A tenaille (archaic tenalia) is an advanced defensive-work, in front of the main defences of a

fortress A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

, which takes its name from resemblance, real or imaginary, to the lip of a pair of pincers. It is "from French, literally:

tongs Tongs are a type of tool used to grip and lift objects instead of holding them directly with hands. There are many forms of tongs adapted to their specific use. The first pair of tongs belongs to the Egyptians. Tongs likely started off as ...

, from Late Latin tenācula, pl of tenaculum"."tenaille"
''American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. In a letter to John Bradshaw, President of the

Council of State A Council of State is a governmental body in a country, or a subdivision of a country, with a function that varies by jurisdiction. It may be the formal name for the cabinet or it may refer to a non-executive advisory body associated with a head o ...

in London,

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three ...

writing from Dublin on 16 September 1649 described one such tenaille that played a significant part during the

storming of Drogheda The siege of Drogheda or the Drogheda massacre took place 3–11 September 1649, at the outset of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. The coastal town of Drogheda was held by the Irish Catholic Confederation and English Royalists under ...

. Tenaille were a development in fortification formalised by Vauban, among others. A

postern A postern is a secondary door or gate in a fortification such as a city wall or castle curtain wall. Posterns were often located in a concealed location which allowed the occupants to come and go inconspicuously. In the event of a siege, 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 A bastion or bulwark is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fi ...

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. Also shown is another approach to protect a gate; the roughly triangular outwork seen in the middle of the bottom drawing is a

ravelin A ravelin is a triangular fortification or detached outwork, located in front of the innerworks of a fortress (the curtain walls and bastions). Originally called a ''demi-lune'', after the ''lunette'', the ravelin is placed outside a castle ...

Notes

References

* ;Attribution * Fortification (architectural elements) {{architecturalelement-stub