Chapter 17, Page 7
April 23rd, 2018Fort Belfroi is in sore need of repair. Marguerite has her work cut out for her! She better hurry, and you’ll see why when you vote for Snow by Night on Top Web Comics!
Our fort is based heavily on Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. It’s worth a visit. Steph and I went there last fall in preparation for this chapter and took a zillion pictures. It’s beautiful country.
art is getting better and better – gorgeous first panel
*smiles*
Actually, controlling the heights to the east was how the British drove the Continentals out of Ticonderoga in 1777. They dragged a cannon to the long-ignored height across the narrows and shot into the fort, driving the Continentals out. If Marguerite has artillery, it might not be a bad gambit.
In this instance, the heights outside of Fort Belfroi control access to the fort. Here’s a handy map of Fort Ticonderoga to give you a visual. We’ve flipped it in our fantasy map so the heights are to the east.
So why build a fort on the peninsula? To control the waterways.
Also there’s that thing on the cover where Marguerite has a very glassy appearance. Might be an ace-in-the-hole, much like artillery.
Her strategy is not new, but I don’t recall where I read about it before. By abandoning the perceived strong point, the ‘victor’ is psychologically compelled to hold it and therefore becomes the besieged. It works if the commander cannot fight their instinct or training, but if it can also backfire, so it is definitely a bold strategy. That era of warfare was just beginning to perceive the notion of truly fluid battlefronts that did not rely as heavily on fortifications or standing battles. Mechanization dramatically changed the face of warfare, but that is still 200-300 years in the future of this world.
During the civil war between Pompey and Caesar, Pompey did something similar by abandoning Rome to Caesar’s advance. Militarily, this was a smart move, as it gave Pompey’s legions mobility and forced Caesar to expend some of his troops to hold the city. (Politically, however, it turned out to be a bad move, as it soured the citizenry and some of the senate toward Pompey, believing he’d abandoned them.)
Marguerite is so pretty.
Sorry, I’m too tired to make a thought-out comment about fantasy early modern warfare. I’ll just have to trust the good marshal knows what she’s doing (or more likely, will sooner or later find herself out of her depth when somebody pulls a spirit from their pocket).
I suppose I can see where that plan is going… sorta?
It sounds like she intends to simply GIVE them the fort by abandoning it, which, even though it’s in bad shape, is so much more than they would have had just landing on the shore, but if they mean to fight using sneak-attacks and guerrilla tactics every time they set foot outside the fort, that’s pretty sneaky. (like it sorta shows in the next page’s preview?)
Siege the would-be siegers!