Definitions of Bulwark

A bulwark, also known as a stronghold, is the part that stands out from a military fortification and serves to defend a site.

Bulwark  also refers to what, figuratively, serves as an amparo or defense of something: “The Colombian nobel is a bulwark of Latin American culture.”

The word, as such, comes from the old French balouart, and is in turn from the middle Dutch Bolwerc, which means ‘palisade of defense’.

Synonyms of bulwark are stronghold, fortress, or defense, protection, protection, etc.

In English, bulwark can be translated as bulwark. For example: “The United Nations has been a bulwark against human rights violations in the past“.

Bulwark in military architecture

The bulwark, as a work of fortification of military architecture, appears in Italy in the fifteenth century, and its adoption in the rest of Europe in the following centuries is a consequence of the inefficiency of traditional walls before the power of the canyons.

The bulwark is the part of a fortification that projects outwards at the point where two curtains or wall canvases meet. It has two flanks that join them to the wall and two faces that form a protruding angle. It is usually found in the corners of the fortification. It usually has a pentagonal shape that protrudes from the main body of the fortress.

The bulwarks constitute a strong point to defend assaults of enemy troops. In addition, they offer a privileged view that allows you to cover not only the other bastions, but also the curtain walls.

In this sense, the bulwark was used to put the artillery there, which implied that the assailant had to place his artillery batteries further away from the wall, considerably reducing its effectiveness. One of its greatest qualities is that they allowed repel attacks through crossfire, leaving the enemy in a rather disadvantaged position.