Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/487

 FORTIFICATION 457 fortified places, &quot;have for many years had their doe weight with the great powers of Europe, and have induced them to form and keep up, as integral portions of their military strength, every neces sary auxiliary for the reduction of fortresses ; and sieges have in consequence become certain and comparatively bloodless. But England, constitutionally jealous of permanent military establish ments, has always discountenanced military organization and mili tary preparation till the hour of need, and with respect to sieges, I which are rare, and exclusively offensive operations, has 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 has denied them every requisite establishment to render their acquirements availing, and has most unreasonably expected her armies to reduce the skilfully fortified and well-covered places of the 19th century with means inferior to those used against the exposed and ill-constructed places of the 16th and 17th centuries.&quot; And what was the immediate consequence of this irra tional jealousy and niggardly parsimony 1 Contrary to all ordinary calculation, the fortresses garrisoned by the French in Spain were reduced ; but at what a prodigious expendi ture 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 ten sieges under taken with adequate means, and conducted according to the ordinary rules of science. But this is not to be under stood as involving any reflection on 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 attack ing fortresses adopted by the British in Spain as unskilful and inefficacious, and bringing it forward as indisputable proof of the low state of their military knowledge. 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 nature rash, hazardous, and inefficient, the fact of its having been directed against Ciudad Rcdrigo and Badajoz with such rapidity of development and certainty of result as to outstrip the calculations of the French mar shals, deceive the vigilance of French governors, paralyse the science of the French engineers, and baffle every defen sive 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 of what British soldiers, even when acting under the greatest disadvantages, are capable of accomplish ing. These remarks are, however, no longer applicable. Since the Crimean war great attention has been bestowed upon the education and training of sappers and miners, and though England has neither the numbers of men nor the quantities of stores possessed by Continental nations, yet what she has of each is of the best. Every advance in science, if applicable, lias been at once adopted into the military service ; and as our civil engineers are as a body ad mittedly without superiors in the civil world, it may be confidently stated that in the military world our military engineers hold no inferior position. Having thus given a general description of the methods of attack, we shall now subjoin, on high authority, a view of what is considered 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 a state 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 unforseen causes, of which the history of war offers numer ous examples. He is therefore ordered, even in time of paace, to fix his plan and arrangement for defence, accord ing to such supposed attacks as may appear most probable&amp;gt; and to determine, for the principal cases which may bs likely to occur, the necessary posts, reserves, and move ments 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 ac quainted with (1) the ground beyond the place which may be within the circle of action, of investment, and of attack ; (2) the fortifications of the place, its interior, its build ings, its military edifices or establishments ; (3) the gar rison, the means of the place in artillery, in ammunition, and in other stores of every kind ; (4) the population to be maintained 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 (5) 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 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 proba bility emanated directly fromTNapoleon 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 whether this be so or not, the importance of the directions embodied in the order is not diminished, and where they are duly observed the nature and extent of the resistance must be materially increased. The protracted and able defence of Sebastupol led many to imagine that the Russians by new defensive arrange ments had solved the problem so long under discussion, and had again restored to the defence much of its former superiority over the attack. But the real merits of the Russian engineers consisted not in the discovery of new principles, but in the skilful application of those prin ciples which, recognized at an early period, have been by degrees matured and enlarged. In estimating the com parative results of the attack and defence of Sebastopol, it must be remembered that neither can be judged by strict rules, as neither conformed to such rules. The north side being left open by the impossibility of investing both sides, the south became a detached line of powerful intrench- ments, to the defence of which the whole force of an army, not a garrison, could be directed at will. The strength of the garrison, continually renewed from without, per mitted the fullest use of detached works, which, when backed by a line in rear sufficiently strong to resist a coup- de-main, constitute one of the most powerful modes of de- Lunette of Darken. fence. Such a fort or work was the celebrated Malakoff Tower, and the redoubt enveloping it, the type of which may be found in the lunette of Darken, of which fig. 67 is a plan. In this lunette, intended to be prepared before- IX. 58