Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/445

 FORTIFICATION 431 of Turks, numbering about 10,000 men, collected at Plevna, and at once commenced to form shelter trenches ; they were very deficient in artillery. Krudener attacked them four days after with 7000 Russians and 30 guns, and was defeated with a loss of 2800 men. Ten days later he again attacked with 30,000 men and 170 guns, but in the meantime the Turks had thrown up several redoubts, and had so extended their shelter trenches that their position was beginning to assume the condition of au intrenched camp ; moreover, their strength had been swelled by reinforcements to 45,000 men. The Russians were again defeated with a loss of 8000 men. Six weeks later, upon the 30th September, Krudener, who had received 30 siege guns, having shelled the Turkish position for four days previously, attacked a third time with 50,000 Russians and Roumanians ; but tho Turks had in the interval received reinforcements of 10,000 men, and he was a third time repulsed with a loss of 15,000 men, though the Roumanians obtained possession of and held a large redoubt called Gravitza. It then be came evident to the Russians that Plevna could not bo taken by assault, and they commenced to besiege by rule. By the 24th of October they had completed the investment by the occupation of the Loftcha and Rahova roads, all of which were previously open to the Turks, and had brought into battery against it 300 guns, 40 of which were siege guns. By the 10th of December they had collected 110,000 men and 500 guns around Plevna; and shortly after, Osman Pacha, having been repulsed with a loss of G800 men in an attempt to cut his way out, surrendered, and his whole force, amounting to 43,000 men and 70 guns, became prisoners of war. ATI army intrenched or fortified in the field is in many respects of the same effect as a fortress ; the intrenchments supply the lack of numbers, and enable it to cover a country, to stop the advance of a superior enemy, or, if he chooses to risk a battle, oblige him to engage at a dis advantage. Charles V. furnishes a notable instance of the first. Opposed to a combined force of twice his strength, he at once commenced to intrench his army. In a few hours he was in a position to resist attack ; in ten days he was so secure that, upon receiving reinforcements a few days later, he was enabled to assume an offensive which led in four months to the termination of the campaign in his favour. &quot;In a war of inarch and manoeuvre,&quot; says Napoleon, &quot; if you would avoid a battle with a superior army, it is necessary to intrench every night, and to occupy a good defensive position. The natural positions which are ordinarily met with are not sufficient to protect an army against superior numbers without recourse to art. Those who proscribe lines of circumvallation, and the assist ance which the science of the engineer can afford, deprive themselves gratuitously of an auxiliary which is never in jurious, always useful, and often indispensable.&quot; 1 Whenever Napoleon had time and occasion for strength ening his position by field-works, he acted upon the prin ciples recommended in the above extract, as almost all his predecessors had done. In the wars which followed the Revolution of 1688, in those of Queen Anne s reign, and during the Seven Years War, we find the commanders of each period, William III., the duke of Marlborough, Marshal Villars, Marshal Saxe, Frederick II., and Marshal Daun, practically exemplifying their conviction of the great utility of field-works. Seven redoubts thrown up over night saved Peter the Great at Pultowa, and enabled him to gain a decisive victory over his formidable antagonist ; and at Borodino, three redoubts and eight fleches thrown up hastily by the Russians, caused the French great loss, and rendered the victory, which they gained by incredible 1 Military Maxims of Ufa/poleon. efforts of gallantry, fatally costly ; and it is not improbable that if the main redoubt had been closed at its gorge the French would have failed to take it. In 1761 Frederick the Great, having only 55,000 men to oppose to the united Austrian and Russian forces of 130,000 men, intrenched himself in the strong position of Bunzelwitz, in Upper Silesia, not far from Schweidnitz, which he held until the united armies were forced to retire for want of supplies. It has been argued by some that intrenchments and field- works have oftener been carried than successfully defended, and that hence incommensurate importance has been attached to them. But it should be remembered that victory in such circumstances has been purchased at an expense which has often rendered it in effect equivalent to defeat, and that a practice which the greatest commanders of ancient and modern times have approved and followed cannot be of doubtful utility. At Austerlitz, where the contending armies were nearly equal, Napoleon was preparing to superintend the construction of intrenchments when he found himself called upon to receive battle ; and in Portugal, the duke of Wellington showed to what account the art of the engineer might be turned for influencing, not merely the fortune of a campaign, but the fate of a cause. The lines of Torres Vedras, which the powerful French army under Masse&quot; na was unable to pass, and from which the wave of war was rolled back broken into Spain, were perhaps the most remarkable works of the kind ever constructed. &quot; Lisbon,&quot; says Sir John Jones, &quot; being situated at the extremity of a peninsula formed by the sea and the Tagus, it is plain that if an army be posted across the peninsula, no enemy can penetrate into the city* without a direct attack on the army so posted. It was on this principle that the lines covering Lisbon were planned by Lord Wellington. Nature drew the rude outline of a strong defensive position, and art rendered it perfect. A tract of country thirty miles in extent from the mouth of the Zizandra on the ocean to Alhandra on the Tagus, was modelled into a field of battle ; mountains were scarped perpendicularly, rivers dammed, and inundations formed; all roads favourable to the enemy were destroyed, and others made to facilitate the communications of the defenders ; formidable works were erected to strengthen and support the weak parts, whilst numerous cannon, placed on inacces sible points, commanded the approaches and gave an equality of defence to the whole position.&quot; 2 These lines were not continuous and connected works ; they consisted of independent forts, redoubts, fleches, redans, batteries, so placed as to command and enfilade every approach, and to support each other by a cross and flanking fire. The first line occupied a front of twenty-nine miles between the sea and the Tagus, and by means of telegraphs in telligence could be conveyed from one extremity to the other in a few minutes ; whilst the troops, disposed in masses in the rear of the works, were ready to move upon any point of attack by interior communications shorter than any by which the enemy could advance. &quot; The aim and scope of these works,&quot; says Colonel Napier, &quot; was to bar the passes, and to strengthen the fighting positions 2 War in Spain, p. 124. The French army which invaded Portugal under Massena consisted of three corps, under Marshals Ney and Junot and General Regnier, amounting in all to 66,000 infantry and 6000 cavalry, besides a strong body of the imperial guard, which crossed the Pyrenees after the invading force had commenced its march from the neighbourhood of Salamanca. The force collected to oppose this threatened invasion did not exceed 48,000 infantry and 3000 cavalry, of which about half were Portuguese levies, yet untried in any general action, and of which a very unfavourable opinion still continued to be entertained. In point of numbers, and still more in the composition of their army, therefore, the French had a decided superiority; but all their advantages were neutralized by the defensive position of Torres Vedras.