system of all the French schools. In General-Noizet's arrangement the flanks are not made perpendicular to the lines of defence, but, as in Vauban's first system, the flank forms an angle of about 80° with the line of defence. In the citadel of Ghent, which is a most beautiful example of this system, with still further modifications, the retrenchment of the bastion is so formed as to take advantage of this construction, and the flanks being casemated and pierced in both directions, they become on one side the flanks of the retrenchment, whilst on the other they are the ordinary flanks of the bastion, thus giving a much longer curtain to the retrenchment than in the form exhibited in fig. 3 of Plate CCLXI., as it occupies the whole gorge of the bastion.

5. Outworks.

Plate CCLXI., fig. 3, shows several kinds of outworks, as a horn-work g, tenailles k & h, bonnet d, lunettes a and d, an entrenched bastion e, barbette f, and caponnière h. These, and other works of a similar description, are constructed for the purpose of occupying some of the ground which might otherwise be of service to the besiegers, or as in the caponnière to cover a communication; but their application must of course depend upon certain localities, and the judgment of the engineer must therefore determine, in each particular place, which is best adapted to the ground, and most proper to be employed with reference to the general defence of the place.

ARMAMENT OF FORTRESSES.

Having thus described, though briefly, the systems of fortification which, mainly depending on the principles first adopted by the early Italian engineers, may be considered the result of the gradual development of these principles in the more mature and skilful arrangements of successive engineers, it is right before describing other systems to say a few words respecting the means of defending a place after it has been fortified. And here we may observe, that it is difficult to lay down any exact rules as to the proportion of ordnance, ammunition, and stores of every kind required for the defence of a fortified place, seeing this must necessarily vary according to the particular situation of each fortress, the system on which its works have been constructed, and the species of attack to which it may be exposed. If, for example, one of the sides be covered by a morass, swamp, or any other obstruction which it is difficult or perhaps impossible to surmount, it must be obvious that, in this case, a smaller proportion of artillery will be required than if the fortress were equally accessible on every side; and, on the other hand, a maritime fortress, accessible at all points, will necessarily require for its defence a larger proportion of ordnance than if it were only assailable on one or a few of these points. Where every front is equally exposed to attack, all must of necessity be equally prepared.

On this subject, however, there have been established certain maxims, of which the following appear to be the most important: First, the proportion of ordnance, ammunition, and stores, should never exceed the quantity necessary for a brave and resolute defence. Secondly, those points which are considered as being most exposed to attack should be most completely armed, whilst the partial armament of the remaining points may suffice. Thirdly, for each of the faces of the bastions which are liable to be attacked, five or six pieces of ordnance should be allotted; for each of the flanks of these bastions, four; for the faces of the ravelins, from five to seven; for the lunettes, when there are such, four pieces of ordnance should be reckoned; besides two or three pieces for each of the places of arms in the covered-way. Supposing, therefore, that one front of a place is to be completely armed, the proportions of ordnance required will be, for the faces of Fortification the bastions from ten to twelve pieces, for the two interior flanks from six to eight, for the faces of the ravelins from five to seven, and for five places of arms from ten to fifteen; making the total of ordnance for one front from thirty-one to forty-two pieces. Fourthly, when a place is exposed to attack on two consecutive fronts, the armament of each should be augmented one half; when it is threatened with attack on detached fronts, the armament should, in that case, be doubled. Fifthly, each of the other fronts should merely be provided with such a proportion as to secure it against insult. Lastly, from the foregoing maxims, it appears that a hexagon, having only one front exposed to attack, requires from fifty-eight to sixty-eight pieces of ordnance on such front, whilst in more extensive places, six, eight, or ten pieces should be added for each additional front. For the present increased power of the ordnance brought into the field this proportion should be increased by about \(\frac{1}{4}\)th of the total number.

The next consideration is the proportion which the several kinds of ordnance should bear to one another. And here let it be remembered that ordnance of the higher calibres is not the only description which ought to be employed. In many cases medium and even light guns are more efficacious; for when only troops or working parties are to be fired at, light guns will answer every purpose, as the range of the shot is nearly equal to that of larger guns, and they are of course much more manageable, and may be worked with greater rapidity. But short guns of heavy calibre are best adapted for the flanks; and, generally, the large or heavy ordnance should only be employed to destroy the besiegers' batteries and dismount their guns. The flank guns being only required for the defence of the ditch, short pieces of large calibre, as carronades, which throw a heavy charge of grape or canister shot, are the most proper to be employed. The light guns, as they can easily be withdrawn, should be placed on the covered-way and places of arms, and on outworks of every description. The heavy long guns and mortars, as they are not so easily moved, should be within the body of the place, and as they require a great quantity of ammunition, they should be less frequently used, and only upon urgent occasions. A judicious economy of ammunition is a duty incumbent upon every governor or commandant of a fortified place attacked. The conduct of General Chassé in the defence of the citadel of Antwerp was a model in this respect. From the commencement till the close of the attack, scarcely a single shot was needlessly expended by the garrison.

ATTACK AND DEFENCE OF FORTIFIED PLACES.

Having thus treated of that important branch of fortification which is denominated permanent, and which, being applied solely to the defence of towns, is not liable to be destroyed except by an enemy, we now proceed to consider the attack of fortified places, the general system of which was introduced by Vauban, and so far perfected by that great engineer that it has ever since served as a model for the plans of his successors.

"La résolution des sièges," says the Mareschal, "est une affaire de cabinet. Elle est une suite naturelle de la supériorité que l'on croit avoir sur ses ennemis; mais leur exécution étant une des plus sérieuses, des plus importantes, et des plus difficiles parties, elle demande aussi le plus de mesure et de circonspection." He then goes on to state that the success of sieges depends on several circumstances, such as, "1. Du secret, sans lequel il est difficile de réussir : 2. Des forces que l'on a sur pied pour attaquer les places des ennemis, et défendre les siennes : 3. De la disposition des ennemis ; car s'ils sont réunis, et aussi forts que nous, ils peuvent nous empêcher d'en faire : 4. De Fortification.

l'état des magasins les plus à portée des lieux sur lesquels on peut entreprendre : 6. De la conjoncture des temps, parce que tous ne sont pas propres aux sièges, et rien n'étant plus ruineux que ceux d'hiver, on les doit éviter tant qu'on peut ; 6. Des fonds nécessaires à leurs dépenses ; car l'argent est le nerf de la guerre, sans lui on ne saurait réussir en rien. Ce sont là des mesures à prendre de longue main, qui doivent être dirigées à loisir ; et après tout cela, quand on croit les avoir bien prises souvent tout échappe ; car l'ennemi, qui n'est jamais d'accord avec vous, pourra vous interrompre.... Il faut bien peser toutes ces considérations, avant que de se déterminer ; et prendre toujours si bien son temps, que l'ennemi ne puisse vous tomber sur les bras avant vos établissements."1

A siege, therefore, being one of the most arduous undertakings in which an army or corps d'armée can be employed—one in which the greatest fatigue, hardships, and personal risk are encountered, and in which the prize can only be won by complete victory; it is obvious that, upon the success or failure of such an enterprise may depend the fate of a campaign, sometimes that of an army, and perhaps even the existence of a state. Of this the failures before Pavia in 1525, before Metz in 1552, before Prague in 1557, before St Jean d'Acre in 1799, and before Burgos in 1812, present instructive examples. By the first, France lost her monarch, the flower of her nobility, and all her Italian conquests; by the second, she was saved from destruction, whilst thirty thousand of her enemies perished; by the third, the greatest warrior of his age, Frederick the Great, was brought to the very brink of destruction; by the fourth, the most successful general of France, and perhaps the greatest commander that any age or country has produced, was stopped short in his career of victory; and by the last, a beaten enemy gained time to recruit his forces, concentrate his scattered corps, and regain that ascendancy of which the victory at Salamanca had for a time deprived him. Innumerable other instances of the disastrous consequences usually attendant on the failure of sieges might easily be produced; but those which have just been referred to are sufficient to establish the importance of the undertaking, and to show that the dearest interests of a country may frequently be staked on the sure and speedy reduction of a fortress.

It is therefore of the greatest importance to a state that the sieges undertaken by its armies should be carried on in the best and most efficient manner possible, or, in other words, that by a due combination of science, labour, and force, these operations should be rendered not only short, but certain, and unproductive of any great expenditure of life. But the sieges undertaken by the British have almost never united these three indispensable conditions; and with regard to those which took place during the contest in the Peninsula, it is well known that various defects of organization, and particularly the want of a body of men such as sappers and miners, trained to the labour required at sieges, and an inadequate supply of matériel, necessitated a partial departure from established principles and rules of attack, and consequently led to a waste of life wholly unprecedented in modern sieges. Till late in 1813 the army was unattended by a single sapper or miner; regular approaches were therefore difficult if not impracticable: it was necessary, in almost every case, to take the bull, as the saying is, by the horns; the last operation of a siege scientifically conducted, namely, battering in breach, was amongst the first undertaken; and the troops were marched to the assault whilst the defences remained nearly entire, and exposed to every species of destruction which the unreduced means of the besieged could bring to bear against them. The army of a country which has outstripped all others in the useful arts and in mechanical improvements, was left wholly unprovided with those appliances which at once economise labour and life, and serve to render both most effectual for the purposes to which they are applied. But, notwithstanding this great anomaly, which is chargeable against the government alone, and not against either the nation or the army which in the most adverse circumstances so nobly sustained its reputation, it may be observed that, in all periods and in all countries, the means employed for the reduction of fortresses have generally increased and become more overwhelming and irresistible in proportion to the advancement of knowledge and the improvement of the useful arts; and that in Europe during the last two centuries, the extensive diffusion of wealth and knowledge, accompanied by an unprecedented development of talent, all more or less directed towards military movements, has caused the results of sieges, and indeed of almost all the operations of war, to depend much less on individual exertion or casual displays of heroism, than on mere combination and expenditure. This may be made apparent by a slight retrospect of the sieges of the sixteenth century.

At the period here referred to, the art of disposing the several works of a fortress so as to cover each other, and to be covered by their glacis from the view of an enemy, was either unknown or disregarded; whilst the small quantity of artillery in use, its unwieldiness, and the great expense and difficulty of bringing it up, occasioned so little to be used in sieges, that the chief object in fortifying towns was to render them secure against escalade and surprise, by means of lofty walls or altitude of situation. All places fortified prior to the sixteenth century are invariably of this construction. And as the simplicity of the fortresses to be attacked necessarily gave the same character to the operations directed against them, so, in those days, everything was effected by daring courage, without the aid of science; and gallantly contending in individual combat, or fearlessly confronting danger, were considered as the highest qualities of a besieger. Thus the contest dragged on for months, in petty but sanguinary affairs, and the most persevering or the most hardy troops, however ill organised or supplied, were the most dreaded, and not unfrequently the most successful. But when artillery became more moveable, and large quantities began to be employed in sieges, lofty and exposed walls no longer opposed any adequate barrier; large breaches were speedily effected; places which had formerly resisted for months were carried in a few days; and hence, in order to restore an equality of defence, it became necessary to screen the ramparts from distant fire. The attempt to gain security by concealment rapidly advanced towards perfection, whilst the means of the besiegers remained the same; and between the middle of the sixteenth and commencement of the seventeenth century, works were so skilfully disposed and so well covered, that the defence of towns obtained a temporary superiority over the attack as the latter was then practised. Of this the obstinate and successful defences made by the Dutch against the Spaniards during the reigns of Philip II. and Philip III. may be cited as remarkable examples.

