THE STRUCTURE OF OPERATIONS

The royal army's siege of La Rochelle in 1573 was the most important and decisive military episode of the entire period of the early wars of religion. To the extent that current histories provide any explanations for the army's failure in four months of sustained assault to take the prime bastion of Protestantism in France they tend to focus on the well-organized and fanatical resistance of the town's Huguenot citizens and their refugee allies or to stress disunity in the Catholic camp. What is never examined in any detail is the actual course that the besiegers' efforts took, the significant military obstacles the army faced but ultimately failed to overcome, and the destructive impact of those events on the army itself.

In abstract terms, of course, a siege is a fairly easy military operation to understand. Besiegers simply physically blow a hole in the town's defenses large enough to enable assaulting troops to penetrate into the place and overwhelm the defenders. If the assault fails, it is renewed until the exhausted defenders are overcome or surrender on terms. If the defenses ultimately prove too strong to be taken by storm, the besiegers rely on a tight blockade to starve the place into submission.