A Case Study of the Perfect Siege of Ath 1697

[@SandRhomanHistory]

Hey, no sponsor, so we get to write something here for once: Thanks for watching our videos, truly! Especially to all of you who stuck around for many years. We do take note whenever you guys comment! The last couple of years have been a blast and we're more than happy with how things seem to evolve here on the channel. For the near future, we have sone exciting stuff planned. We will finish our studies (Roman his master at Uni, Sandro his teacher training) this summer which will give us more time to start more ambitious projects which should be fun for you as well. As for this video, if you could kindly leave a comment and a like, we would be grateful. The Algorithm has been hard to animated history in the last couple of months, not just to us but also to the likes of the Armchair Historian or Invicta, Likes and comments always help boost a video and to be honest, we kinda need it! If you want to support us even further, please check out the options below! Patreon (thank you): www.patreon.com/sandrhomanhis... Prints & T-Shirts: sandrhoman.creator-spring.com/ Paypal (thank you: www.paypal.com/paypalme/SandR... Twitter: twitter.com/Sandrhoman

[@simon2493]

I have two question, will be covering 19 and 20 century fortifications, and if you are well versed in this topic can you recommend me some books?

[@dukesilver702]

I love bastion forts so much I want to take them behind the middle school and get them pregnant.

[@SandRhomanHistory]

@@simon2493 hmmm, maybe at some point but not any time soon. Can't really recommend books on that as we haven't read up on that topic!

[@GarfieldRex]

Many congratulations and greetings from Colombia 🇨🇴😁 best historic warfare channel around.

[@gabrielcurraj3994]

How to build the "perfect" star shaped fortress

[@oldrabbit8290]

we move from the era of "the staggering siege of.." to the era of "the lightning siege of".. I still remember sieges that take years, if not decades, with dozens of thousands of deaths.. It is truly a revolution of siege warfare..

[@SandRhomanHistory]

haha, if we ever cover an individual siege of that era we would definitely have to change the title format!

[@gratefulguy4130]

You must be a very old rabbit to remember those sieges. 🐰🧙‍♂️

[@FusionCoreHoarder]

​@@SandRhomanHistory Maybe the Siege of Acre (1799)?

[@turthhurts]

Siege of Candia took 21 years, probably a lot of dead Ottomans as well. What a genius this guy was for real

[@user-do1kg1py1d]

You dont know vraks my friend

[@MTerrence]

Vauban's true mastery was revealed here in his ability to profitably break his own rules. By skipping unnecessary steps, he saved time and cost. To capture a modern star fort in two weeks with the loss of only fifty men is astonishing!

[@aloof_cardinal]

Vauban during the whole siege "Not necessary. The guy in front of us is a fcking noob"

[@francoiss1106]

😂😂

[@The_Honourable_Company]

The defenders had skill issue it seems

[@serganta8861]

Can we talk about the fact that he was assaulting the fortress he built himself. I also want a bastion built for me by me only to destroy it :(

[@annominous826]

Vauban was one impressive person. In his last years, he determined that to secure the defense of France, it was necessary to lift the lower classes out of abject poverty by redistributing the tax burden. If the king had done as he said, the Revolution might not have been necessary at all.

[@eimantasbutkus5324]

The revolution wasn't necessary either way, though. I think you meant it could have been prevented.

[@annominous826]

@@eimantasbutkus5324 It was necessary, because the ancien regime clung to power at the cost of the people and the country. If the king had been able to see how miserable things had gotten and institute changes such as bread doles and criminal justice reform, the Revolution would have bee possible to prevent. Without, things were intolerable and the Revolution became necessary.

[@yasserbencheikh2626]

I would say The King's decision is exactly the reason for the reolution, not just the economic situation and the tax burden on the lower classes. Basically the French Monarchy always refused to reform and preffered to cling to old traditions, it was bound to happen as you cannot hold off change and progress (in the case of France change and progress is the Enligthenment)

[@guts145]

@@yasserbencheikh2626 The very notion of "always refusing" to reform is unrealistic, especially in the case of 1- a great power and 2- a monarchy that owed its fall to unorderly reforms, such as with the liberalization of trade under Turgot, the assembly of notables and many other similar attempts.

