Various

“ In order to decide on the proper trace of a work, it is necessary to consider whether its object be to prevent an enemy establishing himself on the ground on which it is to be placed, or whether it be to insure a heavy fire of artillery on some other point in its vicinity. In the first case every consideration should be sacrificed to that of adding to its powers of self-defence by flanks or other expedients. In the second, its powers of resistance are secondary to the establishment of a powerful offensive fire and its trace cannot be too simple. ”

“ Mining was the most effective form of attack, and the approach to the walls was covered by engines throwing great stones against the hoardings of the parapets, and by cross-bowmen who were sheltered behind light mantlets moved on wheels. Barrels of burning pitch and other incendiary projectiles were thrown as before; and at one siege we read of the carcasses of dead horses and barrels of sewage being thrown into the town to breed pestilence, which had the effect of forcing a capitulation.
With all this the attack was inferior to the defence. ”

“ A village under fire is not now an ideal defensive position. A single shrapnel penetrating the outer wall may kill all the occupants of a room; a single field-howitzer shell may practically ruin a house. At the same time, a house or line of houses may (without any preliminary labour at all) give very good protection against shell fire to troops behind them. Further, the value to the defence of the slightest cover, once the infantry attack has developed, is so great that the ruins of walls and houses occupied at the right moment may prove an impregnable stronghold. ”

“ No doubt if a successor to Vauban could have brought the same genius to bear on the actual defence of places as he did on the attack, he would have discovered that the essence of successful defence lay in offensive action outside the body of the place, viz. with trench against trench. For want of such a man the engineers of the defence resigned themselves contentedly to the loss of the open ground outside their walls, and relied either upon successive permanent lines of defence, or if these did not exist, upon extemporized retrenchments, usually at the gorge of the bastion. ”

“ I am more convinced every day how little advantage there is in being what at school and the university is called a good scholar: one receives a good deal of amusement from it, but that is all. At present I read nothing but Italian, which I am immoderately fond of, particularly of the poetry.... As for French, I am far from being so thorough a master of it as I could wish, but I know so much of it that I could perfect myself in it at any time with very little trouble, especially if I pass three or four months in France. ”

“ In tracing the history of the science of fortification and in outlining the practice of our own time it has been necessary to dwell chiefly on the material means of defence and attack. The human element has had to be almost ignored. But here comes in the paradox, that the material means are after all the least important element of defence. Certainly it is inconceivable that the designer of a fortress should not try to make it as strong as is consistent with the object in view and the means at his disposal. ”

“ The subject of foundations, being naturally of the first importance, is one that calls for most careful study. It is not of so much importance that the ground be hard or even rocky as that it be compact and of similar consistency throughout. It is not always that a site answers to this description, and the problem of what will be the best form of foundation to use in placing a building, more especially if that building be of large dimensions and consequently great weight, on a site of soft yielding soil, is one that is often most difficult of solution. ”

“ The legal conception of a forest was thus that of a definite territory within which the code of the forest law prevailed to the exclusion of the common law. The ownership of the soil might be in any one, but the rights of the proprietor were limited by the laws made for the protection of the king’s wild beasts. These laws, enforced by fines often arbitrary and excessive, were a great grievance to the unfortunate owners of land within or in the neighbourhood of the forest. The offence of “purpresture” may be cited as an example. ”

“ In former times a peaceful people exposed to the raids of piratical Norsemen might find their refuge tower essential; later, a robber-baron might look on his castle as so much capital invested; a wealthy medieval town might prove the value of its walls more than once in a generation; a country without a standing army might gain time for preparation by means of fortresses barring the roads across the frontier. But how does the question stand to-day among European countries which can mobilize 725 their full fighting strength at a few hours’ notice? ”

“ A general intention to cheat the public is not the kind of fraud necessary to constitute forgery. Thus if a quack forges a diploma of the college of surgeons, in order to make people believe that he is a member of that body, he is not guilty of forgery.
The crime of forgery in English law has been from time to time dealt with in an enormous number of statutes. It was first made a statutory offence in 1562, and was punishable by fine, by standing in the pillory, having both ears cut off, the nostrils slit up and seared, the forfeiture of land and perpetual imprisonment. ”

“ There was little scope, however, in masonry for the genius of Roman warfare, which had a better opportunity in the active work of attack and defence. For siegecraft the Roman legions were specially apt. No modern engineer, civil or military, accustomed to rely on machinery, steam and hydraulic apparatus, could hope to emulate the feats of the legionaries. In earthworks they excelled; and in such work as building and moving about colossal wooden towers under war conditions, they accomplished things at which nowadays we can only wonder. ”

“ India.—The history of forest administration in India is exceedingly instructive to all who take an interest in the welfare of the British Empire, because it places before the reader an account of the gradual destruction of the greater part of the natural forests, a process through which most other British colonies are now passing, and then it shows how India emerged triumphantly from the self-inflicted calamity. ”