The pre-eminence of the defence over the attack was mainly due to the great difficulty of dragging up heavy ordnance with a besieging army, so that the weight of metal being generally in favour of the besieged, the fire of the fortress was enabled to keep in check that of the batteries of attack. Vauban, however, in the reign of Louis XIV., restored the preponderance of power to the attack by the invention of ricochet fire, as the guns of the besieged were... thereby dismounted or disabled at an early stage of the siege, and the besiegers were enabled to push forward their approaches by the sap, being relieved in great measure from the dangers and difficulties of a direct and powerful opposing fire of artillery. Vauban also matured into a system the attack by laying down rules for the establishment of parallels, for the location of enfilade and other batteries, and for the general conduct of the approaches. The real type of an attack is a moring parapet, the besieger carrying on with him his cover, and thus depending for his success not so much on his offensive as on his defensive arrangements. It was by this combination of science and labour, aided by the steady advances of brave and well-trained sappers, that the reduction of fortresses, which would have resisted for ever the rude assaults of the most determined enemy, was rendered comparatively easy and certain.

These increased means of attack, to which it was found impossible to oppose a successful resistance, caused the art of concealment or covering to be further studied, till at length, in well-constructed fortresses, not a single wall remained exposed to view, and the sap and the mine became as necessary as the gun and the mortar to the success of a besieger. To render this intelligible to the general reader, it may be proper to introduce here a descriptive sketch of the progress of a modern attack, from the excellent work of Sir John Jones, already referred to.

"The first operation of a besieger," says that able and experienced engineer, "is to establish a force able to cope with the garrison of the town to be attacked, at the distance of six or seven hundred yards from its ramparts. This is effected by approaching the place secretly in the night with a body of men, part carrying entrenching tools, and the remainder armed. The former dig a trench in the ground parallel to the fortifications to be attacked, and with the earth that comes out of the trench raise a bank on the side next to the enemy, whilst those with arms remain formed in a recumbent posture, in readiness to protect those at work, should the garrison sally out. During the night this trench and bank are made of sufficient depth and extent to cover from the missiles of the place the number of men requisite to cope with the garrison, and the besiegers remain in the trench during the following day, in despite of the fire or sorties of the besieged. This trench is afterwards progressively widened and deepened, and the bank of earth raised till it forms a covered road, called a parallel, embracing all the fortifications to be attacked; and along this road, guns, waggons, and men securely and conveniently move, equally sheltered from the view and the missiles of the garrison. Batteries of guns and mortars are then constructed on the side of the road next the garrison, to oppose the guns of the town, and in a short time, by superiority of fire, principally arising from situation, silence all those which bear on the works of the attack. After this ascendancy is attained, the same species of covered road is, by certain rules of art, carried forward, till it circumvents or passes over all the exterior defences of the place, and touches the main rampart wall at a spot where it has been previously beaten down by the fire of the batteries erected expressly for the purpose in the more advanced parts of the road.

"The besiegers' troops being thus enabled to march in perfect security to the opening or breach in the walls of a town, assault it in strong columns; and being much more numerous than the garrison defending the breach, soon overcome them, and the more easily as they are assisted by a fire of artillery and musketry directed on the garrison from portions of the road only a few yards from the breach; and which fire can, at that distance be maintained on the defenders of the breach until the very instant of personal contention, without injury to the assailants. The first breach being carried, should the garrison have any inner works, the covered-road is by similar rules of art pushed forward through the opening, and advanced batteries are erected in it to overpower the remaining guns of the place; which effected, the road is again pushed forward, and the troops march in security to the assault of breaches made in a similar manner in those interior works, and invariably carry them with little loss. But as it is always an object to preserve the life of even a single soldier, so, when time is abundant, the loss of men attendant on the assault of breaches under these favourable circumstances may be avoided, by pushing up the covered-road through the breach, without giving the assault, and thus, by art and labour, the strongest defences frequently fall without any exertion of open force."

From this description it must be obvious that the most important object at a siege is to carry forward the covered-road to the walls of the place; that all the other operations are secondary to and in furtherance of such an advance; and that hence the efficiency of armies at sieges depends upon their ability to complete the road at a small expense of life. But in forming this covered-road, different degrees of difficulty are experienced in proportion as it advances. At its commencement, the work being about six hundred yards from the fortifications, can easily be performed by the common soldiers. But when the road or trench has arrived within a fair range of musketry, or three hundred yards from the place, then particular precautions are required; yet the work at this stage is not so difficult as to prevent its being executed by soldiers who have had a little previous training. At the last stage, when the approaches have been pushed close to the place; when to be seen is to be killed; when mine after mine blows up the head of the road, with every officer and man on the spot; when the space becomes so confined that little or no front of defence can be obtained; and when the enemy's grenadiers rally forth every moment to attack the workmen, and deal out destruction to all less courageous or weaker than themselves; then the work becomes truly hazardous, and can only be performed by selected brave men, called sappers, who have acquired the difficult and dangerous art from which they derive their name. An indispensable auxiliary to the sapper, however, is the miner, who, in the exercise of his art, requires even a greater degree of skill, conduct, and courage. The duty of a miner at a siege is to accompany the sapper, to listen for and discover the enemy's miner at work, and to prevent his blowing up the head of the road, either by sinking down and meeting him, in which case a subterranean conflict ensues, or by running a gallery close to that of his opponent, and forcing him to desist from working by means of suffocating compositions, and various arts of chicanery, the knowledge of which he has acquired from experience. Without the aid of skilful miners, sappers would be unable to execute that part of the covered-road forming the descent into the ditch, not to mention other operations in the progress of which the assistance of the miner is equally indispensable; and without their joint labours and steady co-operation, no besiegers' approaches ever reached the walls of a fortress. In the British service, indeed, they are blended into one honourable body, the Sappers and Miners.

But a siege, though it calls for great personal bravery, unremitting exertion, and extraordinary labour in all employed, yet, if scientifically prosecuted, is alike certain in its progress and its result. More or less skill and exertion in the contending parties may in some degree prolong or abridge its duration; but the sapper and the miner, when skilfully directed and adequately supported, will ultimately surmount every obstacle. On the other hand, sieges undertaken by armies imperfectly supplied with these auxiliaries, as the British army once was, are hazardous in the extreme. Their only chance of success consists in scrutinizing the exterior of a fortress, in order to discover some spot whence, from the irregularity of the ground, or fault of con- Fortification, the main escarp wall may be seen at a distance sufficiently great to enable the ordinary working parties to approach with the covered-road, and there to establish batteries for breaching the wall or forming an opening through it into the place. When this is effected, the troops at once advance to the assault of the breach, as in the sixteenth century, thus losing the shelter of the covered-road at the moment when the fire of the place becomes most powerful and destructive; and as the fire of the besieger's distant batteries is necessarily suspended during the assault, in order to avoid killing their own storming party, the garrison can therefore with impunity mount their ramparts and employ every kind of weapon, missile, and instrument in their defence. All the chances are thus in favour of the besieged; for should the columns of attack, under all these disadvantages, arrive in good order at the brink of the ditch, they must descend into it by a wall from fourteen to sixteen feet in depth, which cannot fail to break their order and throw them into confusion; and as no new formation can be attempted in a spot where death is incessantly showering down on them, the assailants rush to the breach more like a rabble than a solid column. From this moment success hinges on the individual and confident bravery of the officers and troops, and the unshrinking firmness of the general commanding, in at once encouraging and supporting their efforts. But although these qualities, when united in a high degree, may, at a great sacrifice of life, enable the assailants to overcome all resistance, yet an assault of this nature, attempted under ordinary circumstances and feelings, has almost invariably proved unsuccessful. Indeed it may be laid down as the general result of experience, that should an army unprovided with sappers and miners, and the necessary materials and means to render their services efficient, be opposed to a place fortified according to the modern system, with its walls completely covered, all the usual methods to reduce it would prove unavailing; no period of time nor sacrifice of men would be sufficient to purchase success, and the prudent course would be to decline an attempt pregnant with hazard, perhaps ruin.

"These considerations," says Sir John Jones, to whom we are indebted for the above account of the various modes of attacking fortified places, "have for many years had their due weight with the great powers of Europe, and induced them to form and keep up, as integral portions of their military strength, every necessary auxiliary for the reduction of fortresses; and their sieges have in consequence become certain and comparatively bloodless. But England, constitutionally jealous of permanent military establishments, always discountenanced military organization and military preparation till the hour of need; and with respect to sieges, they being of rare occurrence, and moreover exclusively offensive operations, even carried her jealous feelings beyond the bounds of rational prudence; for, possessing a corps of officers professionally educated and well grounded in the science of attack and defence, she denied them every requisite establishment to render their acquirements available, and most unreasonably expected her armies to reduce the skilfully fortified and well-covered places of the nineteenth century with means inferior to those brought against the exposed and ill-constructed places of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries." And what was the immediate consequence of this irrational jealousy and niggardly parsimony? Contrary to all ordinary calculation, the fortresses garrisoned by the French in Spain were reduced; but at what a prodigious expenditure of life was this effected? In the several attacks upon Badajoz, two of which, from extrinsic circumstances, proved abortive, a little army was sacrificed; as many men, in short, as would have been sufficient for the consumption of ten sieges undertaken with adequate means, and conducted according to the ordinary rules of science. But this is not to be understood as involving any reflection against the military talents of the general or the professional ability of the engineers. General Foy, in his work on the war in the Peninsula, has indeed made such a charge, condemning the mode of attacking fortresses adopted by the British in Spain as unskilful and inefficacious, and bringing it forward as indisputable proof of the low state of military knowledge in our army. But it should be recollected that the adoption of this mode was not a matter of choice, but of necessity; and that if it was in its own nature rash, hazardous, and inefficient, the fact of its having been directed against Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz with such rapidity of development and certainty of result as to outstrip the calculations of the French marshals, deceive the vigilance of French governors, paralyse the science of the French engineers, and baffle every defensive effort of the French garrisons, is surely no evidence of deficiency in military talent and professional skill. The objections to this mode of attack are insurmountable and decisive; that it succeeded in the instances referred to is merely a proof what British soldiers, even when acting under the greatest disadvantages, are capable of accomplishing. The force of the remarks of Sir J. Jones has not become less by the progress of time, as the present war found us, not indeed so deficient in well-trained sappers as we were at the commencement of the last, but equally so in all the most important elements of modern organization, and, as regards this special branch of the service, not yet determined as to what the field equipment of the engineer establishment ought to be. We have still to learn the importance of that scientific knowledge which would enable the engineer to vary that equipment so as to meet the necessities of the geological structure of each particular country.

