Luxembourg City’s unusual yet strategically advantageous topography of deep gorges and high plateaux afforded it significant defensive position. Over centuries the Bock promontory, shown in this drawing at centre, has been fortified, attacked, reinforced, besieged, and rebuilt by a host of powerful European armies. The Burgundians, Hapsburgs, Spanish, Prussians, and French have all vied for the Fortress of Luxembourg, one of the continent’s most strategic strongholds. Its foundations are Roman, yet it was not until the tenth century that a castle was constructed on the site by Count Siegfried.
1 During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Luxembourg changed hands a number of times between French and Spanish occupation, with each side contributing to the remodelling of the fortification. In the 1680s, for example, the complex was enlarged and strengthened by Vauban, chief military engineer to King Louis XIV.
2 To the left of the Bock in Turner’s drawing is the wall-girdled Rham, its ramparts punctuated with towers and gateways. Vauban also fortified this promontory, constructing new military barracks to house a more expanded French garrison.