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See also: Laurent Mathieu See also: Brialmont (d
.
1885), was See also: born at See also: Venlo in See also: Limburg on the 25th of May 1821
.
Educated at the Brussels military school, he entered the army as sub-See also: lieutenant of See also: engineers in 843, and became lieutenant in 1847
.
From 1847 to 1850 he was private secretary to the war See also: minister, General Baron Chazal
.
In 1855 he entered the staff corps, became major in 1861, lieutenant-colonel 1864, colonel in 1868 and major-general 1874
.
In this See also: rank he held at first the position of director of fortifications in the See also: Antwerp See also: district (See also: December 1874), and nine months later he became inspector-general of fortifications and of the corps of engineers
.
In 1877 he became lieutenant-general
.
His far-reaching schemes for the fortification of the Belgian places met with no little opposition, and Brialmont seems to have felt much disappointment in this; at any See also: rate he went in 1883 to Rumania to advise as to the fortification See also: works required for the defence of the country, and presided over the elaboration of the scheme by which See also: Bucharest was to be made a first-class fortress
.
He was thereupon placed en disponibilite in his own service, as having undertaken the Bucharest works without the authorization of his See also: sovereign
.
This was due in See also: part to the See also: suggestion of See also: Austria, which power regarded the Bucharest works as a menace to herself
.
His services were, however, too valuable to be lost, and on his return to Belgium in 1884 he resumed his command of the Antwerp military district
.
He had, further, while in eastern See also: Europe., prepared at the See also: request of the Hellenic See also: government, a scheme for the defence of See also: Greece
.
He retired in 1886, but continued to supervise the Rumanian defences . He died on the 21st of See also: September 1903
.
In the first stage of his career as an engineer Brialmont's plans followed with but slight modification the ideas of See also: Vauban; and his See also: original scheme for fortifying Antwerp provided for both enceinte and forts being on a bastioned trace
.
But in 1859, when the See also: great entrenched See also: camp at Antwerp was finally taken in See also: hand, he had already gone over to the school of polygonal fortification and the ideas of Montalembert
.
About twenty years later Brialmont's own types and plans began to stand out amidst the general confusion of ideas on fortification which naturally resulted from the introduction of long-range guns, and from the events of 187o-71
.
The extreme detached forts of the Antwerp region and the fortifications on the See also: Meuse at Liege and See also: Namur were constructed in accordance with Brialmont's final principles, viz. the lavish use of See also: armour to protect the artillery inside the forts, the suppression of all artillery positions open to overhead fire, and the multiplication of intermediate batteries (see FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT)
.
In his capacity of inspector-general Brialmont drafted and carried out the whole scheme for the defences of Belgium
.
He was an indefatigable writer, and produced, besides essays, reviews and other papers in the See also: journals, twenty-three important works and See also: forty-nine See also: pamphlets
.
In 185o he originated the Journal de l'armee Beige
.
His most important publications were La Fortification du temps See also: present (Brussels, 1885); Influence du tir plongeant et See also: des obus-torpilles sur la fortification (Brussels, 1888) ; See also: Les Regions fortifiees (Brussels, 189o); La Defense des 'tats et la fortification a la fin du XIXe siecle (Brussels, 1895); Progres de la defense des etats et de la fortification permanente depuis Vauban (Brussels, 1898)
.
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