Having thus given a general description of the methods of attack, we shall now subjoin, on high authority, a view of what is considered as necessary for the proper defence of fortified places. An order issued by the French minister of war in 1813 contains directions on the subject which are almost universally applicable, and therefore deserve a place here. Every commander is directed to consider his garrison as liable to be unexpectedly attacked, and to pass at once from a state of peace into one of war or siege, either by rebellion, by unlawful assemblies, by the presence of an enemy, by surprise, or by sudden assault; in a word, by unforeseen causes, of which the history of war offers numerous examples. He is therefore ordered, even in time of peace, to fix his plan and arrangement for defence, according to such supposed attacks as may appear most probable, and to determine, for the principal cases which may be likely to occur, the necessary posts, reserves, and movements of the troops, and to take measures to ensure the due and active co-operation of every corps of the garrison. He ought, particularly, to make himself thoroughly acquainted with, first, the ground beyond the place which may be within the circle of action, of investment, and of attack; secondly, the fortifications of the place, its interior, its buildings, its military edifices or establishments; thirdly, the garrison, the means of the place in artillery, in ammunition, and in other stores of every kind; fourthly, the population to be subsisted in time of siege, the men capable of bearing arms, the master and journeymen artificers fit to be employed either on the works or in case of fire; and, fifthly, the provisions, materials, tools, and other resources which the town itself and surrounding country can furnish, and which it might be necessary to secure in case of siege. In order to enable governors and commanders to comply with these instructions, which are equally clear and precise, the minister proceeds to detail their principal duties, according to the circumstances in which they may find themselves placed; but for these we must refer to the general order itself, which is a masterpiece of its kind, and in all probability emanated directly from Napoleon himself. Its object appears to have been to inspire a governor with hopes, that by taking proper precautions, and making a full use of means previously provided, the defence might be rendered equal, if not superior, to the attack; and although it is still considered that the idea of attaining such an advantage for the defence is far from being realised, yet the importance of the directions embodied in the order is not on that account diminished, and where they are duly observed, the nature and extent of the resistance must be materially increased.

The protracted and able defence of Sebastopol will doubtless lead many to doubt the accuracy of the opinion thus stated, and to imagine that the Russians have by some new defensive arrangements solved the problem so long under discussion, and again restored to the defence its former superiority over the attack. This idea has indeed so taken possession of the public mind, that already persons have been found ready not only to assert the supposed fact, but also to explain the mode in which the improvement has been effected: whenever Sebastopol shall fall, and as regards the southern defences, the period of such fall seems approaching, this delusion will doubtless be dispelled, and the real merits of the Russian engineers will be found to consist not in the discovery of new principles, but in the skilful application of those principles which, recognised at an early period, have been by degrees matured and enlarged.

In estimating the comparative results of the attack and defence of Sebastopol, it must also be remembered that neither can be judged by strict rules, as neither has conformed to such rules. The north side being left open by the impossibility of fully investing the whole line of defences, the south became a detached line of powerful intrenchments, upon which the whole force of an army, not of a garrison, could be directed at will in its defence. In another point, also, the attack has not had its usual advantage, not having been able to use, with the customary effect, the enfilading ricochet fire, as the disposition of the line of works was such as not to offer sufficiently salient points, and therefore to leave so much to be done by direct fire. The unlimited extent of the garrison, being capable of continued renewal from the external army, has permitted the use of detached forts or works which, when backed by a line in rear of them sufficiently strong to resist a coup-de-main, constitute one of the most powerful modes of defence. Such a fort or work is the celebrated Malakoff Tower, and the redoubt enveloping it, the type of which may be found in the Lunette of Darçon, of which fig. 39 is a plan. In this lunette,

intended to be prepared beforehand, T is a powerful tower, LL a lunette, in this case revetted, but which might have been made, as at the Malakoff, a simple earth-work—a an underground communication to gg, loopholed galleries for flanking the ditches. This little sketch will show the general principle of defence involved in such works, but of course the form must vary in the hands of an able engineer, so as to suit the peculiarities of the ground. At the Malakoff the redoubt has been made circular, but as to principle it is strictly analogous to the lunette. Hereafter, without doubt, the details of this remarkable siege will become the study of military men, but at present it is necessary to select some other example, as there is as yet far too much uncertainty as respects the exact form, construction, and position of the works of Sebastopol to enable an engineer to reason with certainty upon them.

For the elucidation, then, of the attack, we shall now proceed to give a sketch of the attack on the citadel of Antwerp; first, because this was the most regular and scientific of Antwerp sieges which had taken place for many years; and, secondly, because, as a practical operation, an account of it must not only be more interesting, but at the same time more instructive, than any description whatsoever of the formal theoretical plans which are usually drawn in the military schools.

The French army employed to cover and conduct the attack of the citadel of Antwerp, in November and December 1832, was placed under the command of Marshal Gerard, and amounted to 54,000 infantry, 6000 cavalry, and 6450 engineers, artillery, and pontonniers, making a total of 63,450 men, and 14,500 horses, with 144 pieces of siege, and 78 of field artillery. On the 24th of November Marshal Gerard established his head-quarters at the village of Berchem, about 2500 yards from the citadel, and issued orders to commence operations in the evening as soon as it became dark. The garrison of the citadel, under General Baron Chassé, amounted to 4470 men, with 144 pieces of ordnance of all calibres, and abundance of ammunition and stores.

It will be observed here that a garrison of about 5000 men was opposed to the attack of a besieging army thirteen times its strength.

At eight o'clock p.m. on the 29th November the French troops destined for this service consisted of 18 battalions, 900 artillery, and 400 sappers, in all about 17,140 men, assembled at the depots of intrenching tools. The flank companies of these brigades, supported by twelve eight-pounders and a strong piquet of cavalry, formed the covering party under the direction of General Haxo, by whom and the officers of his department (the engineers) the first parallel and approaches were traced out, whilst General Niegre and the officers of artillery marked the sites of the projected batteries. The first parallel leaned on the covered-way of the right face of Montebello, and extended towards Kiel, its nearest point being about 325, and its farthest 435 yards from the advanced front of the citadel. The distance covered by the first parallel, from right to left, was 1870 yards, and that by the approaches 3750 yards. The communications from the right and centre debouched from the Malines Chaussée, in the village of Berchem, parallel to the road leading from that village to the Harmony and St Laurent; that from the left commenced near to the garden called Heinrich's; whilst a fourth, on the extreme right, sprung from the covered-way of the left flank of Montebello, opposite to the first traverse.

On the second night, from 30th November to 1st December, five approaches were pushed on in front of the first parallel; two in the direction of the capital of the Toledo bastion, two upon that of the Lunette St Laurent, and one, being the fifth, terminating in a place of arms on the extreme left. From the 1st to the 2d December two zigzags were added to the approaches; one from the centre, in the direction of the gorge of St Laurent, and the other on the right, diverging towards the curtaina, between the Toledo and Fernando bastions. The badness of the weather sadly inconvenienced the workmen, and prevented the artillery getting the guns into battery. Between the 2d and 3d December four zigzags were made in front of the approaches on the right and centre, and half a parallel was formed to complete the place of arms constructed on the left during the night of the 30th November. The heads of the zigzags were pushed to within 135 yards of the glacis. The batteries Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9, with two for mortars Fortification in the rear, were armed, and ready to be unmasked at a moment's notice. The arming of Nos. 7, 8, and 10, on the extreme left, was impeded by the difficulties of the ground.

From the 3d to the 4th December, the second parallel was traced and commenced, its right leaning on the foot of the glacis of the counterguard, its centre and right 130 yards distant from the place of arms in the covered-way of the Toledo bastion, and its left towards the right of the covered-way of St Laurent, at 90 yards from the crest, and 15 from the foot of its glacis. The length of the second parallel was 1250 yards, and, together with its approaches from the first parallel, it occupied 3025 yards of ground. By the greatest exertions batteries Nos. 7, 8, and 10 were armed during the night. This completed the armament, and, at 11 A.M., on the 4th, the embrasures were unmasked, and the signal being given, the batteries opened their fire from centre to flanks, and maintained it steadily during the day.

From the 4th to the 5th of December an approach was pushed on from the second parallel, almost in a direct line upon the salient angle of St Laurent, and an entry was made into the covered-way by a return to the left. The garrison discovered this, and opened a sharp fire from the lunette; a lodgment was, however, effected near the spot usually occupied by the first traverse. At this time the garrison suffered much from the fire of the besiegers. From the 5th to the 6th the lodgment made the previous night in the covered-way of the salient place of arms of St Laurent was prolonged as far as the first traverse. But the besieged kept up so vigorous a fire that the French engineers were obliged to renounce the flying and adopt the full sap. The zigzag in the counterguard, being about three feet in width and four in depth, was conducted along the parapet, nearly to the extremity of the right flank, and within 180 yards of the counterscarp of bastions Toledo and Fernando; and two lodgments, blinded with fascines, were made in the parapet for six rampart guns to enfilade the covered-way of the Toledo bastion. In the meantime a steady fire was kept against Kiel, the ravelin in its rear, and the Paciotto bastion.

From the 6th to the 7th a battery of 24-pounders near the village of Burcht on the left and Hoboken on the right opened on the gun-boats which flanked the French post at the Melk Huys. It was intended to assault St Laurent this evening; but as the lunette was found to be too well protected by tron-de-loop, the project of storm was abandoned, and the regular method of descent, passage, and mine, determined on.

Between the 7th and 8th of December a shell penetrated the blindness of the laboratory, and setting fire to loaded bombs and other combustibles, caused considerable havoc. A battery for six mortars, F, on the right between Nos. 3 and 4, now opened its fire; another, F, also for six mortars, was traced behind the centre of the parallel; and platforms for four mortars were laid down near Montebello. The fire of these batteries was directed on the Toledo bastion and the buildings within it. On the previous day jets of smoke and flame were seen to issue from the Great Barracks, and, in spite of every exertion on the part of the garrison, the whole building soon became involved in a general conflagration, which raged with such fury, that by the evening of the 8th it was entirely consumed.

From the 9th to the 10th of December the operations against St Laurent were renewed with great activity, and the sap advanced to the crotchet of the second traverse, whilst that intended to debouch upon it from its right was likewise pushed on. The principal operation of the night, however, was the opening of the third parallel, 130 yards in advance of the second, its right debouching beyond the Boom Chaussée, from the branch running into the covered-way of the counterguard, and its left uniting with the boyau parallel to the foot of the glacis of St Laurent. At this time the garrison suffered much from the vertical fire of the mortars and howitzers, especially the great mortar, and the new-model eight-inch howitzers. Until the year 1822, the eight-inch howitzer in common use in France measured three feet six inches French, and weighed 1096 lbs., or twenty-three times the weight of the loaded projectile, whilst its calibre was equal to a solid shot of 80 lbs., and contained 65 ounces of powder. The new-model howitzer is an improvement on the Russian licorne and the Spanish heavy howitzer, perfected by Colonel Paixhans. The raft for the blinded descent into the ditch was brought up to the lodgment, and a second descent à ciel couvert was commenced to the left of the first. The third parallel was, at the same time, improved and widened. A little after dusk on the 10th the besieged made a sortie, which was driven in, but not until damage enough had been done to occupy the French all the night of the 10th and morning of the 11th in repairing it. From the 11th to the 12th three rafts were got ready, and placed in the descents to the ditch; they were about twelve feet by eight. At dusk the miners returned to the escarp, and, in an excavation made the previous night, fixed two petards, which, by their explosion, produced a fissure in the wall; and a sergeant having immediately entered the hole, commenced a gallery under the centre of one of the arches. At 11 A.M. on the 12th the battery mortars, H, on the extreme right of the second parallel, opened their fire, which, combined with that from the others, told severely on the Toledo bastion. The miners still continued their work under the lunette St Laurent, and commenced chambers for three mines. The fourth parallel was widened during the day.

