Fort St Vincente (Torres Vedras)

 fortification, Napoleonic Wars 1803-1815

The lines of Torres Vedras were built to defend Lisbon from a French attack in 1810 - 1811 on the orders of the Duke of Wellington and built by British, Portugese and German military engineers. These two lines were the most efficent system known in military history at the time, the lines ran from the Atlantic ocean across the Lisbon peninsular to the river Tagus and consisted of 152 polygon shaped fortifications defended by earthworks and cannons. Fort St Vincente is made up of three seperate forts No20, No21 and No22 in the first line of defence,but is in fact three distinct forts connected by earth works. each one while seperate in its own right was able to support each other in case of attack, and housed collectivly 1,070 men 10x12pdr guns, 2x9pdr guns, 11x6pdr guns and 3x5.5"howitzers. As you can see this collection of fortifications were not to be taken lightly. The lines them selves cost £100,000 to construct and were completed in under a year.