Siege

“ Then loud shouts of victory! victory! resounded through the streets, and found its joyful echo in many hearts.
During this siege, five thousand men and officers had fallen; thirty-five hundred having lost their lives the night of the assault,—twenty-four hundred at the breaches alone. If any one would picture to himself the terrible scenes that occurred at this spot, let him imagine a lot of less than a hundred square yards, which, in the short space of little more than two hours, was deluged by the blood of twenty-four hundred men. ”

“ Here we have an important fortress, threatened with siege for the last sixty days, suffering the assailants of the flag it defends to amass battery upon battery, and string the whole coast of low hills opposite with every variety of apparatus for its own devastation, without throwing a timely shell to prevent their establishment. ”

“ The stir and tumult of the battle-field, with its brilliant episodes of valour, its charges of cavalry, its encounter of bayonets, its individual deeds of heroism, and its exhibition of strategical genius, necessarily lend themselves more readily to the description of the chronicler, and exercise a more powerful influence on the imagination of the reader, than the monotonous incidents of a siege. ”

“ As for the German soldiers, they began now to feel bored to death, as so often happens in a long siege. The first excitement evaporates; each day’s unlovely duties recur with abominable sameness—and the Germans could find no beer to drink. ”

“ By savage sons of hell.
One hundred whites, in painted hue,
Whom Butler there did lead,
Supported by a barb'rous crew
Of the fierce savage breed.
The last of June the siege began,
And several days it held,
While many a brave and valiant man
Lay slaughtered on the field.
Our troops marched out from Forty Fort
The third day of July,
Three hundred strong, they marched along,
The fate of war to try.
But oh! alas! three hundred men
Is much too small a band
To meet eight hundred men complete,
And make a glorious stand. ”

“ Now all armies come to the siege of a town with great advantages; for first the besieged cannot but be less confident than the assailants; they are a few against a many, and being on the defensive, are also an excised portion of their own army, and without news, which damps the fiery spirit. They are obliged to await their adversary’s time and attack, their losses seem more numerous, in proportion to their forces, because they are more concentrated, and then the wounded are not safe even in the hospitals. ”

“ Page. Very true, you had better think so; though it does not often happen that a woman is killed at a siege.
Vald. At a siege!
Page. Pest take this hasty tongue of mine; I could bite it off for the tricks it plays me.
Vald. At a siege!
Page. O, never mind it. Sir. It may be some lie after all: some wicked invention to make you afraid.
Vald. (sternly.) What sayest thou?
Page. O no, I don't mean afraid; only uneasy as it were:—no, no! not uneasy neither; only somewhat as you feel at present, my Lord; you know best what to call it.
Vald. At a siege! ”

“ The extraordinary length of this siege ceases to surprise us, when we consider that a siege was nothing but a badly-guarded blockade, where that was expected from lassitude and famine which could not be obtained by either bodily strength, which necessarily failed against stone walls, or by military art, which had not yet learnt how to overthrow them, or even to scale them. ”

“ A catastrophe, as we have before said, is not necessarily bound up with a siege. Even a general, devoid of either the spirit of enterprise or energy, who would never make up his mind to a battle, will proceed to undertake a siege with perhaps nothing but field artillery, when he can approach a fortress without risk. ”

“ To form the Siege, or lay siege to a place, (Mettre le Siege à une place, Fr.) there must be an army sufficient to furnish five or six reliefs for the trenches, pioneers, guards, convoys, escorts, &c. and artillery, with all the apparatus thereto belonging; magazines furnished with a sufficient quantity of all kinds of warlike stores; and a general hospital, with physicians, surgeons, medicines, &c.
To raise a Siege, (Lever le Siege, Fr.) is to give over the attack of a place, quit the works thrown up against it, and the posts formed about it. ”

“ They had abundance of provisions,562 and all the munitions of war,—even its sinews, money,—that could be required in a long protracted siege. But above all this was the cause; every man might be said to be a volunteer, fighting for all he held dearest in life. ”

“ The next year began with the two most splendid sieges of the war. A siege is proverbially the most difficult of all military operations, requiring the most costly preparations, and taking up the longest time. ”

“ Thus it was that the siege, when at the most critical stage, suddenly came to a halt, and the two enemies remained under arms, almost in actual contact, without either caring to strike a blow that would bring a renewal of the struggle. ”

“ The details of the siege are given in the same powerful style as characterised the combats in Calavar. Indeed it is in descriptions of battles, that we think the author excels, and is transcendently superior to any modern writer. When his armies meet, he causes us to feel the shock, and to realize each turn of fortune by a minuteness of description, which is never confused. When his heroes engage hand to hand, we see each blow, each parry, each advantage, each vicissitude, with a thrilling distinctness. ”

“ SIEGE WARFARE The kind of modern siege in which the Allies are engaged, unlike the bombardment of a modern fortress, but like the sieges of old times, is bound to be a protracted affair. Still it is not likely that Germany will hold out as long as Troy did. ”

“ The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous effects of a siege. ”

“ Adding a proportion of men for camp and other duties, he calculates, for the vigorous siege of an ordinary place situated in open country and containing 5000 men, a corps of 32,080 effectives, and remarks further that this force would be greatly exhausted after a month’s service. ”

“ If the place is worth holding, it should as a rule be held to the bitter end on the chance of a favourable turn in affairs; moreover, the maintenance of an important siege under modern conditions imposes a severe strain on the enemy and immobilizes a large number of his troops. ”

“ Well, Jerusalem being the mark set up, the campaign is presently opened with the siege of that important place. Captains are appointed for the command of the forces to be employed in the siege, who must open the mouth in the slaughter, must give directions to the soldiers what to do and make speeches to animate them. Orders are given to provide every thing necessary for carrying on the siege with vigour; battering rams must be prepared and forts built. ”