[@Blastaballzy]

Fun facts : During the German Blitzkrieg a small group of french soldiers took cover in one of Vauban’s fortress while they were pushed by a German panzer division. Since his fortress were almost always conceived to allowed small groups of soldiers to hold the forts he designed, they were able to hold the german’s off with small arms, mortar and grenades against a far superior force until they were out of amo and forced to surrender. Vauban was truly the best engineer, a master in many ways.

[@kevinreiss-coint2353]

Little fun fact about the grenadiers. Initially, the task to attack the breaches during sieges was done by the royal musketeers and even if they were rather successful in these missions they were also very costly, which was a problem since these musketeers were noble and were supposed to take officer roles in the army after their career in the musketeers. To diminish theses loses Louis XIV created a regiment of royal grenadiers, these regiments were special because while the regiments of the "maison du roi" were often mainly composed of nobility, this one was composed of veteran grenadiers of more common regiments, so of commoners. They became so effective that every time musketeers were charged to assault of fortified place they were accompanied by these royal grenadiers.

[@johnnotrealname8168]

Noble losses were really high in that time, many families were impoverished because the dad died in the latest war. Very smart to mix in veterans though.

[@hndrwn]

I like how Vauban just sieged Ath just to flex and bully others 😂 What a fitting subject of the fabulous Sun King!

[@attilakatona-bugner1140]

*I am the only one, who can beat myself at this game*

[@eldorados_lost_searcher]

It was very considerate of Vauban to execute a textbook siege of a textbook fortress for future generations to study his methods' effectiveness. Also, for a two person team, you guys sure do put out an impressive amount of quality videos. I'd have guessed at least five.

[@SandRhomanHistory]

Strictly speaking, there’s one more guy handling our french channel (translation and voiceover)!

[@Cancoillotteman]

@@SandRhomanHistory Oh you have a French channel ?! Which one ? So I might share it with my non-English speaking relations

[@Briselance]

​@@SandRhomanHistory Wait... you have a French channel??

[@Avent00]

​​@@SandRhomanHistory Okay,Wheres the Link? Learn french wouldnt hurt my dictiionary

[@alexandrebenoin40]

I live in France and it’s a pleasure to visit the dozens of Vauban citadel from the Atlantic coast to the Pyrenees and alps Great video as always

[@Barnabe51Reims]

Tout gamin, j'ai fait ma première colonie de vacances à Belle île et nous avions visité la forteresse Vauban. Une passion était née...

[@Khobotov]

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

[@Waakala]

well, he also advised never to siege walled settlements

[@zpacula]

sun tzu, the live love laugh for weebs 🤣

[@EthanDyTioco]

@@zpacula based

[@TheGrenadier97]

Vauban was a master, an artist in a kind of warfare often ignored. Definitely going to study him further.

[@Aaliyashi]

I'm glad I watched this. In these tumultuous times, you never know when you might have to lay siege to a bastion fort

[@ross6753]

I live in Ypres, one of Monsieur de Vauban's other masterpieces! We are reaping the benefits of his work up til this day: first, our fortifications are magnificent and attract many tourists; we ourselves profit from them because they have been topped with trees all around our city, which gives us a very large park, larger than most bigger cities. And third: we never get our feet wet, eventhough we live in a very low part of Flanders: thanks to the remnants of Vauban's "inondations" around the city, that take in all the heavy rains, inside the city there is never any flooding. On top of that, the large inondations make lovely lakes for our leasure, and up to a few years ago the city could draw it's own drinking water from it, which made our water bills way cheaper than those of our neighbours. All that thanks to monsieur Sébastien! (btw, the fine fortifications that he built around Ypres were never really taken to the test: we were never attacked anymore until the first World War. And then, of course, the fortifications were of no use against Kaiser Wilhelm's cannons... we were blown to smithereens, city and fortifications. But we built it all up again. Come visit us!

[@zacbru]

I visited Ypres many times, it blew my mind when I saw the pictures of the ruins of the lakenhal. I don't know how you rebuilt it so nice.

