Description

Amazingly, for generations, right up until the 1840s, Paris was perhaps the least fortified major city in Europe.  Confident in France’s ability to repel any invaders long before they approached the capital, in 1670, Louis XIV ordered the levelling of Paris’ medieval walls.  While Sébastien Vauban, the world’s greatest military engineer devised a grand plan to re-fortify Pairs in 1689, the king totally ignored it and no action was taken.

 

In 1784, Louis XVI ordered the construction of the Mur des Fermiers généraux (General Farmer’s Wall) which, completed in 1791, entirely encircled Paris’s city limits.  Yet, this sad construction was merely intended for taxation purposes (to control items travelling in and out of the city) and was virtually useless for defence.

 

Fast forward to 1814-5, during the denouement of Napoleon Bonaparte’s regime, the Allies were able to invade and occupy Paris twice, as save for some remaining vestiges of medieval constructions, the city was unfortified.

 

France’s restored Royalist regime recognized the need to fortify Paris, but for years its officials dithered and argued amongst themselves, content with merely refitting some of the ancient, ruined bastions, actions of little use.

 

Finally, in 1830, the French government convened a commission of experts to advise upon if, and how, to create a comprehensive defensive system for Paris.  However, there was much disagreement amongst its members on how to proceed.

 

By 1833, the Commission had come up with two proposals, but could not agree on which to adopt, resulting in gridlock.  Plan 1, inspired by Vauban’s designs, as subsequently modified by the military engineer Louis de Cormontaigne (1696-1752), advanced that Paris should be engirdled in a thick continuous wall, located far beyond the Farmers General Wall, to embrace not only the city, but a sizeable expanse of the surrounding countryside in all directions.  It reasoned that France’s armies would weaken any enemy approaching Paris, such that they would be too depleted to overcome such a formidable obstacle.

 

Plan 2 eschewed building a grand wall, and rather called for the outskirts of Paris to be defended by a ring of separate forts placed along the major approaches, with a “containment shell” (a relatively modest wall to its anterior).  This plan maintained that the forts would largely break up any invading army, allowing the defenders to finish them off in the zone between the forts the containment shell.

 

The opponents of Plan 1 argued that it was an archaic design that could be easily overcome by a concerted enemy strike.  Those countering Plan 2 maintained that the ring forts would fail to sufficiently weaken a formidable enemy, allowing them to pass through the gaps and to easily overcome the weak containment shell.

 

In 1836, Adolphe Thiers (1797 – 1877), who served simultaneously as the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister for two terms (February 22 – September 6, 1836, and March 1, 1840 – October 29, 1840), and later as President (1871-3), convened a new Fortification Commission to finally decide upon how to defend Paris.

 

Fortunately, this time, the body had the right mix of technical, political and PR firepower to make progress.  Its 9 members included Thiers (as the Commission’s Chair and Rapporteur), Lt. General Louis Doguereau, Adolphe Billaut (Deputy and future Interior Minister), General Thomas Robert Bugeaud (hero of battles in Algeria), Mathieu de la Redorte (Deputy and future Ambassador to Spain), Nelzir Allard (Deputy and military appropriations expert), Charles Liadières (Deputy, military engineer and aide-de-camp the King Louis-Philippe), Camille Hyacinthe Odilon Barrot (Prefect of the Seine département and future French Prime Minister), Louis François Bertin de Veaux (esteemed journalist and long-time Deputy) {see Ernest Hamel, Histoire du règne de Louis-Philippe…, Tome Second (1897), pp. 222-32}.

 

On July 16, 1838, the commission decided to combine both plans proposed in 1833, by building a robust defensive wall around Paris and its immediate environs, plus, an outer ring of defensive forts.  It was reasoned that this would both mollify both camps in the pro-fortification community and to provide Paris a double system of protection.  However, the exact nature of this integrated design remained a topic of much debate and planning.

 

The necessity of, and support for, building a defensive system for Pairs intensified when France found itself isolated from all other major European powers during the Oriental Crisis of 1840 (Summer–November 1840), whereby Thiers’s government supported Muhammed Ali, the Pasha of Egypt’s rebellion against the Ottoman Empire.  While no neighbour ended up attacking France during the era, the French political class feared that the crisis could be used as an excuse for aggression against their country.

