The development towards this was gradual through the 12th century in France, England and the Holy Land. The concept reached its height with Master James of St George for Edward I on his Welsh castles, such as Beaumaris. The inner walls were higher than the outer so that attackers gaining the intervening ward could be dealt with from above.

COUNTER CASTLES (SIEGE CASTLES)

Structures to shelter besiegers against sorties and relief attempts, including temporary castles. Sometimes two or more were built against one target. William the Conqueror built counter castles against Brionne in the mid-11th century—William zv3 02 of Poitiers calls them castella. The counter castle at Faringdon in 1145 had a rampart and stockade. That from the same period excavated at Bentley in Hampshire was similar to a motte and bailey castle.

CRAKKIS

Probably cannons, used by Edward III against the Scots in the 14th century, referred to as ‘crakkis of war’.

CRENELLATION

The parapet on top of a castle or town wall, the battlements. The term comes from the French for embrasure. The familiar shape is of rectangular stone pieces (merlons) alternating with rectangular gaps (embrasures or crenels), thus giving a toothed effect.Defenders could shelter behind the stone pieces and shoot through the gaps. In England crenellation became the symbol of fortification, and a royal licence was required to crenellate a building.

CURTAIN

It has two senses, either the outer enclosing wall of a castle, or the wall joining two towers. The curtain was often strengthened with corner and mural towers.

DONJON

The stronghold of a castle, in England usually called the keep. Its meaning is the tower of a lord. It is the origin of the term dungeon but did not originally mean a prison.

DRAWBRIDGE

A bridge crossing a ditch or moat that could be lowered or raised. Its function was to make entrance difficult by rapidly raising it against undesired entrants. Drawbridges were usually of wood and commonly used.

EN BEC

A beak or projection of a rounded tower. It was a method of strengthening the base of a tower, especially against mining.

FONEVOL

A throwing engine. The name was used of engines used by Raymond of Toulouse in 1190 and by Jaime I of Aragón in the 13th century. The word probably derives from funda meaning sling and was probably a trebuchet.

FOREBUILDING

A structure before the entrance of a keep making the entrance more secure. It acted as a guardhouse. Attackers could not enter the keep without forcing the forebuilding. Entrance to the keep was often at first floor level by external steps enclosed within the forebuilding.

FUNDA

Latin for a siege engine, meaning ‘sling’, suggesting a trebuchet. The term was however used in 800 at Barcelona and 885 at Paris. Either a type of trebuchet appeared earlier than is thought, or the early term meant a hand sling or another engine.

GREEK FIRE

A combustible material. It could not easily be removed and, on impact, exploded into flames. It was invented for the Byzantines by Kallinikos in the 7th century and used at sea, especially in defence of Constantinople, as in 941 against the Rus. The Greeks shot it from a siphon or from catapults. Later its use was extended to land warfare and to other peoples. The Turks used it during the Crusades. Its first recorded use in western Europe was by Geoffrey V of Anjou at Montreuil-Bellay in 1151. He placed it in jars and hurled it from throwing engines. The recipe for Greek Fire was a secret and there were variant formulae in its manufacture, some of which have been preserved. The major constituent was naphtha.

HOARDING

Wooden defences attached to a defended wall, the same as brattice-work. Hoarding made a gallery projecting over the wall with gaps through its floor. It protected defenders on top of the wall and allowed zv3 03 missiles, oil etc to be dropped on attackers. Machicolation produced the same effect in stone. It was also a way to heighten walls against belfries.

KEEP

The stronghold of a castle, otherwise the donjon, normally a free-standing tower. Early castles usually had a keep on the motte or mound, surrounded by ditch and palisade. It might be wooden but there were early stone keeps, It was normally the residence of the lord of the castle. Early keeps were usually rectangular and on several storeys, with residential quarters and storage space. It was often built over a well to guarantee water supply. The top might have battlements. The entrance was often at first floor level, protected by a forebuilding. Later keeps were round or polygonal and sometimes were incorporated into the castle wall. Keep is an English term first used in the 16th century.

MACHICOLATION

Stone defence for the top of a wall, with the same function as wooden hoarding. It provided a gallery at the top of the wall, projecting over it and with gaps through the floor for defenders to hurl missiles or drop stones, oil etc. It became common in the later Middle Ages. It derives from French machicoulis,referring to the gaps in the floor.

MANGONEL

A type of throwing engine, from manga or mangana, meaning such an engine, probably from Greekmangano meaning crush or squeeze, i.e. ‘a crusher’. Mangonels were usually relatively small. They worked by torsion from twisted ropes, with a spoonlike arm that revolved on release. The arm hit a cross bar causing the stone or object in the cup of the arm to be released. Mangonels date from ancient times and were used throughout the Middle Ages. Medieval chroniclers used terms in a confusing manner and could call any type of engine a mangonel.

MANTLET

A roofed protection for besiegers. The cat was a type of mantlet. The mantlet could be on wheels or it could be a portable roof. It protected those under it performing operations like mining. A mantlet could cover a smaller weapon, like a ram or bore, while it operated. (A mantlet wall was a defensive wall, generally low, around a tower.)

MERLON

Merlons were the stone teeth in battlements or crenellation. The term comes from merlo meaning battlement.

MEUTRIÈRES

‘Murder holes’, gaps in the floor of a chamber over a gatehouse or passage through which missiles or oil etc. could be dropped on attackers.