[@ross6753]

@@zacbru Yeah, we did a rather good job about it, didn't we? :-D Right now, we're busy with the next restauration. the last one was in the '60's. It ws greatly needed. The belfry is finished already (it looks glorious, especially in the sun!), and the right half of the Hall too, that is, from the front. There's still a lot of work to be done, and it's fascinating to watch. Behind the Hall building, they're doing excavations and they've found tonnes of stuff from the early Middle Ages! It's all in the city museum to be seen. You should visit us again! You British?

[@Mares1113]

French here, just wanted to say that your prononciation of french names is really good. Keep it up

[@julienlengrandlambert]

I never comment on videos but here I really want to salute the efforts to use the correct prononciations for names of cities, people and more. French, Dutch and all impressively correct, super work!

[@SpartaVictor]

When you design the perfect fortress, the king gives it away, and you have to re-conquer it...wonder if Vauban wished he had put "Easter eggs" in his designs? (secret entrance tunnel etc.) 😃

[@semi-useful5178]

His method was the easter egg!

[@hedgehog3180]

Obviously this was the plan all along as Vauban knew that only he could design fortresses that'd present a good enough challenge for him.

[@georgesmithson8694]

Better yet Vauban knew how to take any fortress and could calculate down to the day how long it would take to breach it.

[@mathieucage8157]

He did if i'm not mistaken, but after

[@ivandankob7112]

Ye, and then he had to kill the masons during castle's opening party to bury the secret with them :D

[@swordsmen8856]

This is THE source for anything in the pike and shot era. You videos are awesome and would be great resource for any European history major.

[@halneufmille]

Vauban: Methodically captures state of the art fortress in 2 weeks while losing 50 men. Game of Thrones: Puts artillery outside the city walls and crashes its light cavalry in the enemy line.

[@2ndhendrix631]

So painful to watch. My gf couldn't understand why I was upset at this stupidity.

[@tamlandipper29]

My headcanon is that what you see is the dothraki dousing their swords and leaving the field. This is why in the next episodes they are all back. It's not incredibly bad writing at all.

[@afridge8608]

Would you prefer to watch a 100 hour long game of thrones episode showing occasional barrages and people digging holes in the ground

[@NoobTamer]

@@tamlandipper29 If you are required to use head canon to fill in the story, it is bad writing. Otherwise you could claim any piece of writing isn't bad, simply because you can imagine a scenario where it isn't.

[@townazier]

Awesome to have an entire siege video already, after the last one on Vauban.

[@istoppedcaring6209]

simply as an indication of just how sturdy a top tier fortress of this time was Ieper (then likely refered to as yperen (y=e sound) (Ypres) had been put to the test during ww1 when the city featured continues fighting for pretty much the entire duration of the conflict. the city was turned into a ruin (one which the brittish actually had wished to be preserved in it's wartorn state as an open airr mausoleum) but the walls and the chambers within withstood all of the shelling perfectly, this was something which modern fortresses had failed at and they were certainly shelled regularly. the brittish soldiers had in fact set up a newspaper, "the ypers times" in one of these rooms.

[@homelessman2257]

are you saying the fortress in this video, was still around during WW1 and withstood the shelling well? compared to more modern forts?

[@IslamistSocialist371]

@@homelessman2257 off course it's not as well as steel underground fort of ww1. But it sure still holds up

[@rolletroll2338]

A fortress made by Vauban taken by Vauban. This is the siege translation of an unstoppable force encountering a unmovable object.

[@chrisedrev9519]

This was amazing guys. You never cease to impress me with your uploads, but this one felt special. Your style has gotten as efficient as the brilliant siege methods that it was describing.

[@SandRhomanHistory]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@chrisedrev9519]

@@SandRhomanHistory Yeah, both of the Vauban videos were pretty inspiring. Would love to learn more about him.

[@chestermc9954]

I've been a subscriber for quite a while though I don't usually leave comments, so I'd like to say thank you for making such great content! As someone who's trying to finish his studies in Computer Science, I'd love to delve more into history but don't really have the time or energy to study another field. Fortunately, your videos are the perfect solution to that since they're well-written, well-researched and very easy-to-watch(the visuals help a lot!).

[@SandRhomanHistory]

Wow, thank you!

[@christopherg2347]

It is easy to see how trench warfare evolved from this. As the static fortification itelf became less relevant, the defender had to rely more and more on forward trenchworks.

