A secret case and a map case

In the second half of the 17th century Bastion III as a single building did not exist. The corner of the fortress was defended by two small demi-bastions made from remains of an older structure, which had collapsed. Temporary solutions were often used when it was necessary to cut off a bastion destroyed by gunfire and defend it. The two demi-bastions, the curtain wall towards Bastion IV and the bastion itself were not immersed in water; they were separated from it with an earthen platform, fitted with a stockade or fence. Jan Michał Link converted Bastion III which, at the beginning of the 18th century, was not protected by any external defensive works and whose towering mass dominated over marshes, flooded with water from time to time. After 100 years, in 1808 still there is nothing in front of the face of Bastion III except water. Two years after Napoleon’s defeat, while plans for extension of Zamość Fortress were being made for pricing purposes, defence of the western part of the fortress was designed in a very modern way as a protruding line of two powerful redoubts* jointed with an embankment and having their own covered way protected by caponiers*. After 85 years standard solutions were implemented; Bastions III and IV got counterguards* located near their walls and the curtain wall between them became a ravelin in the shape of a redan. It seemed that the fortress started to shrink again; perfect geometry was applied but a significant part of the foreground was given to the enemy. According to a report on the progress of works, the counterguard of Bastion III was built or modernized as late as 1847. At the time of the Crimean War in 1845 the idea of redoubts in the foreground of the bastion returned. What had caused this step backwards in the development of Zamość fortifications on the verge of the Holly Alliance is a mystery and an object of further research.

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  Bastion after the disaster and before the reconstruction- closed with two not large half-bastions. XVII

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  Inserted in the curtain in the obtuse angles and relatively thin breastworks with profiled shooting gallery, probably bricked. In front of the bastion – the huge basin so-called “Mały Zalew” (Small Reservoir)

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  The shaft of the retrenchment was strengthened, connected with curtains, regulated basin and the newest redoubts that were extended in front of the front of the bastion and the Szczebrzeska Gate, independently from narrow, asymmetrical ravelin-redan in

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  The shallower defense in front of the front of Bastion III – counterguard with its positions. In front of the Szczebrzeska Gate – regular ravelin

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