"About Default Walled cities in the Napoleonic era" Topic

"I know that defending walled cities had fallen out of practice by the time gunpowder had become a staple in European armies by the year 1700s. But I have a few questions such as: was there ever a time during the Napoleonic Wars where a walled city was defended by the garrison on the walls while firing at them with a musket from above? Also, why was it that every time (especially for Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Moscow) that an army was marching on the capital, they didn't even bother to defend their city through the walls or on the streets?…"

From here

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Armand

There were a number of sieges during the wars, although they were mostly of the Vauban style fortifications rather than the older medieval curtain walls and castles. Unfortified villages and cities really were not very good defensive positions, so you don't see too many actions like that although there certainly were some.

There were a few attacks on medieval walled cities in the 1809 Austrian campaign. Ratisbon (or Regensberg) was one. Ebelsberg was another.

The capitals commonly capitulated to save the city from destruction. Moscow was a different situation. The Russians burnt it after vacating it to deny its benefits to the French..

The "rules of war" at the time seem to have allowed the attacker to justifiably loot the city if he had to fight to take it.

Also, it seems that once the attacker entered the city, the defender generally lost the fight.

Tom

I don't have my copy of Osprey's "Fortresses of the Peninsular War" handy, but you might find that several towns on both sides of the Portuguese frontier come close to meeting that description- I'm thinking of Badajoz, but Ciudad Rodrigo and Campo Mayor were similar. They had some of the Vauban-style outworks (glacis, covered way), but those protected medieval walls that had been somewhat updated, rather than a conventional artillery fortress (I seem to recall that Almeida was- but it covered the best invasion route into Portugal). These fortifications had basically been updated over the years, but by building on and around older fortifications, and updating them, rather than razing them and starting from bare ground.

India 1780-1806… many examples.

Thanks

Armand

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