Brief history of Melilla’s fortresses

(According to Melilla’s guide book written by Bravo A. & Sáez J.M.)

The origin of the walls of Melilla must be traced back in a Phoenician factory of Rusaddir, which later developed into a Punic city and was a prominent oppidum (fortress), which in the mid 1st century B.C had a circuit of walls with at least two main gates. Its was an outstanding site for the first two centuries of the Christian Era, becoming a Roman colony. Later on, this classic city and its walls ceased to be of importance, and therefore its historic memory was lost until it was rebuilt between the end of the 8th century and mid 9th century, being brilliantly reborn in the 10th century.

In the year 927 the Omeyas caliph of Cordoba, Abderraman III, built a strong stone wall, turning the city into a strategic base of support for its Mediterranean squad. Since then Melilla and Ceuta (occupied in the year 930) would be respectively the first and the second keys to the Strait for the Omeyas. In the 11th century El Bekri depicts this Andalusian Melilla as an old city surrounded by a stone wall and defended by an impregnable fortress. The idea of a fortified city is also the one which a century later El Idrissi transmits, who presents it as a beautiful medium-size city surrounded by powerful caliph walls.

Although in 1204 the Almohds rebuilt its defensive structures adding an octagonal albarra tower, during the following centuries, and above all, in the 15th century, the city lost importance and its walls fell into oblivion. The dynastic disputes and the trade decline caused its decadence and later neglect. In that context the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, took interest in occupying the old fortress, which was almost destroyed. In 1497 the Monarchs entrusted the duke of Medina Sidonia with its occupation; the duke sent his commander, Pedro de Estopiñán Virués, accompanied by the engineer Ramiro López, to carry out that enterprise.

The first known drawing of these medieval walls dates back from 1540 and it shows the Spaniards landing on the sandy beaches in the south of the hill. The picture shows the workers who started to rebuild the walls, putting up "un enmaderamiento de vigas que se encaxavan,e tablazón que llevavan hecho de Hespaña e travaxaron toda aquella noche de lo hazer é poner a la redonda de la muralla derribada,... é asentados los maderos por sus encaxes, é clavadas las tablas, quedavan hechas almenas trecho en trecho"...[ A wooden panel of beans which were fitted, and a board which they had brought from Spain and they spent all that night working to secure the fallen wall,… and once they set up the wooden pieces and hammered the boards, the battlements were erected at intervals]; the cost of these works was . .."Doze cuentos (millones) de maravedises solamente reedificar Melilla de muralla, cava e barrera..." [To rebuild just Melilla’s wall, moat and barrier cost twelve million maravedi]

A few months after its occupation in 1498, an interesting document from the Archivo General de Simancas [ Simancas’ General Archive] states that the walls made an irregular perimeter of about 1,255 metres, which enclosed a 27,270 square-metre fortress inside. “É trabaxando en las obras, acabaron de reparar los adarves é torres, por la parte de la tierra atravesaron de la una a la otra una gran cava – foso -- , é sobre ella una puente levadiza, por donde se sirven de la puerta de tierra", [they finished mending the baileys and towers, built a moat and over it a drawbridge to gain access to the land gate]

That year, the Catholic Monarchs, and the duke of Medina Sidonia signed the Asiento de Alcalá de Henares [the Alcala de Henares Agreement], where it was agreed to continue the fortification works of Melilla and gave another million maravedis more to reinforce the walls with artillery and to build towers. During these first years we can see two different adjacent walled precincts, la Villa Nueva [the New Town] located on the rocky outcrop, and la Villa Vieja, [the Old Town] located at its feet .

Between 1500 and 1515 the works continued, raising walls and towers with battlements in both precincts, amounting to almost 230,000 maravedis.

The Renaissance Fortress. The period between 1515 and 1556 is fundamental for the city as it was when the shape of the New Town becomes almost consolidated, also called Primer Recinto [the First Precinct].

Between 1525 and 1526 the population of Melilla moved into the New Town as Emperor Charles I decided to reduce the fortress’ perimeter. For that reason he signed the Treaty of 1527 and sent the engineer Gabriel Tadino de Martinengo to Melilla to organize the works.

“Se trabajó una fortaleza en lo mas eminente del recinto... en donde antiguamente estaba el castillo”[ a fortress was built in the main part of the precinct…where there used to be the castle], putting all his effort into the so-called Frente de Tierra[the Land Front]. Ever since, different engineers continued the work started by Martinengo: in 1529 Juan Vallejo strengthened the area of the Gates, [Las Puertas] and in 1533, Miser Benedito de Rávena supervised the works of the Frente de Mar [the Sea Front], works that would be carried out by the master builder Sancho de Escalante. By 1541 Francisco de Tejada was the engineer in charge of the work.

In 1549 a new prestigious engineer arrived in Melilla: Miguel de Perea is entrusted with the task to finish the works of design of the First Precinct. Perea rebuilt the whole Frente de Tierra, the Casamata and Puerta de Santiago [St James’s Gate] together with its moat and the chapel with the same name. When he died in 1551, new engineers, such as Francisco de Medina or Juan de Zurita, finished this work plan.

By 1556, the First Precinct already had the same shape it has nowadays, with walls defended by twelve towers whose shape and type, cylindrical and elliptic, followed the transitional medieval school, the renaissance modern fortification, like those Alberto Durero drew in his treaty on fortifications in 1527.

Once the main part of its walls had been made, there were other works and buildings still to be built within the walls: the warehouses and the wells. The first well, called the Old Well or aljibe viejo, was finished by Sancho de Escalante in 1549, but the larger ones were not finished until 1571.