Between the 12th and 13th of December the miners were at work in the chambers under St Laurent, which were not yet completed. On the right the covered-way of the left face of the Toledo bastion was crowned to within sixty-five yards. From the 13th to the 14th, after nearly sixteen nights of open trenches, the arrangements for the assault of St Laurent were completed, and orders were issued to prepare for the storm. Much, a great deal too much, was said of this out-work, defended by little more than a hundred men, one five-and-a-half inch howitzer, two coehorn mortars, and a six-pounder. The mine being reported charged, the blinded descent into the ditch was pierced as soon as it became dark, and everything got ready for the assault. Three storming parties, consisting of the flank companies of the 65th regiment of the line, were posted in readiness, with a column of reserve; and at 5 A.M. on the 14th, every preparation being completed, the match was applied to the saucissons of the mines. After a few moments of suspense, three successive explosions took place, and the escarp immediately presented a wide and practicable breach. The fascines for crossing the ditch had been injured by the explosions; but after a little delay the storming party entered almost without opposition, and made prisoners one lieutenant and forty-eight rank and file, the others having escaped into the citadel. Thus fell the lunette St Laurent.

After this operations were carried on against the citadel, and at 11 A.M. of the 21st December the battering in breach commenced, and continued for two days. At length, on the 23d, when a practicable breach had been formed, and Marshal Gerard was about to deliver the assault, the garrison surrendered, after as gallant a defence as any recorded in military history, though more remarkable for its passive than its active character. When Marshal Gerard, accompanied by the French princes, entered the fortress, they found General Chassé in a casement in the Alba bastion, which he had occupied during the siege. On their progress from the gate to the governor's quarters, they passed through a scene of desolation and ruin, intermixed with painful and disgusting objects, which baffles all description. The whole, indeed, presented an unparalleled chaos of black and smouldering destruction; and, with the exception of the principal powder magazine, two or three service magazines, and the hospital, not a building was standing. The terrepleins of the bastions were ploughed into deep ruts by the shells; the gorges were encumbered with heaps of fallen rubbish; and though the casemates and subterranean communications were not perforated, all of them had sustained damage from the incessant explosion of shells, and they emitted an offensive, nay, almost insupportable odour, caused by the number of men who had been crowded into these vaults. Everything was of course said by the victors to console and flatter the vanquished. When Count Gerard took his leave of General Chassé, he observed to the brave veteran, "that it was high time to surrender; that he had gallantly and honourably done his duty, and that he ought not to have held out a day longer." With a fortress reduced to a heap of ruins, a garrison exhausted and exterminated, and a breach sufficiently wide to admit a column formed upon a front of a hundred, it would not have been bravery, but madness, to attempt, under such circumstances, to stand an assault.

The following is a list of the different batteries, with the direction of their fire respectively—

| No. of Batteries | Powdered | Unpowdered | Distance in Yards | Direction of Fire | |------------------|----------|------------|-------------------|------------------| | 1 | 6 | 2 | 525 & 550 | Battering the left face of Toledo, and gorge of St. Laurent. | | 2 | 2 | 2 | 500 | Ricochetting the left face of Toledo. | | 3 | 4 | 2 | 640 | Battering the left face of the Ravelin. | | 4 | 3 | 2 | 650 | Ricochetting left face of the Ravelin. | | 5 | 6 | 2 | 650 & 680 | Battering right face of Toledo, and Ricochetting left face of Toledo. | | 6 | 6 | 2 | 700 | Ricochetting left face of Toledo. | | 7 | 6 | 2 | 700 | Ricochetting left face of St. Laurent, and battering right face of Paclotto. | | 8 | 3 | 2 | 455 | Ricochetting left face of Ravelin. | | 9 | 6 | 2 | 820 | Battering salient angle of Palazzo. | | 10 | 8 | 2 | 650 & 550 | Battering left face of Ravelin, and Lunette of Xio. | | A | 10 | | 850 | Not armed. Body of the Citadel. | | B | 9 | | 1000 | | | C | 11 | | 850 | | | D | 10 | | 850 | |

This operation, so instructive in a military point of view, is also remarkable as having occurred in a time of general peace. It would be out of place here to enter into any detail of the complicated series of events and negotiations out of which so singular an occurrence arose: we shall therefore content ourselves with observing, generally, that Great Britain and France, as joint guarantees for the integrity and independence of Belgium, having failed in every attempt to procure the evacuation of Antwerp by means of negotiation, were obliged, by the faith of treaties, to have recourse to force. Hence the siege, politically considered, is to be viewed merely as an ejectment executed against the king of Holland, who had refused to renounce possession, unless compelled to do so.

The French brought against this place 66,450 men, 14,300 horses, and 222 guns of all descriptions; and they lost during the siege 108 killed and 695 wounded, total put hors de combat 803. The Dutch had 4937 men in the garrison, of whom they lost 122 killed, 369 wounded, and 70 missing, total 561.

A careful comparison of the details of this siege with the general principles which have been enunciated will enable the reader to recognize the importance of the following maxims:

1. Independently of the great amount of labour to be provided for in the construction of parallels, approaches, and batteries, there will be a daily drain upon the besieger's forces by casualties, so that he can scarcely expect for success unless his original preponderance in numbers has been such as to leave him at the final moment of assault in a condition to attack the diminished garrison with an overwhelming force. In addition, therefore, to a covering army when external relief is threatened or anticipated, the besieging army should be from four to five times the strength of the garrison, or even more, should the nature of the ground, as at Sebastopol, add to the ordinary difficulties of approach. This superiority of force is necessary to give celerity and steadiness to the operations, which would otherwise be tedious and interrupted.

2. A perfect investment is not merely expedient but indispensable. So long as any portion of the enceinte of a fortress is left open or unwatched, the garrison is able to recruit its strength from without, whilst within it is relieved from that moral depression which must, more or less, oppress men when entirely closed up within a narrow space, and exposed, day after day, to fatigue and danger. Under such circumstances there seems to be no natural limit to the power of defence, as fresh supplies of men enable the besieger to go on adding intrenchment within intrenchment, and it is only possible to overcome him by determined, reiterated, and overwhelming assaults. Such have been the circumstances of Sebastopol, as the system of attack adopted by the allies has never enabled them to isolate even the southern section of the fortress, the means of communication between the south and north remaining available to this day. Without doubt fresh troops, or rather reliefs, are brought to the south side frequently, and a temporary superiority in numbers on that side given to the defenders over the immediately attacking force. It ought not, therefore, to be a matter of surprise that the progress of the siege is slow, and, to the eye of the general observer, uncertain, because so frequently interrupted.

3. Good and secure lines of communication are most essential, as there ought not to be any cause of interruption when once the ground has been broken and the siege commenced. Neither in the attack nor in the defence should guns be fired idly, or from distances and positions which would render their fire useless; but when the proper distance has been arrived at, battery should succeed battery as the works of approach advance, and no interval for rest or for repairing injuries should be allowed to the besiegers; but how can this object be ensured with roads so heavy and bad as to stop the transport of ammunition and of ordnance?

4. The importance of advanced works was strongly exhibited at the siege of Antwerp, as the whole force of the attack was directed against the advanced lunette St Lau-

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1 The account of the siege given above is abridged from that published in the United Service Journal, and which is decidedly the best that has yet appeared. Fortification.

rent, whilst the defence was good, although under the dis- advantage of wanting the collateral defence of the Lunette Montebello (see Plate CCLXII). In such a case as Sebastopol, the garrison being in fact a small army, such works must afford the best means of an obstinate defence, and, by forcing the besieger to act on the circumference of a larger circle, diminish very much his ordinary advantage of con- centration.

Siege of Dantzig.

Having thus given an example of an interior and pas- sive defence, we shall now, in further illustration of the principles already laid down, advert to one of a different if not opposite kind. The siege of Dantzig, whether con- sidered with reference to the magnitude of the operation, the difficulties to be surmounted by the besiegers, or the active and varied character of the defence, was certainly one of the most memorable events in the campaign of 1807. Before the war of 1806 and 1807 the fortifications had been much neglected, because, from the position of the place, no one suspected that it would have to sustain a siege. But when the battles of Iena and Auerstadt had entailed destruc- tion on the Prussian army, and laid open the kingdom, General Mantein, who commanded at Dantzig in the ab- sence of Field-marshal Kalkreuth, the titular governor, had laboured with much activity in improving the exterior works, and particularly in causing them to be strongly palisaded. It is necessary, therefore, to describe the principal defences at the period when the place was invested by Marshal Le- febvre, at the head of the tenth corps of the grand army, and immediately before the commencement of the trenches on the 1st of April 1807.

The city of Dantzig, traversed by the Moltau, was sur- rounded with large ditches filled by that river, the waters of which, retained by several sluices, formed, to the eastward, a vast inundation, which, reaching on one side to the suburbs of Ohra and St Halbrecht, and on the other to the dykes of the Vistula, extended about four leagues, and covered two-thirds of the eastern fronts. On the north the Vistula runs about 260 yards from the covered-way, leaving a space between the left bank and the glacis of the place, consisting of an impracticable marsh, intersected by some canals; and at its embouchure, distant nearly three miles, the banks were defended on the right by the fort of Weichselmund, and on the left by an entrenched camp in the small island of Neufahrwasser, intended to cover and protect the arrival of such succours as might come from the seaward. The ground adjoining the banks of the Vistula being intersected by canals and covered with marshes, was extremely unfa- vourable to a besieger, as it rendered it difficult for him to form establishments or raise works of proper solidity, and forced him to extend his quarters, disseminate his troops, and multiply his posts. At the period in question this in- convenience was the more severely felt, because the be- sieging force was inferior in numbers to that of the garrison, and it required the most vigilant caution to occupy nume- rous posts without unduly weakening it. The communica- tion between the place and the fort of Weichselmund was maintained by a series of redoubts constructed on the bor- ders of the Vistula, and particularly by the advantageous position of the isle of Holm, which enabled the besieged so to approximate the fire of the place to that of the fort as only to leave between them an interval of about 1400 yards, and also to communicate with Weichselmund by the canal of Lasack, in spite of batteries which the besiegers might establish at Scheffelmuhl. The French, therefore, could not attempt to throw a bridge over this part of the Vistula until they had made themselves masters of the isle of Holm. On the west two chains of hills, separated by the valley of Schil- litz, covered this part of the enceinte; and the prolonga- tions of these hills were crowned by two forts, that of Bischopserg and that of Hagelsberg, which, being con- nected by continuous intrenchments, formed a second en- ceinte, flanked upon one side by the inundation of the Mol- tau, and upon the other by the left bank of the Vistula. This new enceinte, though constructed of earth, and with- out revetment, was nevertheless secure against insult; and the covered-way, as well as the foot of the scarps and counterscarps, bristled with strong fraises, which served in- stead of revetments, the besiegers had no hope of succeeding by a coup-de-main, and were therefore obliged to pro- ceed by a regular attack. How analogous was this condi- tion of the lines of defence to that of southern Sebastopol after the besiegers had allowed the garrison to recover from their first alarm, and under the guidance of able engineers to place their old works in order, and to supply their defi- ciencies by new works.

