Ehrenbreitstein Fortress

“ There had been many a silent, yet grimly ferocious struggle with the bayonet; when men stood outside their trenches or struggled with the enemy in what remained of their battered positions. Such scenes we know had taken place inside the fort of Douaumont, for had not Jules and Henri participated in such an adventure on the stairway? And now they were being repeated—those scenes—in many an odd part of that fortress.
Bursting in by a gateway to the west, the Bretons forced their way forward; while the Brandenburgers, beating a hasty retreat, threw up barricades and fought for them. ”

“ She had captured enemy country, to be sure, she had driven France and the British ally—which had so quickly come to the side of the French—back towards the sea-coast, and she had hurled Russia out of East Prussia, and, after the sturdy advance of the Grand Duke Nicholas into Galicia and the fall of the fortress of Przemysl, had fallen upon him with mighty force, had discovered the Russians short of ammunition and of artillery, and had driven the forces of the Tsar back towards Warsaw and other cities. Yes, Germany had gained much territory, and had lost many, many lives. ”

“ If otherwise, the troops detached from the active army for garrisoning them, will only tend to weaken this force without any corresponding advantages. In this way, fortifications may become actually injurious to defence. A number of the European fortresses which were built before the subject of strategy was properly understood, are now regarded as utterly useless, from their ill-advised positions.
Whether a fortress may be safely passed with merely blockading or observing it, depends very much upon the nature of the war, and the numbers and position of the defensive army. ”

“ This is a war to the death! This is fighting for France! And only over our bodies shall they advance towards Paris. Comrades, we are holding them back. We here in the remains of this fortress, we are helping to keep the Kaiser's hordes away from the interior of France; helping, too, to rob him of victory and conquest."
Yes, indeed! The violent efforts of these men were helping not a little to check the advance of the enemy, just as the heroic fighting of the French all along the battered trenches round the salient of Verdun was assisting in defeating the enemy's object. ”

“ Now this triple menace, striking not only on the front but on both sides and menacing the roads by which a defeated army must retreat, seriously weakens the defense which an army within a (p. 386) fortress can make. It was just such an operation or series of operations that carried the tremendously strong fortress of Antwerp in record time, that accounted for the surprising fall of Namur in two days, and that explains the rapidity with which a score of almost impregnable Russian fortresses in Poland fell before the rush of the German avalanche. ”

“ In the face of this power, the fortresses, armies, and fleets of the world were useless and helpless. The destruction of Kronstadt had proved that to demonstration. From a height of several thousand feet, and a distance of nearly seven miles, the unknown air-vessel had practically destroyed, with four shots from her mysterious, smokeless, and flameless guns, the strongest fortress in Europe. ”

“ One important fortress has already fallen. The Germans, taking advantage of the facilities which the rivers and the railways afforded them, have brought up heavy siege artillery, with which they have bombarded the defences of Novo Giorgiewsk. The effect of the cordite shells on parts of the fortifications which had not been adequately prepared to resist them, is described as amazing. ”

“ The Russian aviator immediately headed straight for the Austrian machine at full speed and dashed into it. The force of the impact caused the collapse of both machines, which plunged to earth, both aviators meeting instant death.
The fortress of Nikolaieff, twenty miles south of Lemberg, was taken by the Russians after severe fighting. The fortress was one of the most modern military strongholds in Austria, being supplied with all the newest forms of defense and offensive weapons. It had steel cupolas, masked ranges of earthworks, and guns of modern type and heavy caliber. ”

“ Not in vain had the Russian engineers exercised their best brains in devising the defences of this "impregnable fortress". Mines, wire entanglements, and every other grim expedient for checking assault had been constructed with patient ingenuity; and, most deadly and cunning device of all, every fort in the long chain that shuts in Port Arthur on the land side had been so placed as to be dominated by the neighboring forts; so that no enemy who succeeded in capturing it could hope to plant his own guns there. ”

“ Here, then, before Henri and Jules, was displayed direct evidence of the wisdom which had caused General Joffre to dismantle every fort round the city of Verdun, and to convert the salient into an ordinary defensive position. A fortress might, and indeed would, be smashed by German artillery; but trenches were more movable, more replaceable, objects, and the picks and spades of poilus could easily repair damage. ”

“ It is a region which it is very much easier to defend than to attack. The greater part of it is covered with marshes, lakes and forests, most difficult country for an army to traverse. The means of communication are poor, the roads—a most important consideration in connection with the movement of the heavy artillery necessary for a successful invasion—are in many instances little better than tracks. Moreover, it is strongly fortified. Königsberg is a first-class modern fortress, whilst those on the line of the Vistula at Thorn, Graudenz and Dantzig are even more powerful. ”

“ The Berlin Börsenzeitung, which claims that with Metz, Strasburg, Mayence, Coblentz and Cologne, and with the enlargement of Ulm and Ingoldstadt and the new line of Bavarian defence, "Germany has a barrier of fortresses unequaled in the world," yet admits that the project of establishing a new German fortress near Mulhouse or Huningue, "so as to take the place of Belfort," has now been abandoned—a fact which seems to show that there is one little loophole in the defensive armor of Germany, otherwise invulnerable.
"A man may steal the livery of Heaven to serve the devil in." ”

“ In the fortification of the future the defender will no longer be "enclosed in the toils imposed by the engineer" with the inevitable disabilities they entail, while the besieger enjoys the advantage of free mobility. Plevna has killed the castellated fortress. With free communications the full results attainable by fortress artillery intelligently used, will at length come to be realised. ”

