Qualla: Citadel of Calais

Citadel of Calais: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bodoklecksel, CC BY-SA 3.0. When Francis, Duke of Guise, retook Calais from the English in January 1558, the kings of France made a private vow: this town would never again belong to anyone else. The medieval castle that had defended Calais since 1229 - the same building where Richard II's uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, was murdered in 1397 - was not strong enough to keep the promise. So they tore it down. Francois II ordered an entire neighborhood razed in 1564 to make room for a new citadel built to the new science of star-shaped artillery fortification. The first stone was laid the same year that England, accepting 120,000 crowns, finally signed away its claim to Calais forever. The kings of France had bought themselves a town and built themselves a fortress. They lost the town twice anyway.

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Image: Bodoklecksel | CC BY-SA 3.0

Citadel of Calais: The First Italian, the First Star

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zauctorexy, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two engineers shaped what was about to rise. Giacomo Castriotto, an Italian master in the new tradition that had spread north from Florence and Verona, brought the bastion geometry. Jean Errard of Bar-le-Duc - whose later works would include the citadels of Amiens and Doullens, a...

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Image: Zauctorexy | CC BY-SA 3.0

Citadel of Calais: Baptism by Fire

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Traveler100, CC BY-SA 3.0. It came on 24 April 1596. Spanish troops under Albert VII, Archduke of Austria and Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, had already taken Fort Risban and Fort Nieulay. The civilians of Calais fled to the citadel for refuge. Then the artillery opened up. One of the walls turned ou...

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Image: Traveler100 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Citadel of Calais: Richelieu and Vauban

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Velvet, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1632 Cardinal Richelieu, hearing rumors of a plot to sell Calais back to England, came in person with Louis XIII. They planned to turn the entire town into a single vast fortified harbor. The plan was downsized. What Richelieu built was a large arsenal around a central courtya...

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Image: Velvet | CC BY-SA 3.0

Citadel of Calais: Thirty-Six Hours

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lionel Allorge, CC BY-SA 3.0. The end came in May 1940. The first German bombs hit Calais on 10 May. By 24 May the city was encircled. The 25th was, in the dry phrasing of the records, a dark day - the stables burned with all their horses inside, the barracks collapsed under heavy artillery, the emergency pos...

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Image: Lionel Allorge | CC BY-SA 3.0

Citadel of Calais: Stade du Souvenir

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lionel Allorge, CC BY-SA 3.0. What the Germans flattened, the locals slowly built back as something different. In the 1960s the citadel grounds were converted into a sports stadium and athletic school: football pitches, rugby fields, tennis courts, shooting ranges, archery butts. The Stade Olympique de Calais...

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Image: Lionel Allorge | CC BY-SA 3.0