From this description of the defences of Dantzig, it is easy to perceive that the difficulties attending the operation must have been very great. The principal of these, as stated by General Kirgener, who, until the arrival of General Chasseloup, directed the attack, were, 1st, that Marshal Lefebvre had at first an army inferior to that of Marshal Kalkreuth, and that this army was in a great measure com- posed of new troops, all those destined for the siege not having then arrived; 2dly, that, owing to the badness of the roads and the inclemency of the season, the artillery ex- perienced the greatest difficulty in bringing up its convoys, whilst the establishment of the batteries was retarded, and a scarcity of ammunition sometimes prevailed; 3dly, that the place requiring an immense circumvallation, which, in fact, could not be completed until after the arrival of rein- forcements, the corps of troops which occupied the quarters were extremely weak, and hence could neither furnish a sufficient number of workmen at a time, nor even the number of men necessary for guarding the trenches; and, 4thly, that the besiegers had no good plan of the place, no idea of the depth of the ditches, and that, as the acci- dents of ground in front of the fortifications were extremely diversified, they could only be reconnoitred in proportion as the works advanced. These circumstances, all of which were reproduced at Sebastopol, the necessity of concentra- ting the greater part of the troops close to the camp of Neu- fahrwasser, by which succours arriving by sea might de- bouch, and, lastly, the advantage which the besieged had been able to preserve of remaining masters of part of the suburbs, determined the chief engineer, after the investment had been effected, to direct the principal attack against the Hagelsberg, and a false one against the Bischopserg fort. The true point of attack was the long branch of lines in the plain connected with the bastion on the right of the Hagels- berg: "c'était là le défaut de la cuirasse;" but, for the rea- sons above stated, General Kirgener was induced to direct his approaches against the fort itself.

As the details of this great siege would fill a considerable volume, all that our limits permit us to attempt is merely to indicate the principal occurrences. On the 1st of Febru- ary 1807 the troops of General Dombrowski began to ap- proach Dantzig, and took up a position at Mewe, upon the left bank of the Vistula. On the 15th General Ménard, commanding the Baden contingent, arrived at the same point, and repulsed a detachment of the garrison of Dant- zig, which had advanced from Dirschau to attack him. On the 23d General Dombrowski, having been reinforced,

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1 This officer, the head of the engineer staff, and one of the most distinguished in that branch of the service, fell on the field of battle at Bautzen, where he received his death-wound from the same ball which killed Durée, the grand marshal of the palace, and the intimate friend of Napoleon. received orders to attack a large detachment of the enemy which occupied an advantageous position at Dirischau and its environs. The combat here was obstinate and sanguinary; but the Prussians, though entrenched in a church and a churchyard, were dislodged and driven back, chiefly by the Poles, who, exasperated by their long resistance, put to death without mercy all who fell into their hands. After the combat of Dirischau, General Manstein no longer sought to obstruct the distant approaches. The troops destined to form the besieging army now arrived in succession, and the park of artillery began to be formed. On the 12th of March Marshal Lefebvre found himself in a condition to close in on the place; and the troops of the garrison having withdrawn, he distributed his own in the following positions: A battalion of French light infantry at Oliva, a Saxon battalion at St Halbrecht in the Burgerfield, and two others at Tiefensee and Kemlade; the Poles occupied Schonfeld, Kowald, and Zunkendorf; some battalions took post at Wonnemberg, Neukau, Schudelkau, and Smiekau; the Saxon cuirassiers and light horse were stationed at St Halbrecht and Guiseckens; the 19th regiment of French chasseurs at Burgfeld, and the 23d at Schudelkau; the Baden dragoons and hussars at Wonnemberg, and the Polish lancers at Langenfurt. On the 16th the marshal attacked the village of Stolzenberg, which he carried after a warm resistance, as he did also the suburb of Schiditz, to which the Prussians had retired; and on the 18th the place was entirely invested, with the exception of the eastern part, which, by the isle of Nehring, communicated with Königsberg. Field-marshal Kalkreuth now arrived in Dantzig and assumed the command of the place. The next operation of the besiegers was the attack of the isle of Nehring, which, after a severe and protracted struggle, was carried in the most gallant manner, and measures immediately taken to secure possession of this important conquest. A bridge was also established on the Vistula, and various works constructed to check the attempts of the enemy either on the side of Dantzig or on that of Pillau. At this time the governor, who, besides the burgher militia, had under his command a garrison of 18,000 men, made a sortie for the purpose of destroying the works already commenced by the besiegers; but the attempt failed, and the Prussian columns were compelled to retreat into the place without having obtained the smallest success upon any point.

As it had been decided that the principal attack should be directed against the fort of Hagelsberg, favoured by two false attacks, the one directed against the entrenched camp at Neufahrwasser, and the other against Bischopsberg, and also by two other secondary attacks on the left bank of the river, ground was broken on the night of the 1st and 2nd April, at the distance of 1600 yards from the pallisades. The approaches were pushed forward with the greatest vigour, and on the night of the 11th the second parallel was commenced by means of the flying sap. On the morning of the 12th the marshal ordered the batteries to be armed, which was accordingly done. On the 13th the enemy made a sortie in force, attacked the Saxons with great impetuosity, carried a redoubt constructed upon the mamelon of Hagelsberg, and even penetrated to the head of the trenches; but they were ultimately repulsed, though not without difficulty and loss. By the 23d all the batteries of the first and second parallels, and those of Stolzenberg, were armed, and emplacements were provided for field howitzers, in order to throw shells into all quarters of the city. At daybreak on the 24th the batteries were unmasked, and though the garrison returned the fire with the greatest vivacity, that of the besiegers soon obtained the ascendancy, committing great ravages in the place. Being apprised of this circumstance, Marshal Lefebvre summoned the governor, who replied in a manner worthy of himself. The fire of the mortar and reverse batteries continued during the 25th, in the course of which a new battery was constructed between the low flanks of the Stolzenberg; and the direction of some others changed, in order to batter the right bastion of Bischopsberg, the fire of which had greatly incommode the French batteries. During the day of the 26th, the fire on both sides was exceedingly animated; but at seven in the evening, that of the garrison suddenly ceased, and a column of 600 Prussian grenadiers, followed by 200 workmen, soon afterwards sallied out of the place. As the sortie had been foreseen, however, preparations were made to repulse it, which was done by a combined attack in front and on both flanks, in consequence of which the whole column was either killed or taken. Meanwhile the works were vigorously pushed forward at all points. The batteries of Stolzenberg were united with the attack on the Bischopsberg; emplacements were prepared for batteries à ricochet; at the attack of the Lower Vistula the works were continued, and a tongue of land situated at the extremity of the isle of Holm taken possession of and isolated by means of a cut; whilst at the principal attack the greatest exertions were made to prolong the right of the third parallel, and enlarge the communications. On the 30th April the batteries of the besiegers, augmented by several pieces which had arrived from Warsaw, thundered on the place, in different quarters of which conflagrations now appeared; and the besieged replied by the fire of all the batteries of the front of the attack, directing more than thirty pieces on a redoubt which fired with the greatest effect. But as the fire of the besiegers had made little impression on the exterior fortifications, which were of earth, it was during the first days of May directed chiefly against the palisades, in order to facilitate the assault of the place; and the utmost activity was at the same time evinced in extending, improving, and urging forward the attack; whilst, on the other hand, the garrison showed equal vigour in obstructing the approaches and destroying the works of the besiegers. In fact, notwithstanding the address of the French artillery, that of the garrison still remained effective, because it had not been possible to ricochet the lines of the fortifications, and the resources of the besieged in munitions of all kinds were more considerable than those of the besiegers. In the whole of these circumstances may be seen a rehearsal, as it were, of those of Sebastopol; and the reader will, after a perusal of this description, cease to imagine that the Russians had acquired their knowledge of the use and importance of earth-works from the writings of any author of our day. At Dantzig, as at Sebastopol, a powerful army, guided by a skilful engineer, was enabled to apply the resources of parapet fortification so effectually in defence as to baffle for a long time the efforts of the besiegers.

On the urgent recommendation of General Chasseloup, who had by this time assumed the direction of the attack, it was now decided that the isle of Holm should be assaulted, as the possession of it would enable the besiegers to construct new batteries, to take in reverse the front of the attack. The besieged had spared no pains for the preservation of this important post. In the night of the 6th and 7th of May, however, it was attacked, and, after a desperate resistance, carried; whilst the possession of it was secured by works added to the intrenchments which had just been stormed, and the batteries were turned against the place. At the principal attack the fire of the besiegers had also mastered that of the besieged; and Marshal Lefebvre was preparing to assault the fort of Hagelsberg, when a Russian corps d'armée under the command of General Kamenskoi arrived by sea, and disembarked at the intrenched camp of Neufahrwasser.

At the moment of landing his troops, General Kamenskoi was ignorant of the capture of the isle of Holm, and he was disconcerted to find such an obstacle to his communications with the place. This occasioned delay, which proved fatal to his enterprise; for had he attacked immediately on landing, it is not improbable that he would have succeeded. It was only on the 15th of May, however, being the fourth day after the disembarkation, that he resolved to make an attempt to succour the besieged city. He began to debouch at four in the morning, and, under cover of a brisk cannonade, formed his force, consisting of from 11,000 to 12,000 men, in four columns of attack. The onset was impetuous, and at first the Russians gained ground, thrice attempting to penetrate the French line; but they were ultimately repulsed at all points, and forced to retreat with great loss to the intrenched camp. Field-marshal Kalkreuth made no attempt to second this attack by means of a general sortie, which would have placed the French between two fires; and by its failure the fate of Dantzig was decided. Such was the issue of the only effort made by the allies to relieve this important fortress.

The works of the besiegers were now pushed forward with redoubled vigour; and in the course of the following day preparations were made for the assault of Hagelsberg. Foreseeing this, Marshal Kalkreuth resolved to make a last effort to destroy the nearest works of the besiegers, and for this purpose ordered a grand sortie, which took place on the evening of the 20th May; but although the Prussians fought with all the fury of despair, they were at length driven back, and pursued even into the ditch of the place. On the 21st the army of siege was reinforced by the arrival of the troops of Marshal Mortier, part of which had remained before Colberg; the marshal himself quickly followed; and orders were immediately issued for the assault of Hagelsberg. Before giving the signal, however, Marshal Lefebvre again summoned the governor of Dantzig, who, having no longer any hope of being succoured, and convinced that the besiegers were in a condition to make themselves masters of the fort of Hagelsberg, showed a disposition to capitulate. A suspension of arms was accordingly agreed to, and this was followed, on the 24th of May, by a capitulation, the principal conditions of which were similar to those which the field-marshal himself had granted to the garrison of Mayence in 1793.

The preceding narrative will in so many respects appear to be an anticipation of the defence of Sebastopol, that it may be well to remark that such as the two defences have been in their beginning and progress so may it be expected that the two sieges will be in their termination—namely, successful for the besiegers. The Prussians and the Russians did everything which bravery and skill could do to save Dantzig, making at the last a bold and gallant attempt to raise the siege by a general attack. Already the Russians have made several grand sorties, and two general attacks of no ordinary magnitude and importance, and it may be expected that before winter they will again endeavour to force the position of the allies; but should they fail, and can it be doubted that they will, how can the Emperor of Russia expect to keep longer from their grasp the just reward of gallantry and perseverance, almost beyond example, for which they have been contending? The hope of the Russians can now only be formed on success in the field, and as that hope becomes with each successive attempt and failure less bright, so must the gloom of disappointment and despair darken until the end shall come, and Sebastopol, although perhaps in ruins, be abandoned to its fate.

