Menno van Coehoorn

Menno, Baron van Coehoorn (March 1641 – 17 March 1704) was a Dutch soldier and military engineer. He made a number of influential weaponry innovations in siege warfare and fortification techniques. He was also known as the "Dutch Vauban", after his famous French counterpart, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban.

Coehoorn was born in Britsum, a village north of Leeuwarden in the Dutch province of Friesland. He received an excellent military and general education, and at the age of sixteen became a captain in the Dutch army. During the Anglo-Dutch Wars, he took part in the defence of Maastricht in 1673 and in the siege of Grave in 1674, where he used the small mortars (called coehorns) invented by him to great effect against the French garrison. He was promoted to the rank of colonel for his gallant conduct at the battle of Seneffe (1674), and was also present at the Battle of Cassel (1677) and the Battle of Saint Denis (1678).

The circumstances of the time and the country turned Coehoorn's attention to the art of fortification, and the events of the late war showed him that existing methods could no longer be relied upon. Coehoorn gained most of his knowledge and insights on the building of fortification by having to capture many of them himself. His first published work, Versterchinge de Vijfhoeks met alle syne Buytenwerken (Leeuwarden, 1682), at once aroused attention, and involved the author in a lively controversy with a rival engineer, Louys Paan (Leeuwarden, 1682, 1683; copies are in the library of the Dutch Ministry of Defence). The military authorities were much interested in his work, and entrusted Coehoorn with the reconstruction of several fortresses in the Netherlands. This task he continued throughout his career and his experience made him the worthy rival of his great contemporary Vauban. He formulated his ideas a little later in his chief work, New fortress Construction (Nieuwe Vestingbouw op een natte of lage horisont, Leeuwarden, 1685), in which he laid down three systems, the characteristic feature of which was the multiplicity and great saliency of the works, which were calculated and in principle are still eminently suited for, flat and almost marshy sites such as those in the Low Countries. Essential to his new approach was the ability to fight an active defence on the outer shores of the enveloping ditch, made possible by constructing an extra protective wall around the fortification.

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