Bruges, Ostend and St André, 1696

A map of the country around Bruges and Ostend showing the position taken up by Vaudemont in September 1696 together with projected dispositions of camps and attacks were Ostend to be besieged. Nine Years War (1688-97). Oriented with south-south-east to top (compass rose).

In August 1696, Villeroi, commanding the French in Flanders, considered the possibility of bombarding Bruges, shown to the left on this map and he began to advance with his cavalry in order to occupy a battery site at the Abbey of St André (Sint-Andreis). However Vaudemont, apprised of Villeroi's intentions by his intelligence services, arrived there first and set up camp on the site shown on this map to the east of Bruges, which is annotated: ‘Camp prise Le dix Septembre par son Altesse / Le Prince de Vaudemont’. The areas which were flooded by Vaudemont are to the south-east of the camp near Tillegem.

The map is unfinished with blank text panels top left, top right and bottom left. High and low water marks are drawn along the coast. The positions of both armies around Ostend is based on the suppositions, firstly, that the French would have to construct a ‘grande Ligne de circonvallation’ in order to master the position of the fort at Plassendall (Plassendale 51°12ʹ33ʺN 03°00ʹ09ʺE), secondly, failing that, another line of circumvallation to the south-east of Ostend and, lastly, another, shorter line of circumvallation were the French to take possession of Plassendale.

The author of this map, John Chardellou was a Huguenot military engineer and was naturalised as an English subject on 24-25 March 1699. His attestor was Lewis Petit, a military surveyor and draftsman who was to become a Board of Ordnance engineer on 23 April 1700. Chardellou had already served with the train on the summer expedition of 1692 and was listed as an engineer officer in Spain from 1707 to 1712. Chardellou was deeply interested in astronomy and corresponded with, and visited Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal in the early eighteenth century and was made F.R.S. on 30 November 1702.

For further reading, see:

J. Childs, The Nine Years’ War and the British army, 1688-1697: the operations in the Low Countries, Manchester, 1991; reprint 2013, p.321.
E.G. Forbes (et al.), The correspondence of John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, 3 vols, Bristol, 2001, vol.3, p.82.
House of Lords Record Office HL/PO/JO/10/1/519/1423.
W. Porter, The history of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1951, vol.1. pp.56, 128.

Condition: nine fold lines; creased; very worn; several repairs made on verso to old tears before being laid down on linen; surface dirt; brown stains. Verso: brown stains and foxing; induced discolouration; heavy surface dirt along right edge, in a pattern consistent with the map having been stored in a roll and tied.