 

Momentum in favour of fortifying Paris grew, and even though Thiers was compelled to resign as Prime Minister at the end of October 1841, the Chambre des députés allowed to him to retain his chairmanship of the fortification commission, permitting it to conclude its work.

 

Thiers presented the final report of the Fortification Commission to the government on January 13, 1841.  His plan called for the construction of what was later known as the Enceinte de Thiers (‘Thiers Wall’), which envisaged Paris and the immediate surrounding countryside being enclosed within a 33 km-long wall, encompassing 80 sq. km of territory.  The crenelated wall was to be fronted by a 25-metre-wide dry ditch and was to feature 94 bastions that were numbered starting on the right bank of the Seine and then continuing until it rejoined the river.  The wall was to be permeated by 17 gates for routes nationales and 23 gates for routes départementales, while there were 12 small portals for the local populace.  The wall was to be interrupted 5 times by rivers and canals, while 8 railway passages were subsequently added.  Additionally, to surround the greater Paris region at regular intervals were a constellation of 16 bastion forts, lying between 2 and 5 km beyond the wall, supported by 22 smaller forts and at 11 separate batteries.

 

The budget for the project was massive, totalling 140 million Francs.  This included 17,970 million Francs for land acquisition, 16,608 million Francs for earthworks, and 83,356 million Francs for masonry, and was to engage 20,000 workers.  The construction was to be overseen by the esteemed veteran military engineer Guillaume Dode de la Brunerie, Viscount of Martignac (1775 –1851), who was a Marshal of France.

 

As soon as Thiers tended his report, it set off firestorm of debate in the Chambre des députés and the press.  Many objected to its stupendous cost, while others had problems with its technical specifications.  Eventually, after a long debate, in February 1841, the Chambre des députés approved the Thiers Wall plan as proposed by a vote of 147 to 85.  King Louis-Philippe officially ratified the plan into law in April of that year, and work commenced and proceeded at pace.  The entire project, almost exactly in the manner proposed by Thiers and the Fortification Commission, was completed in 1846.

 

The Present Map in Focus

 

This map is an important and unique artefact, bearing a manuscript masterplan that is one of the earliest known representations of the design for the Thiers Wall, created before the project was approved.  The underlying printed template of the map is Charles-Étienne Collin’s Carte militaire des environs de Paris relative aux travaux de défense exécutés ou projetés en 1815 (Paris: [1816]), which was considered to be the best general map of the (desultory) state of the French capital’s defences in the immediate wake of the Napoleonic Wars.  It shows that during that period Paris was defended by only the militarily useless Mur des Fermiers généraux and the sad remains of medieval ramparts.  This explains why it was so easy for the Anglo-Allied forces to seize Paris twice in 1814-5.  For the same reasons, the Collin map the ideal tabula rasa for members of the Fortification Commission to plot their proposals for a new comprehensive defensive plan for Paris.

 

The present map features extensive manuscript additions upon Collin’s printed template that, in great detail, showcase the mature design for the Thiers Wall, and which were likely executed in 1840, in the run up to Theirs tendering the final report of the Fortification Commission in January 1841.

 

Importantly, on the label on the verso the map, there appears the manuscript former owner’s name of “gnl. Doguereau”, meaning Lieutenant General Louis Doguereau (1777 – 1856), a member of the Fortification Commission and one of Europe’s foremost authorities on artillery sciences.  Doguereau entered artillery school at the age of 17, graduating as a military engineer.  During the French Revolutionary-Napoleonic Wars, he served with extraordinary bravery in the frontline combat in the Levant and gained the favour of the emperor, joining his imperial guard.  He subsequently served in Spain as the chief of staff of artillery for General Sébastiani, where he was renowned for his extreme gallantry and technical skill.  Up through the Hundred Days, he was viewed as one of Napoleon’s most reliable senior commanders.

 

Despite Doguereau’s closeness to Napoleon, in the wake of the war, he was immediately forgiven by the restored Royalist regime, as he was perhaps France’s foremost authority on artillery.  He subsequently served as the head of artillery of the prestigious 3^rd Corps at Mézières, and later as the Head of the School of Application of Artillery and Engineering.  He became arguably the most technically competent member of Theirs’s Fortification Commission and, in 1837, was elected to the Chambre des députés, representing Blois.   Undoubtably, the design of the Thiers Wall was greatly influenced by Doguereau’s input.  In 1845, the general was ennobled to become Baron Doguereau.  Louis Doguereau should not be confused for his older brother, General-Viscount Jean-Pierre Doguereau (1774 – 1826), who was likewise an esteemed military engineer.

