Decline
In the wake of city growth and the ensuing change of defensive strategy, focusing more on the defense of forts around cities, most city walls were demolished. Also, the invention of gunpowder rendered walls less effective, as siege cannons could then be used to blast through walls, allowing armies to simply march through. Nowadays, the presence of former city fortifications can often only be deduced from the presence of ditches or parks.
Furthermore, some street names hint at the presence of fortifications in times past, for example when words such as "wall" or "glacis" occur.
In the 19th century, less emphasis was placed on preserving the fortifications for the sake of their architectural or historical value — on the one hand, complete fortifications were restored (Carcassonne), on the other hand many structures were demolished in an effort to modernize the cities. A notable exception in this is the "monument preservation" law by the Bavarian King Ludwig I of Bavaria, which led to the nearly complete preservation of many impressive monuments such as the Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Nördlingen and Dinkelsbühl. The countless small fortified towns in the Franconia region were also preserved as a consequence of this edict.
Read more about this topic: Defensive Wall
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Where mass opinion dominates the government, there is a morbid derangement of the true functions of power. The derangement brings about the enfeeblement, verging on paralysis, of the capacity to govern. This breakdown in the constitutional order is the cause of the precipitate and catastrophic decline of Western society. It may, if it cannot be arrested and reversed, bring about the fall of the West.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Families suffered badly under industrialization, but they survived, and the lives of men, women, and children improved. Children, once marginal and exploited figures, have moved to a position of greater protection and respect,... The historic decline in the overall death rates for children is an astonishing social fact, notwithstanding the disgraceful infant mortality figures for the poor and minorities. Like the decline in death from childbirth for women, this is a stunning achievement.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)