“ The bombardment continued all day and all night without cessation. With an army of only 22,500 men, there was no relief. Every man was on continuous [Pg 70] duty. It was evident from the first that the forts finally must fall, for the attacking 8.4-inch howitzers fired from points out of reach of the fortress guns and the destructive force of their shells was such that it gradually but surely reduced the strongest armor-steel and concrete masonry to ruins. ”

“ Well, the chief lesson, perhaps, of the present war is that these ring fortresses fall quickly to howitzer fire. Each of the individual forts can be easily reduced by howitzer fire. This is concentrated against certain of the forts, which quickly fall, and once their ring is broken the result is equivalent to [p. 87] the breach in the wall of a fortress, and the whole stronghold falls. That is because in quite recent years two new factors have come in: (1) the mobile heavy howitzer; (2) the highest kinds of explosives. ”

“ Any fortress with a considerable garrison left behind untaken would have meant the destruction of the Austrian or Prussian communications, and their destruction at a moment when the Austrian and Prussian forces were actually advancing over a desperately hostile country. Moreover, when acting against forces wholly inferior in discipline and organisation, an untaken fortress is a refuge which one must take peculiar pains to destroy. To throw himself into such a refuge will always stand before the commander of those inferior forces as a last resource. ”

“ It is the country in which the unfortunate race of Armenians were fostered, where they have dwelt for centuries, and on one of those upland plateaus, perched in a situation of natural strength, and defended by forts and gun emplacements, cunningly designed by German engineers, lies the city and fortress of Erzerum, the main base of those Turkish armies operating against the Russians—a fortress deemed impregnable, and one upon which the Turks and their German masters had placed the utmost importance. ”

“ Look for yourself, man; you've eyes in your head. See the lines of Brandenburgers between us and our people!"
As a matter of fact, just at the moment when he was pointing to a thick though somewhat scattered line of grey-coated infantry which had now swept on beyond them, a gust of wind came whirling round the corner of the shattered fortress, singing and whistling over the summit, and bringing with it heavier flakes of snow which obliterated the scene about them and made vision almost impossible.
"Well, then!" added the heated Corporal. "Even snow won't help us ”

“ All that science and skill could do is added to the natural strength of [Pg 472] the position, and from every surface of the vast rock itself the projecting mouths of guns and mortars show resources of defense it would seem madness to attack.
Three thousand men, under the command of General Urleben, held this fortress at the time I speak of; and by their habits of discipline and vigilance, showed that no over-security would make them neglect the charge of so important a trust. ”

“ Yet German leviathan guns had proved that they could now smash Douaumont or any other fortress to pieces within a few hours, whereas in the old times it had been a matter of days, when even the artillery was sufficiently powerful. Modern invention, high explosives, and scientific artillery had altered modes of defence, and the fort at Douaumont and the forts elsewhere encircling the sleepy town of Verdun were now but shells of masonry, mere billets for soldiers, while the guns were ranged out in the open. ”

“ Let the Great Fortress remain as the grim monument of War, even when men learn war no more; as the castles on the Rhine are kept as the monuments of mediæval barbarism. If its guns are all silent, or unshotted, it will stand for something more than a symbol of brute force: it will be a monumental proof that the blessed age of peace has come. Then, if there be any change in the flag that waves over it; if the Red Cross of England, which has never been lowered in war, should give place to an emblem of universal peace ”

“ Let us enter the headquarters of the Austrian army at the beginning of the Russian campaign. There we meet the engineer staff, which built and besieged fortresses, and a military works department, which built and maintained buildings that were not immediately connected with fortifications. Austria-Hungary had only a few fortresses of modern construction. The intrenched camps in Galicia, Cracow, and Przemysl were soon to be besieged, and between them was a fortress known as Jaroslav, of insignificant value, like that of Huy between Liege and Namur in Belgium. ”

“ A few days later Brest-Litovsk was taken. Behind the troops that stormed the fortifications during the night and thus forced the fall of the city, pressed from early morning great masses of the Austro-Hungarian and German armies. They came on over all the roads: infantry, artillery, cavalry, (p. 237) engineering troops, supply detachments, and in between, impatiently puffing, the automobiles of the higher staff officers, everybody eager to enter the big fortress and to get hold of the big booty. ”

“ Cheery groups collected in the trenches all along the line, men who hardly took the trouble to peer out over the parapets and watch for the coming of the enemy. It looked, indeed, as if this 25th February was to be a day of rest—one sorely needed by our allies. And then, of a sudden, an alarm spread along the trenches; men sprang to their arms and gripped their rifles, while machine-gunners dived into cunning approaches to hidden pieces out in the open, and, scuttling along, manned those instruments which were to send death into the ranks of the Kaiser. ”

“ Additional zigzag trenches and parallels would be dug until the attackers were in a position to concentrate their fire at one point on the fortification to breach its walls. The fortress would then have no alternative but to surrender or be stormed. Conducting a textbook perfect siege did not always result in success, for the fort’s defenders would not have been idle. They would fire cannon at the sappers. Often they dug counter trenches out from the fortress and planted mines to blow up the work of the attackers. ”

“ When we landed we stopped at a very good tavern, where we found two majors of artillery. After dinner we went to survey the fortress, which General Bernard planned; but the work was yet far from being completed. The fortress consists of a bastioned heptagon, which can be attacked from land, but by a single front. The sides facing the sea, are entirely casemated, and every gun has its particular arch. On the most dangerous side where the ships of the enemy can approach the land, there is on the counterscarp, a casemated coast-battery protected by the fire of heavy guns on the rampart. ”