James Mercur

“ Within recent years, in civilized warfare, no cases have occurred in which such assaults have been made, the places having been reduced by the more distant attack; but assuming such an assault to be repulsed, it will not justify the surrender of the place so long as a possibility of repulsing similar assaults exists. The garrison must withstand all attacks of whatever nature to the last extremity, and continue the defence up to 110 the full requirements of duty and honor—surrendering only when nothing else is possible. ”

“ Blockades are more effective in reducing cities and towns than in taking places occupied only by a military garrison, since the presence of a large number of non-combatants in a place rapidly exhausts its store of provisions, renders epidemics more likely to break out, and by the suffering and misery resulting demoralizes the garrison, unnerves the commander, and eventually causes its fall. ”

“ Remark.—In underground warfare the besieger has a decided advantage, but the besieged, by a cool consideration in handling his mines, and by persistently holding back the attack, foot by foot, may very greatly retard it, or even cause such losses and delays as to lead to its being abandoned. ”

“ Hearing the sound of the enemy’s miner, he may work toward him noiselessly, or prepare and charge a chamber and await the approach of the miner toward it, listening at the point where the hose trough (tube for fuse wires.—J. M.) comes through the tamping until the enemy is near enough to justify firing. ”

“ When it is available a large force of mounted troops may be used advantageously in the investment, and be subsequently relieved by infantry and artillery.
When the investment is made, it adds greatly to the advantage of the attack to completely surround and isolate the work, and to push the investing line as near it as possible. When the investing force is more or less dispersed, and is to be concentrated for the siege, the temptation frequently exists to march them by converging lines upon the place as a point of concentration. ”

“ If the attack is repulsed, an offensive return may be made by the general reserve, assisted, when necessary, by the local reserves of the front of attack; but the garrisons of the permanent works should not be withdrawn from them for this purpose, as it is always possible that they may be needed to protect the works and cover a retreat. If the assault succeeds, the defenders will retire to their positions in rear, from which the strongest possible fire will be directed upon the pursuing troops and upon the captured position to render its possession difficult or impossible. ”

“ The results show, however, that under similar circumstances, which are apt to arise in any modern war, the attack of a strong place which can be completely invested by a force of two or three times the strength of the garrison, may promise success; which seems to be assured if the defence allows the besieging force to complete the investment and thoroughly intrench itself. ”

“ Defence during the First Period of the Siege.—Upon the approach of the enemy each work should receive its permanent garrison, and the fighting reserve should go out to occupy the advanced posts and to take full advantage of its interior lines to hold him back and punish any careless or ill-advised advance, being aided in this when possible by the fire of the heavy guns of the place. Care must be taken to avoid too great dispersion of the troops, and exposing advanced parties to being cut off and captured by pushing them too far to the front or holding their positions too long ”

“ To keep within the cover of the parallel when the assailant is advancing to the assault, and leave him to expose himself to its fire as long as he pleases, and then, when he is well cut up, and has got thrown into confusion, as he necessarily will at night, in the trenches that he may have carried, to fall upon him with the bayonet and drive him out. ”

“ When time and the character of the ground admit, and larger capacity is desired, the shaft may be made wider and deeper, the gallery wider and longer, and the powder-chamber deeper, longer, and wider, if desired.
The excavation for the entrance and approaches, the placing of balks, and the levelling and ramming of the earth-cover, should be done by night; the mining work can be carried on both night and day. ”

“ The Attack.—The besieger should advance by several galleries, securing those on the flank by listeners. He must be active and persistent, as the enemy will use every available moment to develop his countermines. When he receives the first camouflet of the defence he must hasten to fire his overcharged mines in the uninjured branches, in order to destroy the hostile countermines. He will generally suffer losses more or less heavy from this epoch forward, but must submit to them; since too much circumspection and delay will almost always result in complete failure. ”

“ When the saps are driven to both right and left a double sap is driven to the front from the extremity of each, and at the next change of direction the single saps are driven towards each other until they meet, and the double sap is driven in the prolongation of its original direction. This forms what is called a cube traverse, and gives additional room in the communications. The single sap is used in making traverses, since by throwing all the earth on one side better cover is given. ”

“ With the introduction of machine and rapid-fire guns and magazine rifles it may be considered as an established fact that a well-defended line cannot be carried by an assault in front until its fire is overpowered or its ammunition exhausted. ”

“ Permanent works being designed to be secure against assaults and surprise, their guns of position are protected as well as circumstances admit against the hostile artillery and infantry fire. During the cannonade preliminary to an assault a wise discretion must be used as to how much ammunition may be profitably expended in replying to it, and how great an exposure of the men to the artillery fire is justifiable. ”

“ The point of attack considered most favorable to the besieger is one which, fulfilling the first essential condition, is more or less salient, so that it can be partially surrounded, and which admits of the approaches being driven toward it in favorable soil, over ground sloping gently from the work, or gently rolling with the crests and valleys of sufficient difference of level to afford 75 cover, and running generally in the direction of the parallels. ”