BASTIONED SYSTEMS OF THE NETHERLANDS.

The bastioned system of the Italians was soon carried into other countries by their engineers, who were extensively engaged in the service of foreign princes, and it was thus that the celebrated Italian engineer Marchi, coming to Brussels with Margaret of Austria in 1559, appears to have introduced the bastioned system into the Netherlands. It has been shown that in rampart defences, the ordinary earthen scarp adopted in ditches of parapet works had been replaced by a masonry revetment as a security against surprise, in consequence of which, in old Italian fortresses, lofty revêtements were almost universal; but in a country the soil of which was permeated by water within a few feet of the surface, such a mode of guarding against escalade would have been enormously expensive, and in consequence advantage was taken of the nature of the country to form broad wet ditches round the ramparts, and thus, by securing them from any sudden attack, to render the revêtement unnecessary. The first example of a fortress surrounded by simple earthen ramparts without revêtements is said to be that of Breda, fortified in 1553 by Count Henry of Nassau, and this arrangement required only to be moulded into the bastioned trace to constitute the ancient system of the Netherlands, as described by Freitag in 1680. Freitag made the flanks of his bastions perpendicular to the curtain, the faces 98 yards long, with a flanked angle not exceeding 90°, and the length of the curtain 149 yards.

Freitag had strange notions respecting his profiles, regulating the height and thickness of his ramparts not so much by the resistance they were required to make against artillery as by the number of sides of his polygon; but disregarding these vagaries of the systematist, the annexed cut, fig. 40, may be assumed to represent the profile usually adopted by the Dutch engineers, R being the body of the place, F the fausse-braye, D the ditch.

It will be observed from the profile, that the main rampart is surrounded by an advanced parapet called a fausse-braye, a work to which reference has been made in a preceding page. By this parapet it was intended to obtain a grazing fire on the ditch, whilst the space between it and the rampart formed a spacious chemin des rondues well fitted for the assemblage and movement of troops for defensive purposes; but great as these advantages are, the fausse-braye has dropped into disuse, as it was found scarcely possible to remain in it under a heavy vertical fire, the shells either dropping directly, or rolling down into it from the superior slope of the rampart above. Such shell traps, as they are called, are scrupulously avoided by modern engineers, who well know that the improvement of vertical fire will ere long add materially to the difficulties of defence. In the recent bombardment of Sweaborg, a tolerable illustration has been afforded of what may be done by heavy mortars, when the shell has been made a better representative of a mine than it now is. At present a 13-inch shell weighs, when loaded, 200 pounds, and may carry with it, when filled, a charge of 11 lb. of powder, which is ample for breaking the shell and scattering its fragments, but is insufficient for producing great effects as a mine. Should however the projects of Nasmyth and of Mallett be carried into effect, and there can be little doubt that in a modified shape and degree they will, the shell becoming a mine will... carry with it 1, 2, or 3 cwt. of powder, to destroy not only buildings, but also earthen parapets and ramparts. Passing from the ancient Dutch system as described by Freitag, Maroljois, and others, the modern or improved Dutch system of Coehorn deserves especial attention, and is represented in Plate CCLXI, fig. 1, which exhibits his first system.

The great characteristic in this system is the combination of wet and dry ditches, and the use of covering works, or couvre-faces, intended to preserve the body of the place from injury till an advanced period of the siege. These Fortification envelopes were first proposed by Dürer, and in like manner the remarkable orillon of Coehorn is a reproduction on a moderate scale of the complicated masonry, or casemated structure of one of his bastions. Coehorn was also well acquainted with the principles enunciated, and the systems proposed by the truly eminent German engineer Speckle, and has unhesitatingly adopted them when applicable to his purpose. The profile, fig. 41, will best enable the student to appreciate the difference between the dry ditches of Coehorn and the narrow passage afforded by the fausse-braye of the older engineers. A, inner or upper bastion; B, outer or lower bastion; D', dry ditch betwixt the two; D", wet ditch.

The profile also exhibits the loop-holed galleries of the counterscarp, by which a reverse musquetry fire may be obtained on the revetted scarp of the inner rampart; a system of defence which has since been very generally adopted, and is most valuable when a secure communication can be kept up between the galleries and the work which they are intended to defend. After the great siege of Corfu by the Turks, and its successful defence by Schullenburg, some Dutch engineers who had been invited to Corfu by him, and had taken part in the defence, were employed in adding detached forts to the old Italian bastioned fronts. In these works, now partly in ruins and partly destroyed, numerous examples of loop-holed galleries and loop-holed traverses may be observed, and they serve to demonstrate, that though Coehorn adopted in his systematic writings his reliefs to the aquatic sites of Holland, he developed principles and means of defence which were equally applicable to other sites and other countries. It has been argued by Boussard and others, that an opening would be formed by shells through the couvre-face; and that the flanks of the bastions would be thereby exposed to the fire of the counter batteries on the glacis; but it remains yet to be proved whether such an opening through an earthen mass as is here assumed to be made by the horizontal firing of shells could really be thus effected; and the French translator of Zastrow, M. Neuens, captain of artillery, justly remarks, "that if shells fired horizontally into earthen works are so efficacious in destroying them, such shells must be a still more powerful instrument in the hands of the defenders for destroying the besiegers' batteries." If indeed, Zastrow himself observes, we admit with Coehorn and others, that though the besieger may succeed in destroying a few feet of the parapet of the lower or outer face of the bastion, he would in vain by firing horizontal shells into its mass endeavour to lay open the counterscarp galleries, it must be admitted that the besieger on mounting the low face would find himself in a most critical position, as all the defences, both direct and reverse, of the dry ditch, would remain uninjured, and be in full action against him. These dry or inner ditches, as greatly facilitating the war of sorties, and the reverse or counterscarp galleries, are defensive arrangements of great merit, and may, by fitting modification of profile, be adapted to any site; though, of course, the advantage possessed by the dry ditches in such countries as Holland, of not allowing the besieger to excavate in them without coming to water, cannot be expected in other sites, and must be made up for by stone pavements, or other contrivances likely to embarrass the besieger in his excavation. Coehorn assumes the plane of site to be only 4 feet above the level of the water, and the dry ditch of his bastion is at its centre just on the level of the water, so that a passage by sap becomes impossible, as the spade sinks at once into water; but near the scarp and counterscarp the ditches only sink 2½ feet, sloping on each side towards the central portion. The breadth of the dry ditch of the bastion is 98 feet, and that of the wet ditch before the salient 148 feet. All the slopes are at an angle of 45°. The whole breadth or thickness of the couvre-face, measured at the water level, is 52 feet, so as not to allow room for the besiegers' batteries; and its relief of construction only 12½. Ravelin, relief of low face 10 feet, of high face 18½, and the height of its revêtement 8 feet; here also the thickness of the low face would not afford space for forming batteries. The width of the dry ditch is the same as that of the bastion. These few details, together with an examination of the Plate CCLXI, and of the woodcut 41, will enable the student to comprehend the general principles of this great engineer, and it is rather by tracing out the several ideas of a master mind, as exhibited in the peculiarities of his plans, than by studying the plans themselves as wholes, that the younger engineer will acquire that store of practical knowledge which will enable him to vary his own projects, so that they may really be the best suited for the ground he is working upon.

Coehorn himself exemplified the observations which have been here made, as he never restricted himself to the rules even of his own system. In fortifying Gröningen he was required to construct works on an eminence which commanded the town, and he adopted a trace which, towards the exterior, exhibited a series of tenailles, the gorges of which were closed by small bastioned fronts constructed of walls which should be easily breached from the main works when the enemy had succeeded in gaining possession of any one of the intervening redans. By this curious combination of the tenaille and bastioned systems, Coehorn gave an undoubted proof of his superiority to the narrow prejudices which prevent many men from adopting the system best suited for the particular place. His example should be followed by every sensible engineer.

BOUSMARD, CARNOT, CHASSELOUP, DUPOUR, HAXO, CHOUMARA.

It would be wrong to dismiss the subject of bastioned systems without at least some more reference to the works of these distinguished engineers than has been given in tracing the history of this subject. Bousnard makes the faces of his bastions as well as their flanks curvilinear, the former convex, and the latter concave outwards; but though from this arrangement the effect of ricochet fire may be diminished, the difficulty of effectually defending the salient from the flanks is much increased. His great innovation, however, consisted in placing the ravelin and its redoubt in advance of the glacis of the body of the place, and forming in front of them a second or advanced covered-way; the object of the arrangement being to close the main ditch entirely, so that the batteries should not fire upon the body of the place through the ditch of the ravelin. The covered-way is made en cremaillère, and at each bend there is a sort of redoubt, or casemated traverse, not a simple hollow traverse loop-holed, such as those in the detached works of Corfu. It has been objected to Bousnard's system that his advanced works would be speedily taken by turning the gorges both of the ravelin and its redoubt, but it should be remembered that the interior slope of both is replaced by a loop-holed wall, being the front of an arched gallery running all round, so that the enemy could not remain within exposed to the fire from the galleries, as well as to that from the body of the place. Without advocating the precise form and disposition of the works recommended by Bousnard, it may be reasonably asserted that in every case of a powerful and well appointed garrison the defence will gain by assuming an active character beyond the precincts of the glacis.

It has been already observed that an unmerited indifference has been manifested by many engineers to the merits of Carnot, principally, it may be believed, from his exaggerated estimate of the effects of a vertical fire of small projectiles. Notwithstanding, however, his appeal to imagination rather than to calculation, when he assumed that by substituting 600 wrought iron balls, weighing each $\frac{1}{4}$ lb., for the one shell of 150 lb. he might expect with 6 mortars to project 3600 balls, and to put hors de combat 20 men at each discharge, or in 100 discharges 2000, he was right in urging the importance of vertical fire. Carnot, born in 1753, was at an early age a member of the Corps of Engineers, and for his mathematical works elected a member of several learned societies. At the Revolution he was a member of the constituent Assembly; he voted for the death of the king, distinguished himself in the army of the North, and when a member of the committee of public safety, directed in great measure the movements of the French army. In 1795 he was named minister of war, but quickly expelled by Barras and exiled the country; but being recalled, was again, in 1799, appointed minister of war. In 1802 he retired from office, and with that stern integrity which marked his character and made it resemble so much the noble independence of Arago, he voted against the elevation of Napoleon to the imperial dignity. Napoleon did not allow this rigid adherence to principle to disqualify the patriot for employment, and charged him with the defence of Antwerp, as he at a later day named him a peer of France, and confided to him the office of minister of the interior. After the fall of Napoleon he became a member of the provisional government, and was immediately afterwards banished from France. He died at Magdeburg in 1823.

Carnot constructed his scarp without a revêtement but placed a detached loop-holed wall in front of it with a chemin des rondes between, which is one essential feature of his system, the wall being constructed with arched niches in rear so as to shelter the men defending it; the loopholes are in two rows. He provided arched casemates for mortars on the gorge of his bastion in order to fire upon the capital, and the loop-holed wall of an inner curtain being continued along the retired flanks and in front of these mor- attempting to form a lodgement, great damage by scattering about these natural missiles.

