The visionary invention of a Spanish soldier that revolutionized war three centuries later

That invention was, as ABC revealed in a report published on August 26, 1909 by the famous special envoy Antonio Azpeítua, the germ of the future ‘blockhouses’ that the Spanish army in North Africa used, more than three centuries later. . A concept that, on paper, came from the fusion of two German words (‘block’ –stone or log– and ‘hause’ –house–), but that, in reality, emanated a certain reddish aroma.

From Philip III to XX

Of course, Mendoza was not just anyone. Born in 1540 into a noble family from Castile, he demonstrated great academic talent – ​​he completed his studies at the University of Alcalá de Henares at a very young age – and, from his youth, he felt a certain magnetism towards weapons. This is how the historian explains it José Miguel Cabañas Agrela in his dossier on this character prepared for the Royal Academy of History. The data supports him, as this soldier fought in the African campaigns and the defense of Malta before joining the Duke of Alba to fight the revolt in the Netherlands. There he wrote one of his great treatises, the ‘Comments’ on this conflict.

In addition to being a soldier, spy, diplomat and tactician, Mendoza was a visionary who wanted to contribute his experience on the battlefield to future wars. His most famous treatise, ‘Theory and practice of war’, It served as a manual for future military leaders and included the description of this new invention, the later ‘blockhouse’. This was the specific description:

«In Barbary it is necessary to stay in the place that nature offers, near the water, without being able to choose another stronger one, an inconvenience that the ancients sometimes foreseen, bringing empty bags that they filled with sand with which to fortify the accommodations. And so that they may be so in the days that the King Our Lord will be able to carry out in those parts and provinces, I presented to him, in the year 1584, coming from the embassy of England, a form of wooden devices and certain screws, with which could put together in a very short space of time a [fuerte] “height of thirty geometric feet and more, and width of sixty in a square.”

As Mendoza left blank in the same treaty, this construction was easy to assemble and disassemble, could house soldiers equipped with muskets and would have several platforms inside from which to shoot at the enemy. In turn, the soldier proposed that this small fort have a kind of second floor, “a watchtower”, from which soldiers could go up and down at full speed to carry out exploration and surveillance tasks, in addition to offering a advantageous position to fire on the enemy. It is difficult to know if Philip III agreed to include these new mills in North Africa. What is clear is that, in the end, they evolved and were used massively in the Second Boer War, between 1899 and 1902.

Disaster in Africa

Years later, the author of the report defined the ‘blockhouses’ of Africa, those of the early 20th century, as a wooden hut, with a corrugated iron roof, whose walls were covered with sandbags capable of stopping enemy rifle fire. Although it was the journalist of 1909 who was most lavish in indicating that they usually had a single floor and that, when in strange cases, a second was added, it was with the objective that the unit located inside could fire from a high point. “Depending on the place it occupies and the weapons available to the enemy, it is built with more or less solidity, although always greater than the penetration of rifle casualties,” the journalist added in the text.

They just forgot to indicate something that they emphasize Juan García del Río and Carlos González Rosado in ‘Blockhouses. Life and death in Morocco’ (Almena): in principle, the wall of most blockhouses was reinforced in its lower part with several rows of stones. However, this practice stopped being carried out due to how cumbersome it was and the time it delayed construction. These Spanish popularizers also emphasize that 75 sandbags per linear meter of parapet were needed to fortify the most common positions, while this amount increased to one hundred in the ‘blockhouses’. “In practice, the smallest ones, measuring 4 by 4 meters, required 1,600,” they complete.

Although the humblest ‘blockhouses’ barely had a room, the larger ones could have drums for machine guns, water wells, a kitchen or a small cabin dedicated to communications and storing supplies. In most, however, the liquid element was conspicuous by its absence and it was necessary to do the ‘aguada’ or search for water in nearby sources on a daily basis. The maxim, however, was to use ingenuity. This led to a small opening being left in the tin roofs to collect rain. And in the desert any idea was valid to take advantage of natural resources.

Once the main building was built, the garrison – between twelve and twenty men – dedicated themselves to digging latrines in the back and erecting a small wire fence. According to Azpeítua, this was barely useful “for hanging clothes”, but the truth is that it could avoid more than one displeasure for the Spanish military. This is corroborated by Spanish authors in their work, where they highlight its usefulness in stopping enemy advances. What they do agree with the journalist about is the large amount of material that was necessary to build them: «To build a 4 by 4 ‘blockhouse’, 1,500 meters of wire, 60 stations and 4 kilos of staples.