Defensive wall: Difference between revisions

{{short description|Fortification used to protect an area from potential aggressors}}

 

{{multiple image|perrow = 3|total_width=400

| footer = Left to right: [[Walls of Constantinople]], [[Hadrian's Wall]], [[Walls of Ávila]], walls of [[Pingyao]] and [[Nanjing]], two sections of the [[Great Wall of China]], [[Walls of Dubrovnik]], [[Gates of Baghdad]], walls of the [[Jaisalmer Fort]].

}}

 

Existing ancient walls are almost always [[masonry]] structures, although brick and timber-built variants are also known. Depending on the [[topography]] of the area surrounding the city or the settlement the wall is intended to protect, elements of the terrain such as rivers or coastlines may be incorporated in order to make the wall more effective.

 

== History ==

[[File:元 佚名 倣夏永 呂洞賓過岳陽樓 冊頁-The Immortal Lü Dongbin Appearing over the Yueyang Pavilion MET DP153541.jpg|thumb|The lakeside wall of the [[Yueyang Tower]], [[Yuan dynasty]]]]

[[File:Mury obronne Szprotawa.jpg|thumb|Medieval defensive walls and towers in [[Szprotawa]], Poland, made of field stone and bog iron]]

Large [[rammed earth]] walls were built in [[History of China#Ancient China|ancient China]] since the [[Shang dynasty]] ({{Circa|1600}}–1050{{nbsp}}BC), as the capital at ancient Ao had enormous walls built in this fashion (see [[siege]] for more info). Although stone walls were built in China during the [[Warring States]] (481–221{{nbsp}}BC), mass conversion to stone architecture did not begin in earnest until the [[Tang dynasty]] (618–907{{nbsp}} AD). Sections of the [[Great Wall]] had been built prior to the [[Qin dynasty]] (221–207{{nbsp}}BC) and subsequently connected and fortified during the Qin dynasty, although its present form was mostly an engineering feat and remodeling of the [[Ming dynasty]] (1368–1644{{nbsp}}AD). The large walls of [[Pingyao]] serve as one example. Likewise, the walls of the [[Forbidden City]] in [[Beijing]] were established in the early 15th century by the [[Yongle Emperor]]. According to [[Tonio Andrade]], the immense thickness of Chinese city walls prevented larger cannons from being developed, since even industrial era artillery had trouble breaching Chinese walls.{{sfn|Lorge|2008|p=43}}{{sfn|Andrade|2016|p=103}}

 

[[File:당진 면천읍성.jpg|thumb|Dangjin-myeoncheon-eupseong (唐津沔川邑城)<ref name="Auto4J-7"/>]]

 

===Europe===

{{main|Chinese city wall}}

 

 

In Europe the height of wall construction was reached under the [[Roman Empire]], whose walls often reached {{convert|10|m}} in height, the same as many Chinese city walls, but were only {{convert|1.5|to|2.5|m}} thick. Rome's Servian Walls reached {{convert|3.6|and|4|m}} in thickness and {{convert|6|to|10|m}} in height. Other fortifications also reached these specifications across the empire, but all these paled in comparison to contemporary Chinese walls, which could reach a thickness of {{convert|20|m}} at the base in extreme cases. Even the walls of Constantinople which have been described as "the most famous and complicated system of defence in the civilized world,"{{sfn|Andrade|2016|p=92}} could not match up to a major Chinese city wall.{{sfn|Andrade|2016|p=97}} Had both the outer and inner walls of Constantinople been combined they would have only reached roughly a bit more than a third the width of a major wall in China.{{sfn|Andrade|2016|p=97}} According to [[Philo]] the width of a wall had to be {{convert|4.5|m}} thick to be able to withstand ancient (non-gunpowder) siege engines.{{sfn|Purton|2009|p=363}} European walls of the 1200s and 1300s could reach the Roman equivalents but rarely exceeded them in length, width, and height, remaining around {{convert|2|m}} thick. When referring to a very thick wall in medieval Europe, what is usually meant is a wall of {{convert|2.5|m}} in width, which would have been considered thin in a Chinese context.{{sfn|Andrade|2016|p=98}} There are some exceptions such as the [[Hillfort of Otzenhausen]], a Celtic ringfort with a thickness of {{convert|40|m}} in some parts, but Celtic fort-building practices died out in the early medieval period.{{sfn|Andrade|2016|p=339}} Andrade goes on to note that the walls of the ''marketplace'' of Chang'an were thicker than the walls of major European capitals.{{sfn|Andrade|2016|p=98}}

{{blockquote|The defensive response to cannon in Europe was to build relatively low and thick walls of packed earth, which could both withstand the force of cannon balls and support their own, defensive cannon. Chinese wall-building practice was, by happenstance, extremely resistant to all forms of battering. This held true into the twentieth century, when even modern explosive shells had some difficulty in breaking through tamped earth walls.{{sfn|Lorge|2008|p=43}}|Peter Lorge}}

 

 

{{blockquote|We fought our way to Nanking and joined in the attack on the enemy capital in December. It was our unit which stormed the Chunghua Gate. We attacked continuously for about a week, battering the brick and earth walls with artillery, but they never collapsed. The night of December 11, men in my unit breached the wall. The morning came with most of our unit still behind us, but we were beyond the wall. Behind the gate great heaps of sandbags were piled up. We 'cleared them away, removed the lock, and opened the gates, with a great creaking noise. We'd done it! We'd opened the fortress! All the enemy ran away, so we didn't take any fire. The residents too were gone. When we passed beyond the fortress wall we thought ''we'' had occupied this city.{{sfn|Cook|2000|p=32}}|Nohara Teishin, on the Japanese capture of [[Nanjing]] in 1937}}

* Berlin's city wall from the 1730s to the 1860s was partially made of wood. Its primary purpose was to enable the city to impose tolls on goods and, secondarily, also served to prevent the desertion of soldiers from the garrison in Berlin.

* The [[Berlin Wall]] (1961 to 1989) did not exclusively serve the purpose of protection of an enclosed settlement. One of its purposes was to prevent the crossing of the Berlin border between the [[German Democratic Republic]] and the [[Germany|West German]] [[exclave]] of [[west-Berlin]].

* The Nicosia Wall along the [[United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus|Green Line]] divides North and South Cyprus.

* In the 20th century and after, many enclaved Jewish settlements in Israeli occupied territory in the West Bank were and are surrounded by fortified walls

{{Gallery

| title=Modern defensive walls

| align=center

| File:Berlinermauer.jpg|A view of the [[Berlin Wall]] in 1986

| lines=

| align=center

| File:Muralla.Lugo.Galicia.jpg|[[Lugo]]'s [[Roman Walls of Lugo|Roman walls]], [[Galicia (Spain)|Galicia]], [[Spain]], a UNESCO World Heritage Site

 

 

===Archaeological Erbil Citadel wall===

 

== See also ==

* {{citation|last=Cook|first=Haruko Taya|year=2000|title=Japan At War: An Oral History|publisher=Phoenix Press}}

* {{Citation |last=Lorge |first=Peter A. |year=2008|title=The Asian Military Revolution: from Gunpowder to the Bomb |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-60954-8}}

* {{citation|last=Purton|first=Peter|year=2009|title=A History of the Early Medieval Siege c. 450–1200|publisher=The Boydell Press}}

* {{Citation |last=Purton |first=Peter |year=2010 |title=A History of the Late Medieval Siege, 1200–1500 |publisher=Boydell Press |isbn=978-1-84383-449-6}}

 

==Further reading==