MINING

A common way to attack a wall or tower, usually by tunnelling under it, using wooden posts to replace the material removed. The posts would be fired and hopefully the structure would collapse. Counter mines might be built by defenders, allowing an attack on the miners in situ. Bores were useful for picking the initial hole in the wall to be mined. It was common to begin a tunnel at a distance to hide the intention. If the base of the wall was mined directly the operation could be covered, perhaps by a mantlet. At Caen in 1417 bowls of water were placed on the walls so that mining activity would disturb the water and warn the defenders.

MOAT

Defensive ditch around a tower, enclosure or castle, either wet or dry, though we normally mean a ditch filled with water. A moat made it more difficult to attack or climb the castle wall. In the late Middle Ages moats were made broader to keep cannons at a distance. 

MOTTE

The main defensive mound of an earthwork castle, as in a motte and bailey castle, from French for a mound. Often a natural hill or height was used, sometimes shaped.  Otherwise the motte could be constructed by hand, as at Hastings by William the Conqueror, illustrated on the Bayeux Tapestry. A keep of wood or stone was often built on the motte. Sometimes the motte was built around a tower. The origin of mottes is obscure. Possibly they were developed in the wars between Franks and Vikings, combining the existing fortification techniques of both sides.

PARAPET

A low wall at breast height, a breastwork. In the Middle Ages it was used for the top section added to a defensive wall. It usually projected outside the wall and protected a wall-walk. Crenellation could form a parapet.

PATERELL

A small throwing engine. Henry of Livonia refers to their use in the Baltic crusade.  The probable derivation is from patera, meaning dish or cup, suggesting a form of mangonel.

PAVISE

A cover, shelter or screen for soldiers, especially archers. Pavises were often made of interwoven branches. A pavise could be like a shield set up on the ground before the man, supported by a prop. One chronicle describes pavises like doors that could be folded up with loopholes to shoot through.

PELE (PEEL)

A defensive and residential stone tower, sometimes with additional buildings, on the Scottish border. They compare to small keeps and were usually rectangular.

PETRARY (PETRARIA)

Literal general term for a stone-throwing engine, petraria in Latin. One hears of cords used for them but this would be true of almost any type of engine.

PORTCULLIS

Movable gate to block an entrance, from French, meaning ‘sliding gate’, commonly a grille of wood or metal lowered by chains or ropes in a groove. The lower struts were often pointed. Usually a chamber over the gate held winches to raise and lower it. It allowed a castle entrance to be shut rapidly against attack and was difficult to break through. Some gatehouses had two portcullises to trap those who entered first.

POSTERN

A lesser entrance or exit, rather like a back door. It might escape observation and allow secret or unexpected movement in and out.

RAM

A siege weapon for demolishing walls or gates, generally a log with a reinforced metal end. It was carried on a wheeled platform and swung from a beam on ropes or chains. It might have a protective roof. The ram was used in ancient times. During the Crusade ships’ masts were used as rams.

RAMPART

Defensive earthwork wall, normally dug with a ditch before it and possibly topped by a stockade or stone wall.

RAVELIN

Forward construction, an outwork, triangular in shape with the point facing outwards, a common feature in early modern forts.

RENDABILITY

The duty to surrender one’s castle to the feudal lord, an outcome of lords seeking to control castles in their region. They demanded that the castle should be rendered to them on request. It became a part of feudal agreements.

RIBAUDEQUIN (RIBAULD)

An early cannon, sometimes meaning simply ‘gun’. They were tube-shaped with touch-holes. Ribaudequins were sometimes fixed together in a line and fired as one. The word appears often in the 14th century. At Bruges there were ‘new engines called ribaulde’.

SCALING

The most common way to enter a castle or town, by climbing over the wall. All the obvious means were used, including ladders and ropes. Folding ladders and ladders of wood and leather were used. Ladders sometimes had hooks to grip on the wall. In 1453 the Turks brought 2,000 long ladders against Constantinople.

SCORPION

A small throwing engine, known from ancient times, scorpio in Latin, meaning a stinging insect, normally a form of balista to shoot bolts.

SOW (SCROPHA/PORCUS)

Term for a cat, a shelter for siege operations such as mining, apparently deriving from comparing men under the shelter to piglets suckling under their mother.

SPUR

Stone extension at the base of a tower, pointing outwards, to strengthen the tower against attack.

TALUS

A sloping extension at the foot of a tower or wall, otherwise a batter. The term originates from Latin for ‘ankle’.

TESTUDO

Device to protect attackers, from Latin for tortoise, referring to its protective shell. The Romans used the term for a group of men covering their backs with shields. In the Middle Ages a testudo was a roof to protect men under it, with a similar function to a mantlet or cat.

TREBUCHET

Counterweight throwing engine, a major medieval invention. A container for heavy materials was placed on one end of a whippy pole, a sling to hold the stone or other missile at the other end. The pole was on a pivot. The loaded end was winched down and released. The weight made the loaded end rise rapidly and eject its contents, the sling whipping over at the last minute to give added impetus. The trebuchet had considerable range and impact. The date of origin is unclear. An engine called a traction trebuchet confuses the picture but was not a trebuchet proper, lacking a counterweight and operating by traction. The counterweight trebuchet probably first appeared in the 12th century, became important in the 13thcentury and remained the major siege engine until the development of effective cannons. The word may mean a three-legged stool and derive from the usual appearance of trebuchets on triangular frames. Another explanation is that it means three-armed, a reference to the common practice of making the counterweight arm in three sections to strengthen it.

WARD

Walled enclosure within a castle, a bailey, meaning a guarded place.