In the 16th and 17th centuries, new siege weapons and techniques, including the advent of artillery, forced the city to modernise the defences in order to keep potential attackers at a safe distance from the walls, including the addition of ditches, bastions and ravelins. Monterey Fort was the most important defensive work, its name coming from the Spanish count responsible for modernising the defences. The fort was built between 1672 and 1675 on the heights of "Obbrussel" ('Upper Brussels', now Saint-Gilles), south of the Halle Gate, by the military engineers Merex and Blom. As with the rest of the city's fortifications, the fort was ineffective, and was not able to prevent the French bombardment of Brussels in 1695, from the heights of Scheut, in Anderlecht, as part of the War of the Grand Alliance. The defensive works proved equally ineffective when French troops seized the city in 1746 during the War of the Austrian Succession, afterwards leaving the defensive works in ruins. By that time, siege was no longer an important part of warfare. Due to the growth of commerce and improved roads, the fortifications did little more than frustrate transit into and out of the city.