DOCTORAL THESIS
THE LAST BREATH OF SPANISH BULWARK FORTIFICATION
THE SAINT JULIAN FORT IN CARTAGENA


AUTHOR: GUILLERMO GUIMARAENS IGUAL
DIRECTOR: JUAN FRANCISCO NOGUERA GIMÉNEZ



      This doctoral thesis studies the last moment in the Spanish bulwark fortification, taking the Saint Julian Fort of Cartagena as an example. A surprising construction which gets in its composition the traditional fortress system but full of novelties (between the years 1866 and 1883)
      The investigation takes part in the works about the Fortress of Cartagena, attacked by the group "Loggia-Restoration" in the Polytechnic University of Valencia, directed by Juan Francisco Noguera Giménez.
      The process allowed follows the experience in the Galeras Castle, including the study of architectonic reality, achieved by workshops, the topographic drawings, drawing of details, constructive and type features, document research in the national and international archives...  The author compares the documents with the material reality, the building changes and the multiples projects. Then he can understand its strategic objective, the election of the placement, the definitely composition or the constructive techniques... Only with the meaning of what construction pretends and what it was definitively, we can understand which will its future be, or what can we wait.
      The study of the Fort is interesting because it summarize the military architecture in Cartagena during the XIXth Century, representing the end of the constructive process started at the end of the XVIIIth Century. We can find in the fort the bulwark techniques but also the new necessities of military architecture. The Saint Julian Fort is discovered how a key of the defence of Cartagena, with a main action in the security of East Front, and in the defence of the Coastal Batteries.
      We could to discover studying its outlines how the fort is started as a campaign fortress, in the end of XVIIIth Century. This origin determines the fort definitely shape, with features of bulwark fortification mixed with features of polygonal fortification.
      We can to verify how in the middle XIXth Century, the Spanish engineers are using the French bulwark theories.
      We can analyze in this work the applied constructive techniques and the constructive sociology, extracted of the unpublished documents of the Engineer Manuel Jácome y Bejarano.
      Fort activity in the Cantonal Revolution (1873) is interesting because of the confirmation of the tactic and constructive elections. In few years the Saint Julian Castle will became an obsolete Fortress.
The investigation has allowed to consolidated historic mistakes about construction, clearing the fort origin.
      The composition methodology, demonstrates in bulwark fortification, is applied now in back fortresses, and it is understood how a valid process for the heritage studies.
	We can to discover the history of an especial construction, its valuation, and the understanding of the transition fortress typologies in a moment when the bulwark theories are falling down, but also are surviving in different projects.
	We can to make use of this thesis for study the present bibliography and the treaties in the moment (middle XIXth Century). We can use it too for study the evolution of Cartagena Defences, understanding its changes since the XXth Century, and the arrival of the new international defence systems.
	We can find in this thesis an own dictionary of military terminology. Resolving the complex puzzle of military terms that change its meanings depending the times.
	Finishing this summary, the present thesis wants to be converted in the last link of an investigation line achieved five years ago, how the concretion of a cycle that aspirates to understand "the last breath of Spanish Bulwark Fortification"