Six Months in Copenhagen

"To be or not to be - that is the question." Did you know that Shakespeare's Hamlet is set in a Danish castle that you can actually visit? It's located at the nearest point between Denmark and Sweden in a town called Helsingør, just about an hour north of København. I headed there on a fishing trip sponsored by my Danish company. We trolled the narrow strait for about four hours on a ship called the Havet, meaning "the sea," before returning to land for a brief tour of the city and castle. 

Many of the cities that we've visited over the past four months have been built around or inside of 18^th century fortresses. The fortress in Helsingør was important for collecting taxes on ships passing through the busy shipping channel between Denmark and Sweden. After the natural defenses of the medieval castle became obsolete, a series of earthen ramparts and ditches were created around the castle to protect against artillery.

The design of artillery fortifications required skilled designers, basing their designs on effective geometry and the physics of projectile motion.  A French engineer, named DeVauban, was the most prolific fortress designer in history. He is credited with having designed or improved hundreds of defenses. His military engineering success enabled him to rise from ‘rags' to achieve the highest military rank possible in France.

Two main concepts were critical in creating the defense. First, fortresses should be designed so that every outer wall can be protected with fire from another wall. Thick walls made it very difficult to fire straight down from a position within the castle, and attackers could sometimes find safety at the base of these walls. Star-shaped designs permitted enfilading fire, or cross-fire from the adjacent walls. The next most important idea was to provide as much distance as possible between the invading army and the defenders main base, well duh.

The attackers would first approach a gently sloping plain called the glacis. It sloped away from the fortress, giving the defenders a clear open view of the attacker's positions. Any invading army had to carefully consider where to set up camp, or become target practice for the defending batteries. The attackers would advance over the glacis with a zig-zag series of trenches. A proper trench also required relatively skilled military labor.

After advancing over the glacis, the attackers faced a series of earthen ramparts and ditches (moats). In the most basic fortress design, a rampart would follow the outer edge of the ditch. This was called the "outer way", and its purpose was to provide a fortified position for the defenders, outside of the main fortress walls or "enceinte." Taking the covered way was a seminal moment in the siege. A successful breach required a bum rush on the walls, or risky underground explosives.

We have seen many well preserved fortresses on our trip, at Malmö, København, Kinsale, and Helsingør. These fortresses greatly influenced planning of nearby cities. In several circumstances, the water and transportation infrastructure built for the fortress also enabled the nearby cities to grow. The complexity of fortress design required engineering professionals. In times of peace, these engineers worked on civil projects - "to be... civil engineers."