Treatise On Fortification And Artillery Fourth Edition

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XX. ON THE ATTACK OF FORTRESSES. 252. To enter upon the strategical movements of an army previous to undertaking a siege, would be quite out of place in a treatise of this kind; but it is necessary to observe that the forces about to undertake a siege must have the lead and superiority in the field; for the corps appointed to conduct the duties and details of the siege, as also the investing corps (or that which surrounds the whole place, and hems in the garrison on every side), ought not to be liable to have their operations disturbed and defeated by an army attempting to succour the place, or to raise the siege; and should the besieged thus have an army in the field, it becomes necessary for the assailants to have a corps of observation to watch it. The army intended to invest a place, approaches it when least expected, and occupies positions simultaneously on every side, so as to cut off all its means of communication with the country. The positions thus occupied are strengthened by good field-works, and a sure communication is kept up between them. In examining the many sieges carried on in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we cannot but be struck with the immense development of lines between which the investing army generally secured itself. In order to repel any attack from an army endeavouring to succour the place from without, it was customary to construct a belt of strong field-works about two or three miles from the place, facing the country: this was the line of circvmvallation; and a similar concentric belt of field-works facing the place, was the line of contravallation, constructed to secure the investing corps against any enterprise of the garrison. This mode of proceeding is very ancient: it was thus that...