Plan of Kaiserswerth, 1689 (Kaiserswerth, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) 51°18ʹ05ʺN 06°44ʹ10ʺE

A plan of the fortified walls of French-held Kaiserswerth and the approach works of the Brandenburg and Münster forces, who had begun to bombard the town on 23 May (N.S.). The formal siege began on 21 June (N.S.) and the French surrendered on the 26th. Nine Years War (1688-97). Oriented with west-north-west to top.

The Dutch engineer Menno van Coehoorn was present at this siege as was the draughtsman of this plan, Albert Borgard. In his diaries, Borgard notes that, after being made a Lieutenant in the Prussian Guards in January 1689, ‘In the month of June I was at the Siege of Keyserwart, which place the Brandenbhurgers, after some days’ bombardment, took from the French by capitulation’. Borgard, who signs himself here as ‘Borgad’, was of Danish birth and served as an infantry and artillery officer in the Danish army, where he was described as a ‘Conducteurer der forstaar Geometri’ – a surveyor with knowledge of trigonometrial surveying techniques. He fought in Europe under several armies and finally joined the English army after the siege of Namur in July 1692 as a Fireworker, becoming Chief Firemaster of England on 9 August 1712. He rose to become Assistant Surveyor of the Ordnance in 1718 and, in 1722, was appointed the first Colonel of the Royal Artillery. He died, aged 91, with the rank of Lieutenant-General.

For further reading, see:
F. Duncan, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Woolwich, 1873, pp.83-100.
E. Baigent, ‘Borgard, Albert (1659–1751)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008.
J. Childs, The Nine Years’ War and the British army, 1688-1697: the operations in the Low Countries, Manchester, 1991; reprint 2013, p.109-10.

Condition: one fold line; seven stud holes to left and right edges. Verso: heavy surface dirt along right edge of verso, the pattern of surface dirt is consistent with the map having formerly been tied in a roll.