Fortification

“ The massive towers are connected by solid walls, constructed upon the system of fortification, which generally prevailed in the middle ages. Those walls and towers follow all the turnings and windings of the mountain; and previously to the invention of gunpowder and artillery, this fortress must have been almost impregnable. The situation of this edifice is the most delightful and commanding that can be conceived. Wherever the spectator may turn his eyes, it is impossible for him not to be struck with admiration at the picturesque beauty and fertility of the surrounding country. ”

“ His study of fortification, as he tells us, began with a history of the defence of Plevna (q.v.) . He was led to compare the resistance made behind extemporized defences at such places as Sevastopol, Kars and Plevna, with those at other places fortified in the most complete manner known to science. From this comparison he drew the conclusion that the true strength of fortification does not depend on great masonry works intricately pieced together at vast expense, but on organization, communications and invisibility. ”

“ In practice there will always be occasion for some use of fortification. A mountain range may lend itself to an economical defence by a few men and some inexpensive barrier forts. A nation may have close to its frontier an important strategic centre, such as a railway junction, or a town of the first manufacturing importance, which must be protected. ”

“ Permanent fortification is intended for the defense of towns, frontiers, and seaports, and is constructed of durable materials in time of peace; while field fortification being raised only for the temporary purpose of protecting troops in the field, its materials are those afforded by local circumstances and a limited time. ”

“ Our own steep and towering rock invited to its top the castle-builder of a remote age, and then the exposed country around began to gather itself together under the shelter of the bourg. And thus it is that the military engineering of the Holy War makes that old allegorical book most excellent to read, not only for common men like you and me, who are bent on the fortification and the defence of our own hearts, but for the military historians of those old times also, for the experts of to-day also, and for all good students of fortification. ”

“ Subject to the question of time, a very high degree of strength can be given to them, if the military situation makes it worth while to expend sufficient labour. 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. ”

“ Ancient Fortification, at first, consisted of walls or defences made of trunks, and other branches of trees, mixed with earth, for security against the attacks of an enemy. Invention owes its origin to necessity; fortification seems to have had fear for its basis; for when man had no other enemy but the wild beasts, the walls of his cottage were his security ”

“ Every infantry officer, in a word, should be conversant in field fortification at least, if not acquainted with the general system. For without some knowlege of its branches, how will he, in cases of emergency, be capable of throwing up a temporary redoubt, of fortifying a spot of ground which he is ordered to maintain, or of securing a common outpost? ”

“ To be able to reconnoitre the defences of a fortress was surely the a b c of the trade of war. Captains and soldiers of fortune never risked advancing against a fortification without knowing first whether there were water, morass or briars, and arming themselves accordingly with siege train suitable to the occasion. When the water of the moat was deep they launched leather boats carried on horses' backs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In fortification, is an enlargement of the covered way of the fortress, between a bastion and a ravelin; its rear coinciding with the counterscarp of the ditch, and its front consisting usually of two faces of the glacis, which are disposed at angles of about 100° with the glacis before the neighboring bastion and ravelin. It serves as a place for assembling troops previously to making sorties; and the fire from its faces serves to defend the approaches to the salient parts in front of the collateral works. ”

“ Temporary Fortification.—It has been stated in the preceding chapter that temporary fortifications are properly confined to the operations of a single campaign, and are used to strengthen positions which are to be occupied only for a short period; and that they are usually made of earth, thrown up by the troops in a single day. Temporary fortifications, as a part of field-engineering, may therefore be regarded rather as an arm than an art. ”

“ In fortification, is a defensive work, comprising at least ditch and parapet, within some other work of a fortress, and intended as a place of retreat for the defenders, whence they may prolong the defense, or capitulate after the faces of the work itself have fallen into the enemy’s hands. ”

“ The means we must employ are defensive as well as offensive resistance, and the science we must call to our aid is Fortification, properly applied to the metropolis, and entrusted to our Volunteers.
16. But before discussing the mode of fortification we will dispose of the superficial arguments brought against such a means of defence. Of course there will be the usual cuckoo cry—“Fortifications! why, have not we strong fortifications at Portsmouth, and Plymouth, and Dover? You don’t think we can fortify all round the coast? ”

“ In fortification, are works sometimes found constructed in an old fortress, on each side of the ravelin,—the short faces being traced, on the prolongations of the faces of the ravelin, from the counterscarp of its ditch; the long faces are directed for flanking defense, to about the middle of the faces of the bastions. ”

“ Although an engineer may be perfectly master of the different methods by which a town can be strengthened and secured by permanent works, he should not remain satisfied with that acquisition, but carefully direct his attention to the distribution of ground, for field fortification. He should be able to ascertain, with geometrical precision, all the relative divisions and corresponding points of any situation in which it might be judged expedient to construct that species of fortification which consists in intrenched lines, fortins, or small forts, and in redoubts of various denominations. ”

“ In fortification, that part of a bastion adjacent to the junction of a face with a flank. The actual meeting of these two lines forms the "angle of the shoulder."
EPAULEMENT. In fortification, a covering mass raised to protect from the fire of the enemy, but differing from a parapet in having no arrangement made for the convenient firing over it by defenders. It is usually adopted for side-passages to batteries and the like. ”