[@dongleseon8785]

And firepower

[@DEVS_ET_DOMINVS]

Vauban is a 6 siege siege specialist.

[@toastman1992]

I don't often comment, but I just wanna say that I always enjoy your videos! For me, they're among the golden ideal of what history videos on this platform should be.

[@theicepickthatkilledtrotsk658]

Fortresses of that era are a thing of beauty. Praise the Sun King.

[@ChevyChase301]

Didn’t work too well in 1710s when it took a French offensive to beat them off the frontier

[@darbyohara]

They’re a unique example of the artistic beauty of simple mathematics and geometry

[@BountyFlamor]

The overall shape of these fortresses is from Italy though.

[@Lavenderwave704]

Shame that these fortresses never saw conflict with the ottomans if the ottomans besieged them then that would be the true test of their design

[@darbyohara]

@@Lavenderwave704 vauban was the best at siege warfare. The ottomans couldn’t hold a candle to vauban

[@owenmalanaphy3228]

Actually, Total War has taught me that you simply send everyone into the town at the same time and you literally can't lose!

[@abeedmanjour]

Your soldiers just conjure magical ladders directly out of their asses that can't be broken, toppled or burned and protect the climbers from any missiles as the enemy is patiently waiting for your soldiers to get off.

[@highadmiralbittenfield9689]

And that siege guns outrage any fire that comes from city defenses.

[@RocketHarry865]

I want you do a video on the polygonal forts of the late 18th and 19th centuries developed in France and Germany as a response to bastion forts becoming vulnerable to both improve artillery technological development and the Vauban system of siege offense.

[@Kierkergaarder]

Thank you so much for this video! In particular Vauban's injury and subsequent "shrugging it off" were awesome. The proto-industrial, mathemical/logistical angles are super interestingly implied as well. All the best!

[@ikklapje789]

i have watched endless historical documentary videos but this has to be the best. well done

[@russianhorde]

Always a joy to view a new video of yours. Cheers! I appreciate your dedicated work covering these topics many of us have not dug deeply into to learn.

[@SandRhomanHistory]

Many thanks!

[@JodenPaoloPeroy]

You guys have outdone yourselves in this video. It was clear, entertaining, and very fascinating. Vauban's genius shines through, and your presentation did justice to it, especially since it was a step-by-step presentation that really hit home how calculated his methods were.

[@greyfells2829]

Kind of a sad watch, seeing the death of walled cities. Also pretty wild thinking of these armies smashing apart walls that would now be considered priceless material history. My hometown in hungary has a medieval wall, and I love it so much.

[@maxpont8989]

Many fortresses of that era were kept intact or even rebuilt in the XIXth century in France, since the rapid changes of warfare with massive armies first, and smaller professional corps later, meant that a fortress able to delay for merely a week or two the enemy was an invaluable asset

[@sanderd17]

On the other hand, with the advent of cars, many of these walls have been turned into roads. As they were ideally located to serve as a ring road around the town. Just look at Belgian ring roads of old towns (Ghent, Brussels, Leuven,...) , and see how many are called "vest" (=fort) or "poort" (=gate)

[@notalecguinness3221]

Vauban perfected siege warfare to an extend it removed all suspense, all "RNG". Given the time and resources and no relief army in reach, a fortress would fall. Incredible as a technique but I find the individual sieges of the previous era more interesting. Like Mantua or the 21 years of Candia. I would love to see a video on the siege of Breisach 1638, the masterpiece of Bernard of Saxe-Weimar. Not only did he starve out an impregnable river fortress, he also did fend off various relief attempts from all directions.

[@indridcold1689]

As a fan of 17th century warfare and the period in general, I thank you guys for covering this underappreciated and uncovered era. Keep up the good work and I look forward with anticipation your upcoming projects.

[@handlesrstupid123]

love your pike and shot videos not many on this era of warfare

[@yansoloooo]

I'm french, congrats for your almost perfect prononciation of french names !

[@overboard-xu3sw]

I dont know why but knowing how lay seige to castle in the age of the sun king seems like vital information to me right now. 😂😂

[@tomhoni9642]

i vote for a Ultimate Vauban Siege Simulator game wirh SandRhoman as design consultant. Always a nice journey into history!

