The Pinnacle of Development of Osijek’s Baroque Fortifications, the Third Phase 1727-1731 – the Contribution of Nicolas Doxat de Demoret

Sa？etak The Baroque fortifications of Osijek, the largest fortified complex built in Croatia in the eighteenth century, were constructed from the end of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century in four major stages that differed in plan and conceptual approach. These differences were largely linked to changes in political and/or broader historical circumstances, with the participation of a number of different key historical protagonists and the designers they engaged. The city, which is located at an important strategic crossing over the River Drava, was at a later stage of the Great Turkish War transformed into a city-fortress with new bastion fortifications. Designed by Mathias von Kaisersfeld, they were executed in 1692 in preparation for the Battle of Slankamen in 1692, in which Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden, won an important victory, and they were also to serve for the continuation of the war after this battle until the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. Besides Petrovaradin, whose construction began one year later also to the design of engineer Mathias von Kaisersfeld, Osijek was the first new city-fortress built in the newly-liberated territories, on the new frontier with the Ottoman Empire. Its design was very similar to that of Kaiserswerth, the fortress of the Diocese of Cologne on the Rhine; it had three landward-facing bastions and two demi-bastions facing the River Drava. The construction featured earth embankments excavated from a wide trench into which water from the Drava could be let. Construction stopped after the peace treaty was signed and resumed in 1710, when the fortifications were clad with bricks because Prince Eugene of Savoy and Emperor Joseph I concluded, in 1709, that there was danger of the Ottoman Empire becoming involved in the War of the Spanish Succession between the Alliance and France. In the same year, Prince Eugene started to build, to the design of his architect Lucas von Hildebrandt, his bastioned castle in Bilje on his Belje estate near Osijek, as the centre of his demesne. The castle was built for defence against the Hungarian rebellion, but was also to serve as his future personal headquarters in preparation of a new war against the Ottoman Empire. A new plan for the modernization of the Osijek fortifications was drawn up in 1712 for the same purpose. It was an integral plan for the layout of the cityfortress combined with the final design for a Baroque city with a new square (Paradenplatz) in the centre and a new arrangement of city streets to replace the inherited, older, urban tissue. The plan