page_title: Fortress of Luxembourg
section_title: Expansion under Vauban
hierarchical_section_title: Fortress of Luxembourg / History / Expansion under Vauban
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Bockfelsen in Luxemburg
context_page_description: The Fortress of Luxembourg refers to the former fortifications of Luxembourg City, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which were mostly dismantled in 1867. The fortress was of great strategic importance for the control of the Left Bank of the Rhine, the Low Countries, and the border area between France and Germany.
  The fortifications were built gradually over nine centuries, from soon after the city's foundation in the tenth century until 1867. By the end of the Renaissance, Luxembourg was already one of Europe's strongest fortresses, but it was the period of great construction in the 17th and 18th centuries that gave it its fearsome reputation. Due to its strategic location, it became caught up in Europe-wide conflicts between the major powers such as the Habsburg–Valois wars, the War of the Reunions, and the French Revolutionary Wars, and underwent changes in ownership, sieges, and major alterations, as each new occupier—the Burgundians, French, Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs, and Prussians—made their own improvements and additions.
  Luxembourg took pride in the flattering historical epithet of the "Gibraltar of the North" as a result of its alleged impregnability.
context_section_description: After the successful siege by Louis XIV in 1683-1684, French troops regained the fortress under the renowned commander and military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban. From 1684 to 1688, Vauban immediately started a massive re-building and expansion project for the fortifications, using more than 3,000 men. Advance fortifications were placed on the heights around the city: the crownwork on Niedergrünewald, the hornwork on Obergrünewald, the "Cornichon de Verlorenkost", the Fort Bourbon and several redoubts. He greatly expanded the military's hold over the urban space by integrating Pfaffenthal into the defences, and large barracks were built on the Rham and Saint-Esprit plateaux. After the War of the Spanish Succession and the Peace of Ryswick, the fortress came under Spanish control from 1698, then passed to French administration again in 1701.
caption: The Bock
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