[@Innomen]

Anyway, I love the idea of a siege master having to defeat his own fort. It's like playing yourself at chess only irl.

[@UnDeaDCyBorg]

Fascinating. It is obvious in hindsight, but that it took that long for someone to get the idea to position guns to fire along the lines of a wall goes to show it wasn't. This siege was so quick it was probably not even worth the effort to build the circumvalation. Truly impressive. As is the research going into your videos.

[@Alex13501]

A longtime fan, i always enjoy new tactics and strategems from history.

[@musculusiv4172]

Great video! Now I know exactly what to do next time I have to besiege a late 17th century fortress

[@mohammedsaysrashid3587]

Amazing introduction showed importance of Artilleries bombarding and complex angle castle 🏰 walls

[@framegrace1]

If anyone is interested the Book "Victus!" by Sanchez Pinol, (about the siege of Barcelona in 1714) has a load of information about Bauvan and it's techniques. The main (fictional) character is a pupil of Bauvan himself, who is thought in the art of war and sieges. Is a very entertaining History nobel, with historica accurate events and a lot of details about XVI century warfare.

[@itunzska]

It's amazing that I've come across this video, because I was just planning to siege my cousin's bastion fortress later this month! He will never expect my Vauban-style approaches.

[@jespers6702]

Great video, also like your sense of humor. I usually do not comment, but just wanted to say keep up the good work. I will remember the steps next time I have to lay siege to a fortress!

[@AnalyticalReckoner]

Vauban would have won anyways but the weather helped him turn it into a masterpiece.

[@DarthVader-ig6ci]

Defenders after repulsing the first attacks:- 😏 * Vauban comes in his carriage to take over the siege* Defenders:- why am i hearing boss music

[@magnushorus5670]

this is far superior to any movie or show being made today.... although thats not saying much, this is a wonderful channel

[@Jorduan100]

As someone who has waster MANY hours of his life in Europa Universailis 4, these videos help bring that experience to life masterfully. Your continued work is very much appreciated!!!

[@verigone2677]

how did it take me so long to find you, this shit's awesome bro, great stuff

[@loszhor]

17:22 *Mind blown* Of all the sieges you've uploaded this NEEDED to be titled as "Staggering"!

[@monanopsin]

1:35 it is a detail but "your majesty" or "sire" is more accurate to apostrophize the king of France

[@correctionguy7632]

Literally unwatchable.

[@monanopsin]

@@correctionguy7632 what do you mean

[@bastobasto4866]

@@monanopsin c'est une blague; l'erreur, c'est un petit détail, donc il plaisante en disant ironiquement que la vidéo en est impossible à regarder

[@MisterNizz]

This was fascinating to watch. I'm just getting into reading about siege works. Really engrossing material.

[@AntimodernMindset]

A masterpiece of the art of siege. Thanks for the choice!

[@SandRhomanHistory]

Couldn't agree more!

[@rngesushimself9822]

Imagine if someone made a strategy game with these mechanics

[@Hopeforhumans]

Empire Total War II - Super Autistic Edition. I would play the shit out of that.

[@x08Gunner08x]

@@HopeforhumansI’ve been asking ca for this forever but they just keep wasting thier time making flops😂

[@thundercheckov9782]

​@@Hopeforhumans I was thinking about it, what a missed opportunity that research agents (I don't remember their name in game, maybe "gentlemen") with a military speciality could'nt be attached to an army as military engineers to give bonuses. They could allow the sieges to last a shorter ammount of turns before surrender, and each turn giving a closer deployment zone for trenches and gun batteries closer to the walls, maybe even going as far as giving a mine breach on the time of the assault. The agent could also be injured during the fight making for an interesting choice: keep the agent in a university to research military technology or bring him along for sieges with the risk of delaying tech devellopment and losing him for some turns while he recovers. I always felt like sieging mechanics in the game were really underwhelming, especially considering how important they were to warfare at the time. Sieges should be costlier, more difficult early game, and then technology advancement in siege strategy, logistics and artillery would little by little render the forts near obsolete by the endgame to model the more modern conditions of revolutionary and napolenic wars focused on manoeuvre and decisive battles.