“ Many sad instances of failure and loss have occurred from a want of knowledge of fortification. Without knowledge no place of defence is secure; fortresses require to be defended by strong minds as well as by strong walls. At the surprise of Bergen-up-Zoom, in 1814, a body of six hundred British troops laid down their arms merely because they had no officer with them who knew enough of fortification to conduct their retreat by the covered way. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Irregular fortification is the art of fortifying a place of an irregular figure, situated where the country does not admit of giving to the several works their due proportion according to rule.
A Command is the vertical elevation of one work above another, or above the country. ”

“ For defensive purposes nature and art have combined to render the place exceedingly strong. Ranges of hills, varying from 300 feet to 1500 feet, surround the port and town almost completely, offering scope for fortification of the most formidable character, advantages which, as far as construction goes, have been well utilized, massive and lofty stone forts occupying every point of advantage. ”

“ This principle of mutual support, however achieved, is called that of ‘defensive relations’, and is capable of adaptation613 to all kinds of defensive works, whether of a few men beleaguered in an improvised fortification, a considerable number in a scientifically constructed work—permanent or field fortification—a fortress with an entire army behind its ramparts, or a cordon of forts surrounding a great city. ”

“ Many forts in field fortification are built in triangular forms; some are square, some starred, or en étoile, some as redoubts, in the shape of demi-lunes, others in crown, or horn-work, and others again in the figures of tenailles or queues d’hirondelle.
When the object of defence is a windmill, a castle, or a small dwelling-house, the first step to be taken, is to select a spot of ground upon which you are to build the field work, so as to check and prevent the enemy’s approaches. ”

“ The wonderful trenches, too numerous to mention in detail, show a very high order of military skill in fortification, and this is the more remarkable when we discover that Neolithic man was probably answerable for their construction, although the fort has been subsequently occupied by men of the Bronze Age, and also by the Romans. ”

“ The remains of some strongly-built forts, of quadrangular forms, occupying the heights which command the road, sufficiently point out Sidy Abdellàti as an ancient military station; and indeed, had we found there no vestiges of antiquity, we should have been induced from the nature of the ground to look for some indications of fortification; since the advantages of position, of soil, and of water, [47] which it possesses, are too great to have been overlooked by the ancients. ”

“ Now even though you may not be versed in warfare, you must realize that for a thousand men to throw up such a fortification as I have described, between midnight and daybreak, which came about four of the clock, was a wonderful piece of work, and in addition to all this two strong fences made of stones and rails had been built either side of the entire works, thus forming a fairly good obstacle in case an enemy attempted to make an attack elsewhere than directly in front. In the rear was the sharp slope of the hill up which soldiers could not well make their way. ”

“ Counter-forts, in fortification, are certain pillars and parts of the wall, distant from 15 to 20 feet one from another, which are advanced as much as may be in the ground, and are joined to the height of the cordon by vaults, to sustain the chemin de rondes, and the part of the rampart, as well as to fortify the wall, and strengthen the ground. ”

“ The objection that fortifications are becoming out of date, is so puerile as scarcely to deserve refutation. We know that, with the exception of such modifications as have been rendered necessary by improvements in arms and projectiles, the art of fortification has scarcely undergone a change for the better since the days of Marshal Vauban. ”

“ Little Fortification. The first division of the first system of Vauban, and is so called when the exterior side of a fortification does not exceed 350 yards. It is used in the construction of citadels, small forts, horn- and crown-works.
Living Force. Vis viva. That force of a body in motion which determines the work of which it is capable. Living force is measured by the product of the mass into the square of the velocity.
Livonia. A Russian province on the Baltic Sea, first visited by some Bremen merchants about 1158. It has belonged successively to Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and Russia. ”

“ This must needs have a marked effect on strategy, and it is quite possible to foresee such an ultimate triumph of field fortification as that one force should succeed in surrounding another stronger than itself, and by entrenching prevent the latter from breaking out and compel its surrender. ”

“ The great strength of modern fortification consists certainly in the glacis, or in that smoothly sloping mound which conceals and covers the rampart to87 the very chin, yet is severed from it by a deep and impassable ditch, screening it from every injury, even by the heaviest and most numerous ordnance, whilst its own gradual slope is swept by a rain and hail of cannon-balls, grape shot, and musketry, both from its own parapet and that of the superior rampart. ”

“ In order to clear the ditch of occasional rubbish that may fall in, or of pieces that may drop from the demolished parts of a fortification during a siege, square excavations or wells must occasionally be made along the flanks and faces of the different works; by which means the ditch is always kept clean, and you may at any time repair the fortifications, whilst on the other hand, the enemy, should he attempt to storm the place, must have recourse to fascines, as he could derive no advantage from the materials that would otherwise be found under the walls. ”

“ In the towers, bastions, and other works by which these lines are strengthened in various places, the military engineer may trace the first germs of that science of fortification which has been developed pari passu with the improvement in artillery, and which in the fifteenth century seems to have been more advanced in the Levant than in Europe. ”