Casemate 77

Conserving the Enlightenment: French Military Engineering from Vauban to the Revolution:

Janis Langins. HB, 23x17.5cm, 568pp. 40 contemporary illustrations. ISBN 0.262.12258.8. £35.95. Published by The MIT Press, Dec 2003.

Janis Langins is a professor at the University of Toronto and this book must be the only one available in English on the origins and early history of the French military engineering corps. The book is divided into four parts:

Part I. Three chapters on the birth of classical artillery fortifications and the beginnings of the profession of military engineering under Vauban.

Part II. Looks at daily life of the military engineer in peace and war.

Part III. The greater part and the main thrust of the book, is devoted to the life of and the crisis created within the profession by Marc-René, Marquis de Montalembert, a cavalry officer and amateur engineer, who challenged the prevailing wisdom with a new method of fortification.

Part IV. Looks at the final stages of the polemic with Montalembert into the period of the French Revolution.

There is an extensive bibliography.

Montalembert's timber fort at Aix. (Massey Library, Royal Military College of Canada).

At 433pp of text and only essential illustrations this book is quite a daunting read; it nevertheless covers the subject of military engineering from a rather different angle than members of the FSG might be accustomed to. I personally found it extremely interesting and bit of a revelation to learn that only one fort was built to the design theories of Montalembert during his lifetime, and that only in timber, on Île d'Aix (illustrated on pp 309/310).

Steve Butler.