Parallel (military)

Plan of 2 parallels near Antwerp 1832

The parallels were those trenches that were created when the fortress front to be attacked was besieged at fairly equal distances from the jutting corners of the glacis . They should encompass the entire attack front. The parallels serve to connect the batteries and other works of the besiegers. They cover their construction and serve to defend against failures . Short pieces of parallels are also called half-parallels .

History

A first trace of parallels in modern times can be found in the Thirty Years' War . They were created by the Swedes during the attack on the town of Höxter . The trenches were drawn in such a way that their direction can be considered a parallel. This can be seen even more clearly in the siege work of the French engineer Beaulieu († 1674) in front of Dunkirk in 1646 , where in the first parallel there was also a large battery that was raised enough to be able to shoot over a small depression in the second parallel. The parallels were then used by Vauban in 1673 before Maastricht , who also had three parallels drawn up before Ath 1697 .

See also

• Boyou
• Approche # Sappen_und_Minen

literature

• Hermann Meynert , New Military Conversations Lexicon for the Imperial and Royal Army , 1870, p. 220 f.
• Gabriel Christoph Benjamin Busch , Handbook of Inventions P – Q , Part 10, 1820, p. 82.
• Johann Gottfried von Hoyer , History of the Art of War , Part 1, p. 523. in History of the Arts and Sciences , Volume 7, 1797