“ A century or more ago, the dividing line between permanent and field fortification was very rigidly drawn, since in those days a high masonry escarp surmounted by a rampart was essential to a permanent fortress, and these could naturally not be extemporized. Works without masonry, in other ways made as strong as possible with deep ditches and heavy timbers,—such as would require about six weeks for their construction—were known as semi-permanent, and were used for the defence of places which acquired strategic importance in the course of a war, but were not immediately threatened. ”

“ In open and featureless ground, where the rifle and gun have full play, the trench is to the modern soldier very much what the breast-plate was to the man-at-arms, an absolute essential.
The most important point in connexion with modern field fortification is the effect on both strategy and tactics of the increased resisting power of the defence. A small force well entrenched can check the frontal attack of a very much larger force, and while holding its position can make itself felt over a wider radius than ever before. ”

“ Where, apart from the financial aspect and the supply of work, forests are not required for the sake of their indirect effects, and where importation from other countries is easy and assured, the government of the country need not, as a rule, trouble itself to maintain or acquire forests. Where the reverse conditions exist, and especially where the cost of transport over long distances becomes prohibitive, a wise administration will take measures to assure the maintenance of a suitable proportion of the country under forest. ”

“ The forest fire problem is one of the most difficult with which the American forester has to deal. It is probable that forest 658 fires have had more to do with the character and distribution of forests in America than any other factor except rainfall. With an annual range over thousands of square miles, in many portions of the United States they occur regularly year after year on the same ground. Trees whose thick bark or abundant seeding gives them peculiar powers of resistance, frequently owe their exclusive possessions of vast areas purely to the action of fire. ”

“ The bastioned system was the 17th-century solution of the fortification problem. Given an artillery and musketry of short range and too slow for effective frontal defence, a ditch is necessary as an obstacle. What is the best means of flanking the ditch and of protecting the flanking arrangements? If Vauban elected for the bastion, we must before criticizing his choice remember that he was the most experienced engineer of his day, a man of the first ability and quite without prejudice. ”

“ The wars of the last generation have done little or nothing to advance the science of military mining, but a good deal has been done in peace to improve the means. Electric lighting and electric firing of mines will be a great help; modern drilling machines may be used to go through rock; ventilating arrangements are much improved; and the use of bored mines is sure to have great developments. The Russo-Japanese War taught nothing new in mine-warfare, or as to the effects of mines, but the siege of Port Arthur had this moral among others ”

“ Taking the remaining stocks of the whole earth together, it may be said that a sufficient quantity of hardwoods is available, but the only countries which are able to supply coniferous timber for export on a considerable scale are Russia, Sweden, Norway, Austria and Canada. As these countries have practically to supply the rest of the world, and as the management of their forests is far from satisfactory, the question of supplying light pine and fir timber, which forms the very staff of life of the wood industries, must become a very serious matter before many years have passed. ”

“ It is only by actual practice on the ground that skill can be attained in laying out positions, and only a trained soldier with a good eye can succeed in it. Briefly, the advantages of view and position given by high ground must be paid for in some degree by exposure to the enemy’s artillery; and at least as much consideration—possibly as much labour—must be given to communications with the fire-trenches as to the trenches themselves. Irregular ground simplifies the question of concealment but also gives cover to the enemy’s approach. ”

“ Is it best for the defenders to rely on armoured protection or on concealment for his guns?
Official opinion outside England has certainly sanctioned armour, since all over the continent it is to some extent adopted in practice. National practice is usually based on the advice of the most distinguished officers of the day, and therefore it is Opposing views as to armour, gun positions, &c. unsafe to condemn it hastily. Sir George Clarke and those who are with him—and they are many, both in Great Britain and abroad—object entirely to armour. ”

“ The object of defilade, which was a great fetish in theoretical works, was so to arrange the height of the parapet with reference to the terreplein of a work that a straight line (not, be it observed, the trajectory of the projectiles) passing from the muzzle of a musket or gun on the most commanding point of the enemy’s position, over the crest of the parapet, should just clear the head of a defender standing in any part of the work. ”

“ Indirect protection is given by distance, as for instance by a high wall placed on a cliff so that the defender on the top of the wall is out of reach of the enemy’s missiles if these are of short range, such as arrows. This kind of defence was very popular in the middle ages. In the present day the same object is attained by pushing out detached forts to such a distance from the town they are protecting that the besieger cannot bombard the town as long as he is outside the forts. Another form of indirect protection of great importance is concealment. ”

“ On the economic side fire is equally influential. The probability, or often the practical certainty, of fire after the first cut, commonly determines lumbermen to leave no merchantable tree standing. Forest fires are thus the most effective barriers to the introduction of forestry. Excessive taxation of timber land is another of almost equal effect. Because of it lumbermen hasten to cut, and afterwards often to abandon, lands which they cannot afford to hold. This evil, which only the progress of public sentiment can control, is especially prevalent in certain portions of the white pine belt. ”