General Noizet has been already mentioned in connection with the modern system, his modification of which is now the normal system adopted at all the French military schools. Not adopting Dufour's mode of closing the ditch of the ravelin by carrying across it one face of the redoubt of the re-entering place of arms, he effected this object by placing a massive mask between the coupsure of the ravelin and the re-entering place of arms, from the inner scarp of which it is separated by a passage. The counterscarp of the bastion is carried continuously along the inner edge of the mask, whilst in front of it is a ditch which separates it from demi-caponnière forming its counterscarp and covered-way, and a glacis sloping down the ravelin of the ditch. The mask, the lunette redoubt in the ravelin, and the redoubt in the re-entering place of arms, form a combined series of works of great efficiency for defence, and which completely cover all but the salient portion of the face of the bastion. The flank of the bastion, as before observed, forms an angle of 80° with the line of defence, and the advantage taken of this in the citadel of Ghent in forming a most powerful intrenchment in the bastion, with a curtain as long as that of the main front, has also been pointed out.

General Haxo was one of the most able engineers of modern times. Under Napoleon he distinguished himself at the sieges of Lerida, Mequinenza, and Tarragona. On the restoration he was appointed president of the engineer committee, and directed the construction of the fortifications of Belfort, Sedan, Grenoble, and l'Écluse. He directed the operations of the siege of Antwerp, and died in 1838. Haxo did not publish his schemes of defence, nor did he reproduce it as a whole in the works he constructed; doubtless considering, as has been so frequently urged, that systems, so called, can only be looked upon as the exhibition of great principles, not as a rigid rule for their application. His ravelin is made very prominent, and the salient is formed into a traverse, or mask, casemated and armed with artillery. Within the ravelin there is a redoubt, and within that a casemated caponnière or bastionette. The ditch of the ravelin is closed by continuing the counterscarp across it with a glacis slope into the ravelin ditch, and by this arrangement the ditch of the redoubt in the ravelin is also closed. The counterguards, the higher and the lower bastions, form almost three lines of defence, of which two, the outer and inner, are powerfully armed with artillery. The peculiar characteristic of the system is, that the parapet is thrown back, and made in its trace independent of the scarp, so that, whilst the latter retains the usual straight line, the parapet is broken into several portions not in the same line, and thus secured from the effects of ricochet—an arrangement of very great merit. Haxo is probably better known to English engineers as the inventor of casemated batteries à l'Haxo than from his merits as an engineer, great as they manifestly were. These batteries are formed in the parapet, and though arched over with masonry are covered with earth. They are open in the rear to the terreplein, and the openings in front for the guns are continued into embrasures formed in an extension of the parapet at these points beyond its ordinary retired position in Haxo's system. These batteries are thus secured from the effects of the enemy's fire, and when the embrasures are masked are equally hidden from his view, so that they may at any moment suddenly open a powerful and unexpected fire upon the besiegers. Being open in the rear, and connected together by arched openings between every pair, the circulation of air is sufficient to do away with the inconvenience from smoke, so generally complained of in casemated batteries. The batteries à l'Haxo have been used at Grenoble and Lyons, and in the forts of Loyasse and Sainte-Foy.

The work of the commandant of engineers, M. Choumara, entitled Memoirs sur la Fortification, was published in 1847. In this work he maintains the principle, that the direction of the parapet should be independent of that of the scarp, the latter being formed in straight lines, and considered permanent during the siege, whilst the former may be broken into several lines, and may be modified during the siege so as to facilitate the defence in any direction. Haxo had in his lessons or studies pointed out the importance of this principle; but Choumara was the first to advocate it in print, though it should be observed that the castle of Naples exhibits an early example of the reverse operation, a new scarp having been built in front of the ancient round-tower forts, so as to change them at the base only into bastions, whilst the upper portion of the towers became retired and independent parapets. Choumara, not relying on the bent trace of his retired parapet as a security from ricochet, proposed a traverse in the capital of his bastion, placed outside of the retired parapet, and 33 yards in length. This traverse, made 26 feet high and 78 feet wide at its base, would occupy less than two-thirds of the space of the twelve ordinary traverses required to secure from enfilade the faces of Choumara's bastions 164 yards in length, whilst it would cover not only the bastions but also the flanks. In addition, however, to the traverse or mask in the capital, Choumara proposed high traverses, formed parallel to the flanks, at about 22 yards from the salients, which would not only secure the faces from enfilade, but would form secure or interior flanks, as cavalier flanks commanding and firing over those in front. By making the cavalier flanks 98 yards long, and casemating them à l'Haxo, 15 guns might be placed in each, and the covered-way of the bastion attacked would be commanded by 30 guns in addition to those of the ordinary flanks, whilst the traverse of the capital would secure the flank cavaliers from ricochet. Any one who reads and studies these simple and yet effective arrangements will not, it is hoped, longer imagine that the importance of earthen works in their proper place had been overlooked by modern engineers, even though they had learnt to value the beautiful and scientific arrangements of their predecessors. The last and most remarkable suggestion of Choumara is another illustration of the same remark, as he proposes to widen his ditch to about 50 yards, and leaving a passage of communication of 16 yards round the base of the scarp, to form an interior glacis, sloping up from the base of the counterscarp towards the summit of the scarp, and having a base of 34 yards wide, thus constituting a continuous mask round the whole escarp. In respect to countermines, Choumara proposes to replace the great galleries, which are usually made 6 feet high and 3 feet wide, and which are, as it were, the great arteries of a system of mines, by large vaulted galleries from 16 to 20 feet wide, pierced through the counterscarp, and continued as far as the third parallel. Six of these galleries were to be formed in each front, being placed about 55 yards apart, and connected together by minor transverse galleries or branches. Galleries of this magnitude would, in time of peace, be useful as stores, and in time of war would greatly facilitate the operations of the miner. The subject of military mining is so extensive in itself, that it must be deferred to a future article on the subject; but it may be here stated, that this subterranean warfare exercises great ingenuity, and requires great skill both on the part of the besieged and the besieger. The besieged has had the advantage of forming the main galleries of his countermines beforehand, but in spite of this a war of mines must generally be in favour of a besieger, since every explosion of the mines of the besieged, however partially destructive it may have proved to the immediate assailants, must destroy some portion of the works of defence, whilst each one of the besieger's mines must operate in favour of the attack alone. Starting, Fortification.

however, with this principle, that a fortress, except in some situation which renders regular attack impossible, must ultimately fall, the real object of defence is to occupy the enemy for a sufficient time to suit the purposes for which it was constructed, and in this view of the case the destruction of the battery or of the lodgement of a besieger might materially protract the resistance of the intrenchment formed in a bastion, and thus enable the besieger to maintain his ground so much the longer. The most simple form of mine, and that which may be most readily applied as an obstacle in the way of the assailant, is the fougasse. It consists of a chamber placed at the bottom of a simple pit about 12 feet deep, so as to dispense with the labour of forming a gallery. The charge is placed in a wooden box, and both the charge and size of the box may be thus estimated. When the line of least resistance, or shortest line drawn from the centre of the charge to the surface of the earth, which in this case is the depth of the pit, is 10 feet, a charge of 100 lb. will produce an entonnoir or excavation, the radius of which is equal to the line of least resistance, and it has been ascertained that the volume of the excavation varies with the charge, the line of resistance and the resisting medium being the same, and that the volume varies also as the cubes of the lines of least resistance; hence, therefore, if W represent the weight of the charge, B the bulk of the entonnoir corresponding to 100 lb. of powder and a line of resistance equal to 10 feet, and b that of the entonnoir corresponding to the charge W and the line of least resistance R, we have $100 : W :: B : b$; but as $B : b :: 10^3 : R^3$, we have $100 : W :: 10^3 : R^3$, and $W = \frac{R^3}{10}$. Now let S = side of cubical box to contain the charge—55 lb. of powder thrown loosely in filling one cubic foot, and $S = \sqrt{\frac{R^3}{10 \times 55}} = 0.122 R$, or nearly $\frac{1}{8} R$ in feet. The pits for fougasses vary generally from 8 to 12 feet in depth, and from 3 to 4 feet in width, being made square, and either secured by being revetted with planks or not, as the earth is or is not firm enough to support itself; and for this latter purpose gabions may be used made of different diameters, so that one may be slipped through the others which have been previously fixed. The box for the powder is well tarred, and when intended to be left in the ground for some time, it may be covered with tarred canvas and then put into another box, also tarred both inside and out. The charge is ignited by a saucisson or linen tube about an inch in diameter, filled with powder, and either laid in a wooden case well tarred, or suspended in it. The saucisson and its wooden case, or other covering, whatever it may be, should be sunk some feet in the earth in conveying it from the charge and pit to the place from which it is to be ignited, in order to secure it from accidents as well as from the enemy's observation (see woodcut, fig. 41). In the figure is also represented the mode in which the fire is applied by what may be called the fire-box, the end of the trough and powder-hose being introduced into it. As the object of military mines requires immediate explosion, it is manifest that the firing must be effected by some contrivance for producing instantaneous ignition to be really effective, but this may now be done in so many ways independently of voltaic action—by the use, for example, of friction and detonating tubes—that it would be useless to detail them. It is true that experience has shown how little real injury the explosion of fougasses can do to an assailant; but, as the moral effect of the belief of their existence is a certain degree of hesitation or irresolution, often greater than that produced by actual casualties from musketry fire, the mine must still be considered useful to defence as an obstacle in the way of the assailant. Loaded shells packed in a case may be substituted for the ordinary charge, the case being formed with a partition, and the fuses of the shells placed on the lower portion of the case, passing through holes in the partition, so as to be brought into connection with the saucisson or firing-hose in the upper portion of the case. Another form is the stone fougasse, which is probably the most effectual of all. It is constructed thus: a conical pit is made in the earth about 5 or 6 feet deep, the axis being directed towards the enemy at an angle of 45° with the plane of construction, and at the bottom a charge of 50 lb. of powder is placed in a well-tarred box. Over the box, and perpendicularly to the axis of the cone, is fixed a lid, on which as a platform are packed either stones or broken bricks, which, on explosion, are scattered over a space of about 60 by 70 yards. It should be laid down as a rule that means for discharging mines ought to be provided within the fortress, either by using the voltaic battery for the purpose, or by preparing openings in the works through which the powder-hose may be carried.

The last great modification proposed by Choumara is the extension of the exterior side, and this can no longer be a matter of doubtful expediency when the effective range of the rifled musket has become equal to that of smaller ordnance. The length of the line of defence may now be safely and advantageously fixed at 400 yards, so that musketry and artillery may co-operate together efficiently. Chasseioup had, indeed, also proposed to make his exterior side about 700 yards long; and he was not a mere speculative engineer, as he had fortified with great skill under the orders of Napoleon, Alessandria in Piedmont; but it must be borne in mind that no greater distance should be allowed for musketry than is compatible with distinct vision and a correct appreciation of distance, and further, that the men intended to use the rifle in a fortress ought to be well trained for that object, as the loose fire of untrained men would probably be little better with the rifle than with an ordinary musket.

CONCLUSION.—GERMAN SYSTEMS OF DEFENCE.

