Berecz Mátyás - Bujdosné Pap Györgyi - Petercsák Tivadar (szerk.): Végvár és mentalitás a kora újkori Európában - Studia Agriensia 31. (Eger, 2015)

MORLIN BÁLINT: 16-17. századi hadmérnöki munka egy mai mérnök szemével. A hadmérnöki munka során szerzett tapasztalatok

Bálint Morlin

THE WORK OF A 16TH-17™ CENTURY MILITARY ENGINEER AS SEEN FROM A PRESENT-DAY ENGINEER’S PERSPECTIVE

The Experiences Gained from a Reconstruction of Military Engineering

When trying to understand historical events much help may be gained by both familiarizing oneself and understanding the personalities involved and the way in which such people thought. In the case of the architecture of fortress construction it is the character of the military engineers which lies at the heart of the question: their basic knowledge (military, technical) and their way of doing things. With the use of this and other basic information (geographical, strategic) it is possible to determine the main features of the castle-planning process. The most important considerations are the strategic importance of the site, whether it is a fortress of primary or secondary importance or a watch-tower; the terrain: flat, hilly, boggy; the technical and financial means that were at the engineer’s disposal, and finally which solution the engineer felt to be the most suitable from among the many similar solutions on offer. If one looks at the fortresses of the time it is easy to recognize the planning principles, as well as other elements in the engineer’s planning armoury. It is the purpose of this paper to summarize the experiences gained from a present-day engineer who also has a vested interest in the period in question in his attempt to understand the character of the military engineer active at the beginning of the 17th century.

180