Tangier Garrison fortifications - Maritime Regimental Flags posted

[Mpanko]

Does anyone have insight as to the construction or relative locations of the various fortifications outside the Tangier city walls?  I know there was a series of forts and redoubts that were used to provide early warning and to slow Siege efforts by the Moors.  I cannot find any real information as to their construction and how many guns or men manned them. 

Based on what I have seen on the net I assume these forts were earthworks and nothing substantial using stone construction.

Any thoughts or sources?

[carlos marighela]

Bit of a mixed bag really. Most of the outworks like Charles Fort, Anne Fort, Pole fort etc were earthworks. Those two are depicted as star forts of the type you would encounter in the ECW, The Queen's Sconce for example. Fort Charles was the largest of the outlying fortifications and could hold a garrison of 300. Others were fairly small and crude affairs, square, diamond shaped or triagular, often little more than a breastwork with a timber pallisade and some were tiny. Fort Giles AKA the Devil's Drop had a garrison of only 12 men.

At the other end of the scale, the outpost of Whitby appears as a much more substantial affair, stone built walls and buildings. Somewhere in between you have Whitehall which was a multi-storey stone built building.

There is mention of caltrops being sprinkled around some of the forts to impede Moorish cavalry and 'fireworks' being placed upon pallisades to illuminate any Moorish night attack.

Wenceslaus Hollar visited Tangier and his etchings are the best guide to the lay out and fortifications. You can google Hollar and Tangier and come up with any number of images, many of which are held in the Royal Collection.

[carlos marighela]

Best works on the subject are A.J. Smithers' The Tangier Campaign and the relevant chapters in John Childs The Army of Charles II. The latter has a good map showing the location of all the forts.

There's also this.

https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1971-02-33-397-1

[Mpanko]

Thanks for the info… I am amazed at the responses.  Never would have guessed there were stone structures.  Now I just need to find those books!

[SJWi]

Helion have recently published a book on the "English Garrison of Tangiers" which may be of interest? I don't have a copy so can't comment any further.

[Mpanko]

I will add that one to the list as well… thanks!

[Mpanko]

Earlier suggestion for searching for Hollar’s drawings of Tangier was a gold mine…link to his panorama of most forts extending out from Tangiers.  They all appear to be of stone…which I was not considering at all to be typical….awesome resource!

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_SL-5214-20

[carlos marighela]

Hmm not sure that's quite true but none the less there were various schemes to improve the defences  over the twenty years of English occupancy some of which foundered due to lack of resources.

Some of the fortlets are described as mere entrenchments with wooden palisades and without roofing. This is remarked upon due to the tactic of the besieging troops using smoke/stink bombs tossed over the walls to smoke out their garrisons.

On the other hand there are references to the inability to finish Fort Charles due to an absence of lime, which surely denotes a masonry or intended masonry structure.

Whitby is variously described a sturdy barracks 240 foot long by 15 and  as a 'village'. Certainly Hollar's drawings show it as a walled  collection of buildings. We also know that a pier was built out from there using stone rubble. That said, the account of the 1679 attack on Whitby has the attack initially falling upon two wooden block houses one of which is described a 'low house with a little tower at one end of it, held a single sergeant and twenty-eight men...'

The biggest problem that Tangier faced was a lack of adequate funding.  It never gained a significant civilian population and generated almost no economic activity of its own. It was a loss making, money pit and much of that money was spent building the Great Mole. There are various descriptions of the inadequacy of the defences and the cracked and crumbling nature of the main town curtain walls.

So all in all a mix. Block houses, palisaded earthworks and some masonry structures.

[Mpanko]

I defer to all of you who have studied this more than my shallow attempts to understand the subject.  I was just making observations from the sketches.  I was able to find an archive copy of Halkets diary that was focused on his part of the 1680 reinforcements which had to retake many of the forts - to include Charles due to the Moors over running them.  This seems like the spot to dig into a nice series of war game scenarios.  If the forts are in ruins they are easier to represent in my opinion.  I am also intrigued by the use of sailors as naval infantry support for the offensive.  Good stuff all around

[fastolfrus]

might also be the case that the forts were intended/planned to be stone but only the first/temporary wooden ones were completed (as mentioned in some of the accounts), and the engravings might be a bit like those "architect's impression" pictures that you see outside every new supermarket building site.

[Emir of Askaristan]

I've just taken delivery of my copy of The English Garrison of Tangier

Lots of illustrations, maps and photos of the fortifications.

[peachey_c]

I have been looking at Tangier recently too, and found some free books.

Written in 1894, Chapter 3 is on Tangier. According to the notes, seems to be based on contemporary sources, which don't seem to be easily available at this time. You can download the pdf.
"History of the British standing army. A.D. 1660 to 1700," by Walton.
https://archive.org/details/historybritishs00waltgoog/mode/2up

I haven't read this one yet, so cannot vouch for it, but maybe useful to you, written 1912, again pdf;
"Tangier, England's lost Atlantic outpost, 1661-1684" by Routh.
https://archive.org/details/tangierenglandsl00rout

[Mpanko]

Thanks, I am impressed with all these resources….feel like I was living under a rock not being aware of all this.

The Helion book looks like a must buy as it has the fortification map I have been searching for 

[Cacique Caribe]

I haven't read this one yet, so cannot vouch for it, but maybe useful to you, written 1912, again pdf;
"Tangier, England's lost Atlantic outpost, 1661-1684" by Routh.
https://archive.org/details/tangierenglandsl00rout

It’s sad to see that the tendency to speak of abandoned things as “lost” isn’t a new habit by modern journalists and historians.

Whenever I hear of a “lost city” or a “lost civilization”, I usually find myself asking … who would lose something that big?  And, did the guy or gal get fired for their negligence? 

Dan

[carlos marighela]

There's a worse publishing sin. It's the overuse and misuse of the word 'forgotten' as part of the title. Usually what it really means largely unknown to the ill-educated or simple minded. I look forward to 'D-Day: The Forgotten Invasion' or 'Waterloo. The Forgotten Battle'.