After having traced the history of bastioned defence to the high state of perfection it has now attained, a brief summary of other systems seems necessary to complete the subject. It has been shown that no sooner had the Italians invented the bastioned system of defence, than it found in every country persons who devoted themselves to what they considered the improvement of its details: France had its Errard, its Pagan, and its Vanhau; the Netherlands its Preising and its Coehorn; Germany its Speckle; and it may be asserted that the last-named was at least equal to any of the others. Germany, however, though it might have justly prided itself on Speckle, has gone back to Dürer, and adopted from him the other system of flanking defence, which depends on the use of casemated galleries, and of caponnières or casemated works thrown across the ditches. Yet though this has become the result, it is remarkable that the Germans have taken their systems, as exhibited in the most remarkable of their modern works, from a French officer—the celebrated Marc René Marquis de Montalembert, who was born in 1713, and commenced his military service as an officer of dragoons in 1731. He was a person of very varied acquirements, and became when still a youth a member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, but fortification and the art of war were his favourite studies. In 1776 he published his celebrated work entitled "Perpendicular Fortification, or an Essay on Several Methods of Fortifying a straight line, a triangle, a square, and all polygons of any number of sides, giving to their defence a perpendicular direction. Also, Methods of Improving Existing Defences, and rendering them much stronger. Also, Redoubts, Forts, and Field Intrenchments, of a New Construction," a colossal work, embracing 11 quarto volumes, enriched with 165 large plates, and which must be considered the source from which all the modern inventions in this branch of fortification have been derived. In referring back to earlier German writers, it appears that Rimpler in 1673 proposed a system which is a combination of bastions with tenailles, and Landsberg one in 1712 which is purely a tenaille system; but both of these adhere to earthen ramparts and parapets, either with revêtements in the first, or without them in the second, and their systems may be therefore considered an extension of the trace of parapet fortification to rampart fortification. But Montalembert, in his tenaille system, replaces the simple revêtement at the re-entering angles with casemated works in two stages, thus affording both direct artillery and musketry for the defence of the ditch and faces of the redans, the remaining portion of the trace being occupied by an earthen couvre-face work, with a detached loop-holed gallery in front of it, being evidently the prototype of Carnot's detached revêtement. The re-entering casemates were calculated to hold 24 guns in two tiers. Behind the couvre-face was the body of the place of the redan, being also fronted by a casemated gallery, and separated from the couvre-face by an inner wet-ditch. In this system, then, the defence by musketry as well as by artillery is at two levels, the one at a moderate height above the bottom of the ditch, and not, as in the old Italian systems, at the high level of the crest of the parapet. At the gorge of each redan is placed a formidable casemated tower; whilst in front of the main ditch there is a general couvre-face provided also with casemated galleries, a second or advanced ditch, places of arms in front of the re-entering angles, a covered-way, and a glacis.

The polygonal system may be considered as springing directly from Dürer's work of the same name, only in this case the simple earthen ramparts of Dürer are exchanged for a combination of casemated towers, casemated galleries, earthen couvre-faces; and the caponnières, which, as in Dürer's, flank the ditches, assume the more artistic form of bastionettes. In Dürer's polygon the sides were straight or unbroken, but in Montalembert's the centre was thrown back and formed into an Italian bastioned trace, the faces flanking the faces of the caponnière, and again, therefore, exemplifying the difficulty of ensuring perfect flanking defence by any other trace. In forts which formed a triangle or square Montalembert was rich in resources, though the massive casemated tower, casemated galleries, and earthen couvre-faces may be considered the essential elements of all. In France, the views of Montalembert have never been received with enthusiasm, though Cherbourg is fortified in conformity to them, and it was even alleged that the corps du génie was indisposed to receive instruction from an officer of another arm; but it is more reasonable to suppose that the cherished name of Vauban has induced its officers rather to direct their attention to the improvement of the bastioned system, which they have certainly carried to perfection, than to the development of one depending on such different principles. In Germany, on the contrary, Speckle is less known than Vauban, and though probably a thought of Dürer may not enter into the question, Montalembert's systems, founded upon some of his principles, have been readily adopted, and may be studied in the works of defence of Coblenz. In all such works masonry defences or casemated buildings assume a character of the highest importance, but it should not be forgotten that no masonry can resist the force of a concentrated fire of heavy guns, and can only be considered safe when protected by earthen masks or couvre-faces. The Maximilian towers of the defences of Lintz, therefore, are not now approved by modern engineers, and the Russians have exhibited their distrust of the most formidable looking masonry defences, even when opposed to ships, by closing the harbour of Sebastopol against approach by sinking a large portion of their own fleet; and this is not to be wondered at, when it is remembered, that to bring the guns forward in order to give them a necessary latitude of fire within casemated batteries, the walls must be much cut into, and therefore greatly weakened. This great defect of masonry defences is well known to engineers, in addition to the further evils of smoke in close casemates, but it is presumed that no one who has read this essay will now imagine that it was necessary to wait to the present epoch for this knowledge, as the earthen mask or couvre-face has been shown to have been applied at a very remote period of the history of the science. In the earliest periods of the Italian fortification, the necessity of increasing the active power of the flanks beyond that which could be obtained by their length alone was strongly felt, and in consequence retired flanks, one rising above the other, were adopted, as well as casemated flanks which admitted of two or more tiers of guns, thus, as in Montalembert's system, obtaining a greater number of guns by extending the battery vertically. At first sight this appears a natural mode of gaining a superiority over the attack, in which the batteries can only be extended laterally, but in practice the retired flanks were soon found to be untenable, as those in front were complete shell-traps, and the casements were practically useless from the difficulty of clearing them from smoke. The systems of Montalembert partake of the same defects; and however imposing the appearance of several successive tiers of guns may be, it should be remembered, that, if covered by the mask, they can only be partially used when the enemy is at a considerable distance, and that the tiers exposed to view may be easily destroyed by the guns of attack of the calibres now used at 500 yards. Several writers have proposed systems based upon similar principles to those of Montalembert, but it is perhaps sufficient here to mention the work of Don Jose Herrera García (Teoria Analytica de la Fortificacion Permanente), as it unquestionably affords the most remarkable development of the tower system of defence. García proposes several successive lines of massive casemated buildings or towers, of an egg-shape, connected together with what may be called casemated curtains. The towers are surmounted by a parapet, which at the ends next the enemy is broken into a series of smaller curves, and is retired or independent of the exterior wall or scarp. As each of these towers is defensible of itself, the work of forcing a way through three lines of them would undoubtedly be most formidable, but of course the expense of such a system would be enormous.

The system of the Swedish general Virgin belongs to the bastioned systems, but it is mentioned here in contrast to García's, as it disperses in the defences separate bastioned forts of a form somewhat approaching to Rimpler's, and covered by outworks so arranged as to secure the inner works from injury until the enemy has effected his lodgement upon them. These forts were to be surrounded on all sides by ditches, and connected together by secure communications. Ingenious as Virgin's system is, it is manifest that though the loss of one fort would not ensure the fall of the others, it would at least render all the interior space inclosed by the line of forts untenable, and place the town, the arsenal, or other public buildings, at the mercy of the besiegers. This may be said of all detached forts, and it must be again laid down as a maxim, that the ultimate value of such forts, as a means of securing some important object, depends on an inner line of defence of a nature to resist any sudden attack or coup-de-main; and this principle should be applied to the defences of such places as Portsmouth and Gosport. Detached forts will be, for such a purpose, more effectual than a simple continuous line, as they may be so placed as to keep the enemy at a proper distance, but they will cease to be of use if an enemy can safely pass them and attack a defective interior line behind, incapable of resisting a coup-de-main. Zastrow, in commenting on the systems of Montalembert, remarks, "the appearance of the system of Montalembert has overthrown all which was before considered good and excellent," and the Germans have acted upon that dictum both in their teaching and in their constructions; but now another writer, who, like the early Italian writers on the art of fortification, is an architect by profession, has endeavoured to replace the massive masonry works of Dürer and Montalembert by equally massive earthen defences. In his system is seen a ditch 50 feet deep and from 150 to 300 feet wide to afford earth for a rampart rising at its inner crest to about 60 feet above the plane of construction, and formed into five concentric parapets, being in fact so many fausse-brayes of the old Dutch system. Such was the system when first proposed to the consideration of the corps of engineers, but now, is it too much to say, partly from the remarks then offered upon it, the exterior circle has been shaped into something very like a bastioned trace, so as to flank the ditches by strong narrow bastions or caponnières, thus introducing the German or Dürer principle in combination with the Italian one. The Haxo principle of casemated batteries appears to be that adopted by Mr Ferguson for his guns, and he imagines that he can thus gain the increased fire of several tiers of guns without the inconveniences consequent upon casemated masonry buildings. It is to be regretted that Mr Ferguson should have charged upon the corps of engineers illiberality, because they hesitated to publish in their professional papers a scheme of defence not even then matured by its author, and not supported by any estimate of its cost; and further, because they have pointed out that the caponnières or the lower flank of his bastion built up against the earthen scarp would be destroyed with ease at a considerable distance, and the main ditch, when dry, left without defence, as the lofty battery alone could afford it no protection.

So far from engineer officers rejecting improvement, from whatever source it may come, it may be asserted with justice, that they are quite ready to admit the ingenuity of Mr Ferguson, though they may not be prepared to admit that a multiple general intrenchment, without interior flanking defence, would really render a fortress impregnable; and they believe that ere long an accurate description of the works of Sebastopol will prove that the Russians could not have derived their ideas of defence from works which, like those of Mr Ferguson, require ditches of enormous depth, and ramparts of vast height, the work of great time and Fortitude cost.

It has been well stated by the French translator of Zastrow, that the reduction of a place may be considered as a certain amount of work to be performed, the magnitude of which depends on various elements, amongst which the disposition and nature of the works constitute the most important; and that the attack has to perform this work in a certain time, and with certain means, amongst which the principal elements are the quantity of heavy artillery, and, it may be added, the nature of the ground over which the approaches must be carried. When, therefore, it is said that a work fortified on Vauban's first system would fall on the twenty-eighth day,—on Cormontaigne's, with a cavalier intrenchment in the bastion, on the thirty-first,—it must be remembered that this implies the possibility of steadily advancing the approaches over a soil easily worked by the sapper; but should the ground be rocky, and every inch require to be gained by hard and incessant toil, protracting the time during which the sapper is uncovered, and therefore greatly adding to the daily losses of the trenches, these periods may readily be extended to twice or three times the ordinary length. Southern Sebastopol, for example, has now fallen—the intelligence having arrived whilst these last few pages have been passing through the press—and it has cost a year to obtain this signal triumph over an enemy who has exhibited in its defence the highest qualities of military skill and bravery. In this remarkable siege the assailants have laboured under every disadvantage; they have toiled over ground most difficult to sap, and they have been unable to shut off from the enemy, by a perfect investment, those supplies of stores and men which have changed a garrison into an army, and enabled the defenders to keep up to the last that war of sorties and of intrenchments which was so strongly advocated by Carnet. When at length the Russians yielded up the prize, interior intrenchments were yet existing sufficient to check the progress for a time even of victorious soldiers; but the enemy feeling that, commanded by the Malakoff, these intrenchments must have fallen before another day's attack, and that their retreat would have been then cut off, abandoned them, and thus again confirmed the experience of more than 150 years, that the attack, when conducted with skill and bravery by an army of sufficient strength, must finally prevail.

(J. E. P.)