Bezel (fortress construction)

Ideal-typical representation of bezels open in the throat (a flat bezel at the top, a deep bezel at the bottom). Guns are positioned at the top of both plants.

Bezel II of the Petersberg Citadel (built in 1708)

The lunette (from the French lunette , "glasses", the word is originally derived from "small moon") has been an independent fortress with two faces and two flanks in early modern fortress construction since the 17th century .

history

A bezel is an independent fortification , which in plan a bastion similar to (a bastion but is always in conjunction with a wall). The back of a bezel, called a throat , could be open or secured against a direct assault by a wall, a palisade or a low earth wall. Forward lunettes were often connected to the outer wall of a fortress by a protected passage (→ communication ) . However, detached forts built in the 19th century , that is, works that were completely separated from the wall, often had the shape of lunettes.

The lunette as a forward independent work is not to be confused with a " half moon " (French Demi-lune ), which was always erected in the ditch immediately in front of the top of a bastion (even if a crescent moon can sometimes have the shape of a bezel).

For an expanded definition of the term

When using the word, it should be noted that in the broader sense the term lunette is linked to the floor plan of the work (read: two faces and two flanks), regardless of its function or the task of the work in connection with the fortress. Therefore, when describing a ravelin , a work that was always erected between two bastions to protect the curtain wall, one can speak of a lunette or a flesche (a work with two faces, without flanks), in both cases only the shape and not the function is meant.

Examples received

Lunettes were often placed in front of the ravelins (wall shields) as external works that were further advanced in front of the main walls of fortresses. In Germany only a few examples of lunettes have been completely preserved, such as the Petersberg Citadel , Erfurt . Here a lunette flanks the Ravelin Anselm, the southern counterpart in front of the Gabriel Bastion has disappeared today. Parts of a lunette from the former large fortress can still be documented in Cologne. In the Landau Fortress , the lunette No.41 “Alexander” with tour d'arcon is being excavated from the former belt of lunettes with 17 lunettes and restored with its large tunnel system.

See also

• Technical terms fortress construction

literature

• Michael Losse : bezel. In: Horst Wolfgang Böhme , Reinhard Friedrich, Barbara Schock-Werner (Hrsg.): Dictionary of castles, palaces and fortresses . Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-010547-1 , p. 178, doi: 10.11588 / arthistoricum.535 .

Web links

Wiktionary: bezel  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Lexicon of fortifications
• The city fortress of Hameln
• Bezel 42 of the federal fortress Rastatt

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ according to the appearance of glasses clamped on the nose without temples
2. ^ Riistow: Military concise dictionary . 1859, sv Lunette
3. ^ Riistow: Military concise dictionary . 1859, sv Bastion, sv Lunette, sv Ravelin, sv Reduit; v. Prittwitz u. Gaffron: Textbook of Fortification Art and Fortress War . 1865, passim; Zastrow: History of the permanent fortification . 1839, passim.
4. ↑ Bezel 41 of the Vauban and federal fortress Landau . Festungsbauverein Landau, accessed on March 11, 2016