Friedrich Engels

Coehoorn

Written second half of January/February 1858.

From the English.

["The New American Cyclopædia", Vol. V]

Coehoorn, or Cohoorn, Menno van, Baron – a Dutch general and engineer – born 1641 in Friesland, died 17 May 1704 in The Hague. At the age of 16 he received a captain’s commission, distinguished himself at the siege of Maastricht and later at the battles of Seneffe, Kassel, Saint Denis and Fleurus. During the time when he was not on active service, he devoted much attention to fortification, with the aim of equalising the chances of besiegers and besieged, after the new system of his contemporary Vauban had given great advantages to the latter. While still a comparatively young man, he made a name for himself as an engineer, and by the time he reached middle age he was acknowledged as the best officer of this arm in the Dutch service. The Prince of Orange promised him a colonel’s commission, but as he was rather negligent in fulfilling the promise, Coehoorn, piqued, withdrew with the intention of offering his services to the French. On the Prince’s orders, however, his wife and 8 children were arrested as hostages for his return, which quickly brought him back, whereupon he received the promised rank and was subsequently appointed, successively, General of Artillery, Director-General of Fortifications, and Governor of Flanders.

His whole life was closely bound up with the defences of the Netherlands. At the siege of Grave in 1674 he invented and used for the first time the small mortars, called Coehoorns, for throwing shells, and in the following year he won the approval of Vauban by successfully crossing the Meuse and taking a bastion which had been considered protected by the river. After the Peace of Nijmegen (1678) he was called upon to strengthen various already fortified places; Nijmegen, Breda, Mannheim, since razed, and Bergen-op-Zoom bear witness to the value of his system. He considered the latter place his masterpiece, although it was taken after a long siege in 1747 by Marshal de Lowendal. During the campaigns of 1688 to 1691 he was on active service. The siege of Namur in 1692 gave him the opportunity to test his system against Vauban’s, for these two great engineers confronted each other there, Coehoorn defending a work he had erected to protect the citadel, and Vauban attempting to overcome it. Coehoorn defended it stubbornly, but after being dangerously wounded, he was forced to surrender to his opponent, who generously acknowledged his bravery and skill. He was subsequently called upon for the attack on Trarbach, Limburg and Liège, and in 1695 he helped to retake Namur. In the War of the Spanish Succession he besieged in turn Venloo, Stephensworth, Ruremonde, Liège, and in 1703 took Bonn on the Rhine after a three-day cannonade by heavy artillery, supported by shell-fire from 500 Coehoorns. Afterwards he went to Dutch Flanders, where he achieved several victories over the French and conducted the siege of Huy. That was his last act of service, for he died soon afterwards of apoplexy while waiting for a conference with the Duke of Marlborough on the plan for a new campaign.

Coehoorn’s greatest work, *Nieuwe Vestingbouw*, was published at Leeuwarden in 1685 in folio and translated into several foreign languages. His plans are mostly adapted to the Dutch fortresses, or to those similar to them, built on ground only a few feet above the water level. Wherever practicable, he surrounded his works with two ditches, the outer one full of water, the inner one dry and generally about 125 feet wide, which served the besieged and, in some cases, cavalry detachments as a place d’armes. The theory of his system, for both attack and defence, was the superiority of a combined mass over individual fire. As a military expert, Coehoorn was reproached for immense waste of human life, in which he stood in unfavourable contrast to Vauban, who spared men. Personally he was straightforward, honest, brave, and hated flattery. He declined offers from several foreign governments. Charles II of England knighted him. He was buried at Wijkel, near Sneek in Friesland, where a monument was erected to his memory.