1 - Military Engineers in the Middle Ages

Summary

An Unbroken Tradition Of Military Engineering?

The monuments of the ancient world that have survived are eloquent testimony to the levels of engineering skills available in these societies. Each successive civilisation left evidence of its ability to build on a vast scale, to overcome geological and geographical obstacles through the application of human ingenuity and (often) the force of immense human labour, to make arid land fertile through great hydraulic projects, to cross rivers and seas. We know that these engineering skills were also harnessed for the conduct of warfare. Literate societies such as China, India and successive empires in the Middle East, and Greece then Rome around the Mediterranean, additionally left writings that confirm what they were capable of in both civilian and military contexts. Each empire influenced its neighbours and its successors. In Europe, the Middle East, central Asia and North Africa, the roots of the developments of the most recent millennia must be sought in the legacies of Rome and Persia, and their interactions with China and the kingdoms of the Indian subcontinent.

The imperial armies of Rome and its ever-present Persian rival for domination in the east were professional organisations and military engineering was integrated within them. The operation and maintenance of artillery, the erection of fortifications, the bridging of rivers and laying out of camps, the undermining of enemy fortresses were all tasks for which members of the armed forces were recruited and trained. Roman weaponry was manufactured under the supervision of salaried, skilled workers employed in arms factories (fabricae). The contribution of engineering to the military success of Rome was sufficiently valued for its impact to be described in classical histories, or at least clearly implied.

Not until modern times (in Europe) would a professional corps of engineers integrated into the army of the state again become common. It would be the seventeenth century before a formal body of engineers existed in the British armed forces, for instance. The earliest examples would be the experts charged by a few rulers with organising a paid body of people to maintain the royal artillery in the gunpowder age from the mid fifteenth century onwards.