 

Although we do not know if the manuscript additions on the map were executed by General Doguereau personally, they were done to an extremely high degree of technical skill, indicating the hand of a professional military draftsman.  In any event, Doguereau seemingly employed the map during the later stages for the deliberations of the Fortification Commission.

 

The manuscript additions showcase every salient detail of the Thiers Wall plan as it was proposed and built, save for one major deviation (to be revealed later).  The lines of the existing Mur des Fermiers généraux are heightened in red, while further out, engirdling all of today’s city limits of Paris, is the proposed thick crenelated Thiers Wall proper, being 33-km long with its 94 bastions (here numbered at every fifth bastion), which is elegantly drafted in red pen and shadowed with pink, peach and green wash.

 

Between 2 to 5 km further out from the new wall is the proposed constellation of 16 defensive forts, each finely drafted, and labelled in fine thick cursive.  Additionally, some small ramparts are marked, while many of the forts are connected by special military roads.

 

The walls and forts are depicted exactly as they would be built between 1841 and 1846.  However, the map also features a large element that was never realized.  All major water courses (the Seine River and canals, etc.) are here coloured in a blue wash.  One will notice that on the map many of the small river valleys to the north (the Rouillon Riviere and la Vielle Mer Rivière) and southeast (Ruisseau de Montfort) of St. Denis, to the north of Paris, are shown to be intentionally flooded.  This would provide an added layer of protection to what was considered the be one of the topographically easiest routes for an invading army to approach Paris.  As it turned out, this aspect of the Thiers plan would be rejected due the significant costs of expropriating the required lands, as well as health concerns (stagnant water near cities bred cholera, etc.)

 

Additionally, the map shows the routes of Paris’s earliest railways, shown as fine bright blue lines.  Leaving the location of Paris’s Gare Saint-Lazare, towards the northwest, is the line running to Saint-Germain and Yvelines, inaugurated in 1837.  Leaving Paris from the southwest is the line running from the location of the Gare de l’Ouest (later renamed Gare de Montparnasse), opened in 1840.

 

Epilogue

 

In its day and during the decades after, the Thiers Wall project was often savagely maligned by both military engineers and historians.  It was seen as clunky and archaic.  It was thought to impede the movement of French forces conducting the defensive manoeuvres, while not providing sufficient defensive protection from invading forces.  Specifically, the outer ring forts were not mutually supporting (i.e., they were isolated from each other; any single fort could be taken by the enemy, allowing it to be used offensively against Paris).  Additionally, the gaps between the forts were seen as being too wide, allowing an enemy pass through.  Moreover, the Theirs Wall proper was not regarded as being of sufficient height to protect Paris from modern artillery volleys.  Many even opined that King Louis-Philippe approved the Thiers Wall as a means of keeping the ‘Parisian Mob’ (the capital was seen a hotbed of republicanism) from infecting the countryside, as opposed to protecting the city from foreigners.

 

In 1860, Baron Haussmann, who redesigned Paris, extended the city’s limits to the Thiers Wall, forming its modern limits that stand to the present day.

 

As it happened, during the Siege of Paris (September 19, 1870 to January 28, 1871), the Germans managed to take control of some of the outer ring forts, using them offensively against the French.  However, most of the Their Wall system held.  While France eventually surrendered, allowing the Prussians to win the war, the fact that the Germans were not able to seize Paris likely saved the city from being looted or burned.  Thus, while the Thiers Wall was not ideal, it was perhaps not as ineffectual as commonly maintained.

 

In the wake of World War I, the Thiers Wall system was inarguably passé, as it was entirely unable to protect Paris from a modern mechanized army.  Consequently, in 1919, the city of Paris purchased the wall from the French state for 100 million Francs.  Between that time and 1929, almost all the wall was torn down.  Beginning in 1958, the Boulevard Périphérique was largely built over the former place of the wall.  Meanwhile, most of the outer ring forts were left derelict, as they were too costly to demolish.

 

References: N/A – Map with manuscript additions unique and unrecorded.