Firearms and Fortifications: Military Architecture and Siege Warfare in Sixteenth-Century Siena by Simon Pepper, Nicholas Adams

Abstract

138 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Firearms and Fortifications: Military Architecture and Siege Warfare in Sixteenth-Century Siena. By Simon Pepper and Nicholas Adams. Chi­ cago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Pp. xxiv+245; illustra­ tions, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95. Technological success and social success can be very different. This is the lesson that emerges from Firearms and Fortifications: Mili­ tary Architecture and Siege Warfare in Sixteenth-Century Siena, by Simon Pepper and Nicholas Adams. The advent of siege artillery trig­ gered a technical contest between cannon and improved fortifica­ tions. Gunners increased the mobility and striking power of their pieces while architects redesigned medieval defenses to meet gun­ powder. The architects clearly won this contest. Sixteenth-century Siena had neither the time nor resources to completely transform its medieval defenses, so the ruling republic reinforced vulnerable points often with earthworks and incomplete bastions. During the War of Siena (1552—55), these improvised defenses passed the test of Spanish artillery. The incomplete defenses of Montalcino turned back a Spanish army, and the walls of Siena were never breached by gunfire. Forts and walls fell only to infantry assault, largely with­ out artillery support. Walls were cost effective in total and at the mar­ gin. Though exact figures are not available, Pepper and Adams show that the expense of maintaining a besieging force far ex­ ceeded the cost of the walls. The depth of the authors’ detail is im­ pressive and their logic is excellent. However, they give us too much on bricks and mortar, when we need to know more about the people who built these bastions. Despite the economy and success of its walls, the Sienese Repub­ lic was defeated in an almost matter-of-fact manner. In social terms, the republic lost its independence as soon as it started to re­ sist. The Sienese faction that fought the Spanish began by inviting in the French, and the citizens’ committee formed to destroy the hated Spanish citadel actually incorporated it into the new FrancoSienese defenses. Sir Charles Oman correctly concluded that Siena fell because France could not maintain a field army in central Italy. Spain had the resources to cut the city off from its rural base, and Siena starved behind its almost perfect defenses. The Spanish won Siena by investing superior resources in infe­ rior technology. In Flanders, the Spanish pushed this same policy to the point of bankruptcy. Geoffrey Parker’s The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road 1567—1659 shows how the failure to storm fixed defenses actually led to greater investment in guns and in­ fantry. Today firepower has increased and fixed fortifications have de­ clined, even though walls continue to resist guns. The last major bat­ tle over a brick and bastion citadel was the battle of Hue (1968). The United States expended more firepower in Vietnam than in TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 139 any other war, yet Hue did not fall to bombardment or smart bombs. Hue was taken and retaken the way the Spanish took Port’Ercole (1555) in the War of Siena, by infantry assaults. Since Hue, the United States has shifted resources away from com­ bat infantry and toward esoteric weapons that are seldom employed and often have no combat function. This shift away from infantry has nothing to do with technological efficiency. Wars around the globe are still being won and lost by infantry, though at a terrible human cost. For social and political reasons the United States is not willing to pay that cost. The battle for Hue produced a classic photo­ graph of an APC loaded with Marine casualties, an image difficult to sell on TV. Clean animated pictures of high-tech weapons that may not even exist have proved easier to market. Rodrigo Garcia y Robertson Dr. Garcia y Robertson is currently writing on the effect of arms control on 20thcentury weapons technology. His article “Failure of the Heavy Gun at Sea, 1898— 1922” appeared in the July 1987 issue of Technology and Culture. Makers of Modem Strategy: From. Machiaveili to the Nuclear Age. Edited by Peter Paret. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986. Pp. vii+941; notes, bibliography, index. $55.00...