Tag Archives: defence

Loads of balls to defend the city walls

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THE WALL SURROUNDING the fort of Jaisalmer is about three miles in circumference.  It encloses a warren of narrow streets and small squares and is home to several thousand residents.

 

Balls on the walls

It was during the reign of Akhai Singh, 1723 to 1762, that people began leaving the town around the fort to establish homes within it. They began laying out streets and mohallas (neighbourhoods) within the well defended fort. This continued until 1891. Why it should have stopped in 1891, I  do not know yet. Suffice it to say that this fort, like that at Carcassonne in France, is one of the few forts in the world that is still home to a settlement of local people. It is a “living fort”, not a museum.

 

The fort and its contents form the main tourist attraction of Jaisalmer.  Like Venice in Italy, it feels as if the tourists outnumber the locals. Many of the buildings in the fort cater to the tourist trade: guest houses, shops, and eateries. And there are plenty of men who are keen to guide you around the fort for a modest fee. However, the services of a guide would spoil, rather than enhance, the pleasure of exploring this attractive place. The best way to enjoy the fort and the richness of its ornate, yellow sandstone buildings is to lose yourself in the maze of narrow streets.

 

The fort’s construction commenced in about 1156 AD. You do not need to be particularly observant to notice that upon many of the fort’s outer walls there are heavy-looking stone balls and roughly hewn stone cylinders.  These were placed, ready to be rolled down on enemies attacking the fort at close range. The fort has been attacked several times over the centuries. But I  hope that it will not be attacked again. In the unlikely event that another assault  will be planned, I  am pleased to report that the stone balls are already in place.

 

Just in case they attack

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AFTER WW2 MANY thousands of concrete bunkers were built all over Albania because the country’s paranoid and brutal dictator Enver Hoxha, who ruled between 1944 and 1985, was concerned that the country would be invaded by its neighbours or others further afield. The invasion never happened. Likewise, the much-feared invasion of the UK during WW2 never occurred (except for the Channel Islands). However, in anticipation of a feared German invasion of the UK, the country, like Albania, was covered with concrete fortifications in many shapes and sizes. During a recent visit to Sidmouth in Devon, I spotted one of these, a small concrete ‘pill box’.

Located high on a cliff (overlooking Jacob’s Ladder Beach) next to Sidmouth’s Connaught Gardens, this small bunker was probably constructed as part of a coastal defence system in  1940-41. Later in WW2 when the risk of a German invasion was getting smaller, it was used during the training exercises that were performed prior to the Allied invasion of Normandy in early June 1940. It was from the south Devon coast that the invasion force set out for France.

Designed to resist destruction, bunkers such as the small one I saw in Sidmouth (and the multitude of mostly hemispherical bunkers I have seen in Albania), they are both difficult and expensive to remove when they are no longer needed. Interestingly, these concrete defences are no guarantee against successful invasion, as can be seen from the ineffectiveness of the Maginot Line in eastern France and the huge structures built by the Germans on the Atlantic coast of that country.