was put in charge of siege operations and quickly captured the outer City; by mid-August, the Citadel remained largely intact and William was growing impatient. A battery of 200 guns was established and on 21 August began a continuous 24 hour bombardment of the Citadel's lower defences; assaults on the resulting breaches were extremely bloody, including 3,000 casualties in three hours on 30 August but the defenders surrendered on 4 September. The two sieges of Namur were the key events of the Nine Years War in Flanders and made Van Coehoorn's reputation. Nieuwe Vestingbouw was translated into English, French and German among others and reprinted on a regular basis, while his ideas were widely used elsewhere, including Mannheim, Belgrade and Temesvar. Ironically, Boufflers' defence of Namur was the best example of Van Coehoorn's defensive principles. He ...demonstrated one could effectively win a campaign by losing a fortress but exhausting the besieging force...(Boufflers) conducted a classic active defence and contested every advance as best he could. An often overlooked innovation used by both Vauban and Van Coehoorn was to focus their entire artillery on specific points, rather than the previous practice of targeting multiple areas. Overwhelming defences with massive firepower became known as the 'Van Coehoorn method'; Vauban preferred a more gradual approach, summarised as 'more powder, less blood.' Both had their supporters; the trade off was time, an important consideration when far more soldiers died from disease than combat. Later career In recognition of his service, Van Coehoorn was promoted Lieutenant General and appointed Ingenieur Generaal der Fortificatiën and General of Artillery. His brother Gideon replaced him as Colonel of the Nassau Friesland Regiment, while Van Coehoorn himself transferred to a Holland regiment; this increased his influence, since he now reported to William, rather than the Frisian Stadholder Hendrik Casimir. The 1697 Treaty of Ryswick allowed the Dutch to garrison towns in the Spanish Netherlands, including Nieuwpoort, Charleroi, Luxembourg, Mons and Namur. This created a buffer zone, or defence-in-depth, later formalised in the 1715 Barrier Treaty. Van Coehoorn was given responsibility for the Dutch Republic's fortifications; one of his strengths was adapting to fit individual sites and minimising costs, essential skills as the Dutch had insufficient funds for all the repairs and additions needed. Nijmegen and Bergen op Zoom were prioritised for upgrades, although both were incomplete when the War of the Spanish Succession broke out. Van Coehoorn was appointed