Tenaille: Difference between revisions

[[File:Tenaille.png|thumb|diagramsDiagrams of a tenaille, a tenaille augmented with a straight face (''un pan coupé''), and a bonnet or priestspriest's cap (with two tenailles) outside a [[ravelin]].]]

A '''Tenailletenaille''' (archaic '''Tenaliatenalia''') is an advanced defensive-work, in front of the main defences of a [[fortress]], which takes its name from resemblance, real or imaginary, to the lip of a pair of [[pincer (tool)|pincers]].{{sfn|Carlyle|1868|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=uObhAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA381#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 381]}} It is "from French, literally: [[tongs]], from Late Latin tenācula, pl of tenaculum".<ref>[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tenaille Tenaille"tenaille"] , ''American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', Fourth Edition by. Houghton Mifflin Company.</ref>

{{quote|...&nbsp;There was a Tenalia to flanker the south Wall of the Town, between Duleek Gate and the corner Tower before mentioned;—which our men entered, wherein they found some forty or fifty of the Enemy which they put to the sword. And this 'Tenalia' they held: but it being without the Wall, and the [[sally-port]] through the Wall into that Tenalia being choked up with some of the Enemy which were killed in it, it proved of no use for an entrance into the Town that way. ...—|Oliver Cromwell{{sfn|Carlyle|1868|pp=382,383}} }}

Tenaille were a development in fortification formalised by [[Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban|Vauban]], among others. A [[postern]] gate was placed low down in the curtain wall close to the centre in order to allow the defenders to access the ditches that front the wall. To protect the postern, an outwork, originally V-shaped, was placed in front of the gate, providing an area where the defenders could leave the fortification without being seen or directly shot at. A simple tenaille is shown in the top image to the right; it is the chevron between the two corner [[bastion]]s. The design also evolved a version in which the tenaille possesses projections at each end, as seen in the middle image to the right. The name was also used for some other V-shaped parts of outworks; the bottom-most image, a ''priest's cap'', has two tenailles.{{sfn|de Vernon|1817|loc=[httphttps://books.google.com/books?id=omG5AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false p.46]}}{{sfn|de Vernon|1817|pp=46-4746–47}} Also shown is another approach to protect a gate; the roughly triangular outwork seen in the middle of the bottom drawing is a [[ravelin]].

*{{source-attribution|{{citation| last1last=de Vernon |first1first=Simon François Gay |last2translator-last=O'Connor |first2translator-first= John Michael (translator) |year=1817 |title=A Treatise on the Science of War and Fortification: Composed for the Use of the Imperial Polytechnick School, and Military Schools; and Translated for the War Department, for the Use of the Military Academy of the United States: to which is Added a Summary of the Principles and Maxims of Grand Tactics and Operations|publisher=Printed by J. Seymour}} }}