[@thcdreams654]

Awesome work. I found myself quite staggered by the quality of your content. Thanks.

[@SandRhomanHistory]

Glad to hear it!

[@kvnrthr1589]

Great video! I'm also interested in sieges of the later eras, from 1700 to Napoleonic wars. It seems to me to not take as much time unless the army was quite small. I'm not sure if its technological progress, tactics, or both.

[@simon2493]

And I'm interested in post Napoleonic era especially late 18 and early 19 century

[@mariushunger8755]

Doesn‘t it get somewhat repetitive after Vauban?

[@simon2493]

@@mariushunger8755 in a way yes, but at the same time forts designs became completely different than before when up to Napoleon era, they were towering above train after that they started to bury themselves deeper and deeper into the ground, like I've seen Prussia ring fort and you don't even realize you are seeing one all that sticking above ground is hidden behind earth.

[@edouardlorge4059]

They completely changed the way to lead seige. The common thing was to take a point near higher than the city you want to siege and then fire the city with artellery to force the city to surrender. Basicaly break by moral not by beating tacticely.

[@MarechalVI]

Duly noted, I will certainly use this information if/when I am in this situation

[@monkey_gamer_001]

it's a bit depressing and ironic when Vaubon has to take down his own fortress. it's like playing chess against yourself

[@The_WatchList]

And winning 👀😂

[@T-28_Trojan]

Thanks this was really helpful!

[@argokarrus2731]

Crazy how much cooler irl sieges are as opposed to fictional ones like Vraks and such

[@numadread1]

Hey ! Don't disrespect vraks. It only took 14 millions kreig to take it !

[@johannesmichaelalhaugthoma4215]

Outstanding video on a truly fascinating topic!! Thank you!!

[@SandRhomanHistory]

Our pleasure!

[@theforestoftchanbyyaoma7441]

Thank you. It is really pleasant to watch.

[@andrewada9401]

After an hour of searching, I have identified the song played at 5:46 ish. It’s winter by Antonio Vivaldi. Great video

[@TheMrcassina]

Vivaldi's Winter is XVII Century Fortunate Son

[@Vamper946]

As always, you've made a great video and it is nice to see an expansion into a period that you've covered less. Also such a great video demonstrating how and why Louis XIV could fight all of europe at once.

[@SandRhomanHistory]

Thanks a ton!

[@christianpetersen163]

Hollywood siege: whole army immidiatly storms forward and punch the walls with fists. Vauban: "Gentlemen..."

[@alexevans1183]

The system of offensive trench’s seems to have worked extremely well to advance infantry towards the enemy position. What changed between here and 1914 such that WWI’s trench’s were less useful offensively?

[@user-nolaner]

most likely advances in artillery systems and the introduction of the machine gun

[@thoronirgros188]

Pretty sure engineers would dig up tunnels to get closer to enemy trenches and blew them up with mines.

[@coopermichalik2588]

This system only works on fortresses, not armies or other trenches. Along with this this specific case is one of an undermanned and undergunned garrison, hardly a fair fight. Finally advances in guns such as the machine gun and more importantly explosive artillery made trenches go from a safe place to a very deadly one.

[@HazardousMoose]

Also consider significant improvements in the accuracy of indirect fire. As manufacturing became considerably more precise, i.e. lower tolerances, dispersion of indirect fire became narrower. Advancements in metallurgy also allowed for much smaller and lighter artillery, like a simple mortar tube, which could be more widely fielded to troops. With the right training it became considerably more practical to shell an enemy trench as it got closer. Hence the armies started to resort to digging tunnels instead to approach enemy trenches.