“ As a preliminary to the siege of any fortified place, all possible information is obtained as to the strength and character of its fortifications, the garrison, armament, stores of provisions and ammunitions, water supply, water routes, telegraph and railroad lines, manufactures, especially those which may be converted into factories of arms and munitions, the character of the population of the place, their probable food supply and their loyalty to their state ”

“ The Garrison.—The garrison should consist of artillery and infantry, and, in an intrenched camp, of enough mounted troops for escort, messenger, and a limited vedette service.
The strength of the infantry is generally regulated so as to give a suitable garrison to each detached work, and about 11⁄2 to 2 men for each yard of the front of attack. The artillery is allowed about 12 men for each gun. The number of engineers is determined for each place by the probable amount of engineer work that will be required. These troops make up about one-third of the entire force. ”

“ As the advanced positions may be subject to the fire of the heaviest class of siege-guns, if any parapet is made it should be of the nature of a glacis of gentle slope and little command. Infantry trenches should be made narrow and deep as a protection against shells and shrapnel (Pl. IX, Fig. 84) , and gun-emplacements should be as small as practicable and almost entirely in excavation, for the same reason. Positions so prepared suffer very little from gun-fire, and will frequently require attack by systematic approaches. ”

“ When the nature of the soil admits, many of the camouflets will be placed by boring. Should the defensive measures above and below ground not debar the enemy from establishing himself in the crater, the defence may establish overcharged mines immediately in its front, with a view to destroying the advancing galleries of the attack, blowing up the men and their lodgment in the crater, and opening up the latter to the fire of the work. ”

“ An assault against works of this class offers no prospect of success. The besieger is therefore obliged, as soon as he captures a detached fort, to put it in condition to withstand the assaults of the besieged army and to afford protection from the artillery fire of the collateral works, and then to push forward his approaches against the successive positions prepared by the defence, which will as a rule present a front equal to or greater than that which can be occupied by the attack. ”

“ The fire of the batteries is directed upon all the works of the place within range, but with greater vigor upon the more important, and especially upon those near the point of attack. The fire against powder-magazines and storehouses should be uninterrupted, to prevent the removal of powder and munitions. If the artillery of a part of the work is silenced, the fire upon it may be slackened, but some fire, especially vertical, should be kept up. ”

“ When the small-arm fire of the defence is so severe as to necessitate blinding the sap from the counter-scarp across the ditch, it will usually be imperative to provide a shield, under cover of which the sappers may start the blinded sap. ”

“ When the soil is firm enough to stand safely while excavating and lining one gallery interval, even if somewhat short, no difficulty exists in changing the direction of a gallery in either a vertical or horizontal plane, since the excavation in the new direction may be made so large that the miner working in it can place the new frames and introduce the sheeting and wedges. ”

“ By a single attack is understood one by which it is proposed to gain possession of the main work by a single breach at some point; by a double attack it is proposed to effect two breaches of the main work. The advantage of the latter lies in forcing the garrison to divide their strength for the defence of the two breaches, whilst the assailing forces, being under one leadership, can at any 95 moment concentrate if necessary upon the point most favorable to their assault. ”

“ The first frame of an oblique return should be so made that the sides of the stanchions will be parallel to the side walls of the return, thus giving a good bearing to the side sheeting.
In very bad soil, the first few frames of a return must be firmly braced to resist the backward thrust of the earth, by battens connecting them together and by struts across the gallery of departure. ”

“ The splinter-proofs may be constructed by blinding portions of the sap, or by mining them under the traverses. Owing to the height of the parapet, embrasures of some depth will have to be cut through it. This is done by a shallow sap started by one man, who is subsequently assisted by a second, if the splay requires it. The cheeks are revetted with sand-bags, covered with hides. The mouth of the embrasure is left closed with the head parapet of the sap until fire is to be opened, when the earth is dug away or blown away by the gun. ”

“ To reduce an intrenched camp, it will in general be necessary to capture at least two of the detached works and to silence the artillery fire of one or more on each side of those taken. In an attack upon a strongly-fortified enceinte, the least that is usually undertaken is to breach and capture one front with its adjacent outworks, and to silence the fire of those which enfilade the approaches and parallels or take them in reverse. ”

“ The shortening and strengthening of the line of investment by closing it in upon the work make it imperative to hold all ground gained; and this is generally best accomplished by intrenching the line of outposts with continuous shelter trenches, strengthened at intervals by batteries of field guns, and supported by field works of considerable strength, placed within accurate cannon range of each other, but not exposed to the direct fire of the guns of the place. ”

“ Each man marks the left and front 21 of his task by a line dug with his pick, and, commencing at the left of his task, at once excavates a trench 3 feet long, 11⁄2 feet deep, and 61⁄2 feet wide, throwing the earth to the front, and making a parapet 11⁄2 feet high, leaving a berm of 11⁄2 feet. Then, commencing at 11⁄2 feet from the front of his trench, he deepens it to 4 feet, making the parapet 3 feet high. When the task of a party is finished each man cleans off his pick and shovel, places them at the rear of the trench, and leaves them there for the use of the second relief. ”