These were very busy years around the Mar Chica lagoon near Melilla, because Turkish and Algerian pirates hid there. Then Philip II thought of its fortification and sent his engineers to to assess it, though nothing was done in the end. It was at this moment when the external walls of the city were built and the Tratado de Paz y Protección de 16 de noviembre de 1557 [Treaty of Peace and Protection of November 16th, 1557] was signed between the authorities of Melilla and the city of Alcalahia (region of Kelaya or Ikelaia) by which the Spanish authority over the surrounding area was recognised. The fortresses of San Lorenzo, Santiago, San Francisco, San Marcos and Santo Tomas made it easier to control the city surroundings and for a long time, were of great effectiveness as they allowed the control of the exterior fields and the grazing.

The Need of Improvements in the 17th Century

In the mid 17th century a period started that was characterized by the continuous attacks from Sultan Muley Ismail on Melilla, who would lay siege to the city for fifty years.

Given the shortage of economic resources new works were not started; however the walls and towers were repaired. It was an urgent need, because during the attacks all the external fortresses that had been built during a century before were lost.

Although the different governors did what they could to repair the walls of the Old Town of Melilla, its walls were not strong enough to withstand the pressure of a modern army, despite the improvements the engineer Octavio Meni made in all the city moats.

The actual improvements in the fortifications of Melilla started in 1687, when new works were built: La Torre de La Concepción and the Hornabeque, or fortresses such as San Antonio de la Marina, San José Bajo and Santiago exterior. And although these works were brought to a standstill during the Spanish War of Succession, Melilla would see its fortified shape from 1714 onwards, when prestigious engineers as Pedro Borrás or Juan Martín Zermeño applied the new techniques in fortification from the Hispano-Flemish school of fortification.

From 1716 Pedro Borrás would turn the old Hornabeque in a perfect fortified front, with the two bastions, San Pedro and San José Alto, which make up the Second Precinct. Two years later, governor Alonso Guevara Vasconcellos, with the help of Juan Martín Zermeño, reformed all the exterior circuit of the Old Town, turning it into a crown-shape fortified front, being the San Fernando fortress the most important part, making up the Third Precinct. On the other hand, he also rebuilt the Royal Battery or Batería Real of the First Precinct and some other works that updated all the city’s defence structures.

Melilla was then defined by its First Precinct with renaissance traits though reinforced with 18th century batteries and a Second and a Third precinct, which were built according to fortified techniques. Form that moment on, the main problem of the city was the hill or padrastro del Cubo (padrastro: term used in fortifications to refer to an element which dominates something in a disturbing way)which, being in front of the fortress, turned into its main nightmare in case the enemy’s artillery could set up on it.

That is why it was planned to occupy this position under the rule of Governor Antonio Villalba and the engineer Juan Martín Zermeño, to assure and consolidate a series of defences on this site. Finally, in 1732, they started building the Victoria Chica, Victoria Grande and
Rosario fortresses. Then San Miguel, located in the low area of crop fields, was rebuilt and between these points a stake curtain would appear with another two fortresses, San Carlos and Plataforma. Throughout the 18th century, this Melilla’s new precinct, the Fourth one, was finished.

During this period the urban fabric of the First Precinct was also reinforced with the construction of outstanding buildings such as el Hospital Del Rey (the King’s Hospital), with a 1752 project, or the warehouses, which were built during the last third of the 18th century:
Florentina, San Juan and Peñuelas, as well as la Maestranza and other military quarters.

And this is the Melilla that endured the most difficult proof: the siege that suffered between 1774 and 1775, when 3,609 defenders with 165 pieces of artillery confronted an 40,000- man army sent by the sultan Muley Abdalah, who had modern artillery systems and who started a
thorough war of mines. As outcome, the fortress of Melilla passed the proof successfully and the Moroccan army had to raise the siege.

The Need of the Fifth Precinct

From 1796 to the mid 19th century Melilla went through another crisis which would be overcome by means of another driving force which would oblige them to build new exterior fortresses: the foundations of a new city were on the way. As we said before, Melilla had several exterior forts located on strategic hills a kilometre off the walls. These forts defended the city and its limits during the 16th and 17th centuries until they were lost in subsequent attacks at the end of that century.

Subsequently, after long talks between Spain and Morocco, the Tratado de los Límites de Melilla [the Treaty on the Limits of Melilla ] was drawn, which would be signed on August 24th , 1859 and ratified in the treaty, Tratado de Wad Ras of March 25th, 1860. Those treaties acknowledged the Spanish city limits already established since 1557.

On June 14th, 1862 the extension of those limits was carried out by means of an odd system: with the range of a cannon known as El Caminante, of 24 mm calibre and at 21º elevation, fired from Fort Victoria . With that shot it was achieved a shooting distance of 2,900 metres, which served as the radio to draw the new limits and the boundaries with Morocco taking today’s Plaza de España [Spain’s Square] as the centre: Melilla’s territories were set in 12.33 square kilometres .

The extension of the limits made that several plans to enlarge the city’s fortifications were suggested; for instance, Francisco Arajol’s plan in 1864 and Francisco Roldán’s in 1865-1866, who planned to build a series of surveillance towers. However, the military engineer, Eligio Souza, would be the author of most of these new forts. From 1881 to 1893 it was when the Melilla of the Fifth Fortified Precinct was built, which was made up of the imaginary line that linked 16 forts in a different way and typology: round and polygonal forts, hexagonal and
octagonal towers, small forts, artillery batteries and redoubt. With them, the population was ready to spread out beyond the fortress, across the new land of sovereignty that would be occupied during an interesting building process, giving birth to the modern city of Melilla.