[@jodofe4879]

I think the main thing would have to be the addition of traverses to trenches and fortifications. A traverse is a u-shaped protrusion in a trench that prevents enfilading fire from travelling along the line of the trench/fortification as happened during this siege. If you can't clear the opposing trench/fortification of enemy soldiers, you won't be able to advance with sapping. Because the problem is when you get too far away from your own trench lines, your sap will become indefensible and extremely vulnerable to enemy assaults. A trench is only a few meters wide, so you can only have a few people digging and defending it at once when you are going at a 90 degree angle towards the enemy. This means that if you want to defend your sap, it has to be within the field of fire of your main trench line, which puts a limit to how far you can advance. In the case of this siege, the attackers were able to sap across no man's land and assault the enemy position with minimal casualties because they had been able to enfilade and clear the covered way. Another important factor here was that the defending garrison was really small, so the risk of enemy assaults was almost entirely eliminated. In WW1, this was most definitely not the case. You couldn't just dig around to outflank and enfilade an enemy trench (this is why the Race to the Sea was so important), and if you tried to sap your way across no man's land towards the enemy positions, the millions of men in said position would certainly put a decisive stop to that.

[@joostcherrys7062]

Man just 3 starred his own clash of clans base

[@greenjoseph4]

I wrote about Ath for my thesis… wonderful video.

[@Pomers121]

Brilliant video! Thanks for taking the time to create this

[@pierredelasalle4731]

I really wish you cover sieges in the Napoleonic wars, it's not a part of that period that people usually cover so i rely on you to be the saviors!

[@budrothefox3666]

Such a good video! Thank you! This is amazing info that can still be used today effectively in combat. Lessons learned from our past serve us into the future.

[@karlcrisostomo418]

This is what you get when the commander is also a brilliant engineer. And the king lets him do his thing. Awesome video. I always look forward to your new upload notifications. ❤❤❤

[@dubbyx8490]

Time to use Vauban's methods in RTS games

[@CMAzeriah]

Oh crap.... If only there was one that could support that.

[@jeanladoire4141]

I visited a lot of vauban's forts. Very impressive walls

[@matthieubollea2216]

Thank you for you video! I live in a neighborood designed by Vauban and that resonates a lot

[@wismsgre]

Great one, guys. Keep going with the amazing job!

[@wismsgre]

I'll add another one as a sacriffice for the lords of youtube. Amazing video!

[@Barnabe51Reims]

« Toute ville assiégée par Vauban, ville prise, Toute ville défendue par Vauban, ville imprenable. » Vauban

[@petros5155]

Great video as always

[@florianschweizer4601]

Vauban: Bastion Engineer, Siege Engineer, and first person known to perfect job security guarantee

[@taylorsherman3397]

My new way to take a nap, listen to things I'm interested in but not smart enough to understand on the first listen through

[@VinnieG-]

but this is a story about history.. there isn't much to understand

[@phobics9498]

Everybody gangsta till the cannonballs start bouncing on the parapet

[@oguzkaganonder1331]

I would advice you to take a look at Siege of Nagykanizsa 1601, as it is probably the most succesfull and perfect siege defense in history, it would be a great content for your amazing channel

[@Zajuts149]

"Vauban," observed Stephen. "is like aniseed in a cake. A little is excellent, but how soon one sickens." - Post Captain Patrick O'Brian.

[@gotbaka3]

You guys are the best! Absolutely love your siegecraft videos. Great details about the mechanics and concepts at play

[@wsswetghg8791]

Colossal work, many thanx!

[@imperiumaeternum4832]

I had the honor of taking many of my undergraduate history classes with Dr. Ostwald. He’s definitely an expert in early modern warfare. It’s great to see him cited in this video!

[@andrewgardner105]

Love the videos and appreciate the hard work that gets put into him. Keep it up!

[@AntarChaox]

Truly the most effective siege tool at the time was the man and his shovel.

[@Heroesflorian]

Fascinating, and well-presented!

[@ericburgess8347]

Marvelous presentation and graphics. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

[@SandRhomanHistory]

Thank you kindly!

[@satyajeetsingh6318]

Great work!

[@civilmckay22]

Never underestimate a man and his shovel!

[@garettdoornwaard4822]

That and washing machines😜

[@Pierre_David_Colbert_Chabanais]

Vauban was so overpowered at siege warfare that he removed all suspense when it came to the outcome😂😂

[@zetectic7968]

This was a completely new piece of history to me. Very interesting that a seemingly strong fortress succumbed so quickly due to poor defence & a masterful attack. Having broken my collar bone I wonder how well Vauban coped with the injury.

[@m1herrmann160]

2:50. Sebastián WHO?!?! Like what a name!!