Lieutenant against Marshal. Double challenge to post-vaubanian tradition in texts of Scottish military engineer Chales Bisset, 1751-1778
Abstract
The article represents a historical anthropological analysis of the challenge, presented to contemporary military engineering orthodoxy by theoretical texts by Charles Bisset. He reacted to so called crisis of permanent fortification, accepted as a given fact in the middle of 18th century.
His texts attempted to de-construct contemporary standards of the art, as defined by Vauban and also laid much stronger emphasis at the underground dimension of siege warfare, which means deployment of military pyrotechnics using the permanent countermine system. The text argues that this was the chief reason why Bisset was ignored by the military engineering corps and then discharged, despite being client of supreme commander, William, duke of Cumberland.
The text discusses the contemporary precedents and argues that the underground dimension of military pyrotechnics was undoubtedly highly effective, but it was considered by protagonists of siege warfare to be so drastic, that contemporary military cultures failed to modulate such experience. In absence of any other sources, able to illuminate the Bisset problem, this feature was probably the reason why his innovative contribution was ignored and he was removed from the Army himself.