“ Not being in possession of the western quarter, all our siege works may be destroyed in a vigorous sortie; for the besieged are audacious—they have shown themselves so; and the ramping wall which descends to the river from the west corner will always put our attack on the north front of the cité at the mercy of a vigorous effort. ”

“ To the technical mind, the siege no doubt seemed a beautiful creation of human intelligence. To the honest student of history, to the lover of human progress, such a manifestation of intellect seems a sufficiently sad exhibition. Given, a city with strong walls and towers, a slender garrison and a devoted population on one side; a consummate chieftain on the other, with an army of veterans at his back, no interruption to fear, and a long season to work in ”

“ A place that can sustain a siege of a month is now deemed sufficiently strong for ordinary campaigns; for by the end of that time the defensive army will either be destroyed, or be able to come to its succor. ”

“ A surprise—a stiff fight—along siege in the ‘dug-out’ when the reds had set the building on fire—then either relief from outside, or the defenders, reduced by famine or failure of ammunition, shooting each other to avoid capture and the stake. ”

“ The inhabitants had not neglected to furnish themselves with ammunition and provisions for a long siege; all who could carry arms (the very artisans not excepted) , became soldiers; the houses before the town, and especially the cloisters, were pulled down, that the besiegers might not avail themselves of them to cover their attack. ”

“ The protracted siege—if siege it could be called, which in reality was a tedious struggle between two rows of detached forts—was certainly not popular with the officers of the army, few of whom cared to remain if they had a respectable pretext for returning home, while fewer still desired to return hither when they once got away. I am persuaded that if there had been more movement in the campaign—if, instead of monotonous trench duty we had been engaged in ordinary warfare, manœuvring, marching, fighting, there would have been both less sickness and fewer seeking leave. ”

“ The havoc of the siege is gradually increasing, and the prospect of relief grows more and more distant. Just after midnight the Boers again aroused us by discharging all their guns into the forts or the town, and again the people hurried away to their caves and culverts for protection. ”

“ The standards of the king107 of Jerusalem and the doge of Venice floated together over the walls of Tyre; the Christians made their triumphal entrance into the city; whilst the inhabitants, according to the terms of the capitulation, with their wives and children, departed from it. On whichever side our sympathies may be, the end of a great siege is a melancholy object of contemplation; nothing can convey a sadder idea to the mind than this compulsory exodus of a people. ”

“ Here one time a force of several hundred soldiers made camp in the lowlands, and strung a series of strong outposts through Middle Pass, cutting off the northern part of the range from all the rest of the world, holding it inside a ring of armed men. It was such a siege as the warriors of the Middle Ages used to wage, starving their walled-in enemies to surrender. ”

“ The fullest and best original account of the first siege is contained in a contemporary royalist publication, 'Mercurius Rusticus,' No. xi., which, notwithstanding its contemptuous banter of 'the rebels,' is probably a fairly truthful account, and is confirmed by occasional allusions in contemporary newspapers of the opposite side. ”

“ They built regular siege-works armed with catapults; the captives and peasants were forced to take part in the assault; the attack never ceased night or day; relief of troops keeping the garrison in perpetual terror. They employed Chinese and Persians to make their war engines. ... They rarely abandoned the siege of a place altogether, and would sometimes continue a blockade for years. They were bound by no oath, and however solemn their promise to the inhabitants who would surrender, it was broken, and a general massacre ensued. ”

“ A fortified town or place is said to be invested, when all the avenues leading to it have been seized upon by hostile troops, which are distributed and posted on the principal commands, to prevent any succour from being received by the garrison, and to keep the ground until the rest of the army with the artillery, can arrive to form a regular siege. To invest a place is, in fact, to take preparatory measures for a blockade, or a close siege. ”

“ They are one of the few admirable races still surviving, and they conduct this siege with real consideration and gentlemanly feeling. They observe the Sabbath. They give us quiet nights. After a violent bombardment they generally give us at least one day to calm down. ”

“ We come now to an interesting siege, one connected with many stirring associations for both French and English readers. The miserable condition into which France had fallen at the period of the unjust invasion of our Henry V., can scarcely be conceived. An insane king, ambitious grasping princes, bold, poor, and selfish nobles, all conspired to oppress a sunken and degraded people. ”

“ We calculated, should it ever become necessary, that we should be able to maintain a lengthened siege in our stronghold, though my father, old soldier as he was, said he earnestly hoped that we should never be compelled to resort to our means of defence. ”

“ It became evident that the works could not be carried by assault, and that nothing but a regular siege could reduce the fortifications.
While the siege was in progress our soldiers endured hardships, privations and sufferings which words can but inadequately express. Our men were closely packed in the trenches, often in water to the knees, and not daring to lift their heads above the brow of the rifle pits, as the rebel [Pg 343] sharpshooters lost no time in saluting every unfortunate head which made its appearance above ground. ”

“ As the mule came prancing back, it dawned upon the Johnnies what had really happened and they began to laugh, our boys hearing them joined in and for an instant a perfect roar of laughter and shouts rang along both lines. In that way, under those conditions the siege went on; under those conditions we lived. To stay in those trenches in that terrific heat, with not a breath of fresh air, in the dirt—for every spear of grass had early disappeared—was a [Pg 181] thing only the most hardy could endure. ”

“ We now proceeded a considerable distance along the parallels and rifle pits, and visited the captured French lunettes, which seemed to be matters of intense interest to my military friends. A curious fact I learned about this siege was, that of the garrison in the town a comparatively smaller number were killed than of civilians, who met their death in the streets by the bursting of shells. ”