Cetatea bastionară de la Chilia
Chilia bastioned fortress

Summary/Abstract: It seems that the first elements of the Chilia bastioned fortress have appeared in the early of XVIIIth century. It was there then while according to the order of Ottomans the French engineers could build the two earthen structures intended for heavy artillery named in the prospectus of Chilia for 1770 as „Bollwerk-s at the revetment walls”. Additional valuable information concerning the fortress of Chilia, was obtained from the Russian plan for 1790, found by the author at the Russian State Military-Historical Archive in Moscow. After 1794, under the orders of Sultan Selim the third of, a French engineer François Kauffer completely rebuilt the defense complex. New bastioned fortress, including a Moldavian fortress was a square plan and had a sloping glacis, three corner bastions in the form of pikes and one asymmetrical double corner bastion of polygonal plan. The intramuros was divided into a number of squares and rectangles and proportional conception of the fortress was stipulated by strict geometry of inner yard. The bastioned complex of Chilia reminds us of the manners of strengthening of the famous French engineer Vauban such as open the bastions, built into the shaft of a barrack, a massive earthen breastworks and covered road with some traverses and bypasses in front. Bastion square has remained very wide-spread kind of fortifying since the XVIth century, only the form of bastions perfected with the lapse of time. At the beginning of the XIXth century typical elements of the fortress were covered road of tenail tracing and some bastions with artillery pieces of ordnance located throughout the length of the faces. After the 1812 restructuring of the bastion fortress of Chilia was engaged by Russian military engineers Ivan Hartingh, Egor Foerster and others. This fortress was eliminated as a military object before the entry a town Chilia into Romanian state in 1856.

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