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Citadel
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A citadel is a fortress for protecting a town, sometimes incorporating a castle. The term derives from the same Latin root as the word "city", civis, meaning citizen.
In a fortification with bastions, the citadel is the strongest part of the system, sometimes well inside the outer walls and bastions, but often forming part of the outer wall for the sake of economy.
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A citadel is a fortress for protecting a town, sometimes incorporating a castle. The term derives from the same Latin root as the word "city", civis, meaning citizen.
In a fortification with bastions, the citadel is the strongest part of the system, sometimes well inside the outer walls and bastions, but often forming part of the outer wall for the sake of economy. It is positioned to be the last line of defense should the enemy breach the other components of the fortification system.
A citadel is also a term of the third part of a mediaeval castle, with higher walls than the rest of a town. It was to be the last line of defense before the keep itself.
The oldest known structures which might have served as citadels were built by the Indus Valley Civilization, where the citadel represented a centralised authority. The purpose of these structures, however, remains debated. Though the structures found in the ruins of Mohenjo-daro were walled, it is far from clear that these structures were defensive against enemy attacks. Rather, they may have been built to divert flood waters.
In ancient Greece, the Acropolis (citadel), placed on a commanding eminence, was important in the life of the people, serving as a refuge and stronghold in peril and containing military and food supplies, the shrine of the god and a royal palace. The most well-known is the Acropolis of Athens, but nearly every Greek city-state had one - the Acrocorinth famed as a particularly strong fortress.
In various countries, the citradels gained a specific name such as "Kremlin" in Russia or "Alcázar" in the Iberian Peninsula.
At various periods, and particularly during the Middle Ages, the citadel - having its own fortifications, independent of the city walls - was the last defense of a besieged army, often held after the town had been conquered.
One such incident played an important part in the history of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire. The Hellenistic garrison of Jerusalem and local supporters of the Seleucids held out for many years in the Acra citadel, making Maccabean rule in the rest of Jerusalem precarious. When finally gaining possession of the place, the Maccabeans pointedly destroyed and razed the Acra, though they constructed another citadel for their own use in a different part of Jerusalem.
As late as the 19th Century, a similar situation developed at Antwerp, where a Dutch garrison under General David Hendrik Chassé held out in the city's citadel between 1830 and 1832, while the city itself had already become part of the independent Belgium.
In time of war the citadel in many cases afforded retreat to the people living in the areas around the town. However, Citadels were often used also to protect a garrison or political power from the inhabitants of the town where it was located, being designed to ensure loyalty from the town which they defended.
For example Barcelona had a great citadel built in 1714 to intimidate the Catalans against repeating their mid 17th and early 18th century rebellions against the Spanish central government. In the 19th century, as soon as the political climate had liberalised enough to permit it, the people of Barcelona had the citadel torn down, and replaced it with the city's main central park, the Parc de la Ciutadella. A similar example is the Citadella in Budapest, Hungary.
The attack on the Bastille in the French Revolution - though afterwards remembered mainly for the release of the handful of prisoners incarcerated there - was to considerable degree motivated by the structure being a Royal citadel in the midst of revolutionary Paris.
The Siege of the Alcázar in the Spanish Civil War shows that at least in some cases a citadel can be used effectively even in modern warfare.
The Citadelle of Quebec still survives as the largest citadel still in official military operation in North America after more than two hundred years of existence.
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