Aristocratic Fury@LandsknechtPike
The early modern era saw the production of massive plan reliefs - scale models of cities, fortifications and surrounding landscape for military usage.
Venetians were the early pioneers of this in 16th century. But the French under Louis XIV took this on another level in 17th century, ordering a production of 140 1:600 scale models in 1688, in an aim to catalogue all the important military fortifications and border fortress-cities in France.
The finest military engineers of the realm such as Vauban took part in this project!
Close attention was paid to all the details.
In 1700, Louis XIV installed the huge collection of plan reliefs in the Louvre. These models could initially only be viewed by elite and were a sort of state secret, as they would provide important knowledge in an event of war.
A large number of such models was built during and after wars, to include newly captured cities and fortresses. Many new plan reliefs were made during the rule of Louis XV in 18th century, some of them to replace the old damage ones.
The construction of plan reliefs shows a new development in European military history. With the advent of siege artillery and bastion fort fortifications, it became hugely important for European states to upgrade their key fortresses and ensure that their strategic cities and towns were fortified enough to endure an enemy assault. Topographic features were studied and sieges were meticulously planned!
It also shows the centralization of European states, which felt the need to have their military capabilities carefully catalogued, helping them to better devise a grand strategy to protect their borders against all threats, studying the possible weak points.
After the fall of Ancien Regime, the production of plan reliefs was revived by Napoleon who ordered the construction of many new ones.
These plan reliefs could also end up in enemy hands, captured as spoils of war. This happened in 1814 when Prussians took 17 models with them to Berlin.
The production of plan reliefs continued into 19th century, but they would eventually be rendered obsolete by 1870 as military technology developed further and artillery became even more powerful, too powerful for the old bastion fort fortifications.
Fortunately, many of the old plan reliefs survived to this day and are stored in the Musée des Plans-Reliefs where they could be observed by curious visitors.
