Military engineers and the transmission of the technical knowledge: Spanish global fortification (16th-19th centuries)

Abstract

The defense of the Spanish Empire had to be committed to the fortification of coasts and harbours along the World. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain and Portugal were linked. Between Madrid and Lisbon, the kings made decisions about the government and the fortification of half of Europe, the Atlantic archipelagos, America, the coast of Africa from Algeria to Somalia, India and part of Asia. The development of artillery and military technology obliged to improve fortification techniques and apply them globally. The bastioned fortification was, perhaps, the first human product to spread globally throughout the World. So, engineers had to design the defenses of, for example, Oran (in the North of Africa), Terceira (an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean), Havana (in the Caribbean Sea), the Strait of Magellan (South of Chile) or Manila (Philippines). In several cases, the same engineer had to work in three or four continents. The paper will deal with several notable examples, between the 16th to 19th centuries, with the aim to show the transmission and application of the technical knowledge by the hand of engineers.