temporary, transient success may attend them, that, perhaps, a siege cannot commence with a circumstance more auspicious to the besiegers, than that of meeting an attack of this nature with proper means and prudent dispositions. The experience gained during the wars of Louis XIV., in which the science of attack was perfected to its present state; and the opinion of all the great military authorities, of which that age was so prolific, are condensed in the maxims and instruction given in the eighth volume of the Military History of that period, by the marquis de Quincy, who observes, 'Sorties are dangerous enterprises when the attacks are supported by parallels; and generally produce little advantage, and always sustain great loss. We are often tempted to estimate the character of a defence by the sorties d'éclat made during the siege; but these contribute more to the reputation of the governor for gallantry, than to the advantage of the prince; since it is certain that any retardation they may occasion to the enemy, bears no comparison to the loss which the besieged always sustain on such occasions.' Similar opinions may be traced in every work of character that has been written upon this subject, from the date of the authorities just mentioned, to the admirable record of our practice, which, together with corrective observations for future guidance, lieutenant colonel Jones has given in his Journal of Sieges. If the example set by the publication of that work be followed by officers who may be charged with similar duties hereafter, we may reasonably hope that the British service will not always remain dependent on foreign works or systems for its guidance

Now if it appear that the attack marked upon the plan, be as well supported and covered by places of arms; as little exposed to be taken in flank; in short, as capable of opposing and defeating sorties as that disposition of parallels, trenches, &c., upon which the opinions and maxims just mentioned have been formed, then it only remains for us to consider, whether the facilities which M. Carnot has contrived for bringing out his troops should overturn what has been so generally experienced, and taught, as to the ordinary failure, and disadvantageous results of such enterprises-a question which resolves itself into this: Whether the expediency of making sorties depends upon the mere convenience, or facility, in bringing out the troops; or, with whatever ease they may get out, upon the defensive measures and force opposed to them; the prospects of success; the consequences of failure; the loss likely to be sustained;-and the circumstances of the garrison as to being strong enough in force, to afford that loss, and good enough in quality, to resist the moral effects of a defeat, which M. Vauban justly observes is so hurtful to the spirit of the garrison. If these be the governing considerations which should determine the propriety of undertaking sorties, then the accessibility of all M. Carnot's outworks, and consequently their exposure to be assaulted when weakly garrisoned, is a sacrifice made to that on which the issue does not essentially depend, and one that would oblige the besieged to keep bodies of troops continually posted in works of such

plain, unbroken capacity, as to suffer dreadfully from the very nature of fire which M. Carnot had intended only to inflict.

When a garrison is so numerous, or when the besieging force is so inadequate to the enterprise, as to justify the measure of making sorties in force, there is no difficulty in filing out troops for this purpose through the numerous debouches provided in an ordinary covered-way. If a sortie is to be made against the second parallel, the troops and workmen composing the mainbody, move out in eight columns (immediately afterwards formed into four), from eight different outlets in the four re-entering places of arms, each passage admitting easily four men abreast, and consequently of the transit of 320 men per minute, if moving at the rate of eighty paces of thirty inches each in that time. Two flanking parties to cover the operation move out, each in two columns, from the passages in the more remote places of arms of the adjoining fronts. These debouches altogether admit of filing out, and forming in line at the foot of the glacis, a body of 2560 men, exclusive of the flanking parties, in about seven minutes; and the time required for this operation may be shortened by placing a number of step-ladders to mount over the palisades in the three saliant places of arms of the front attacked. If a sortie is to be made against the third parallel, eight or ten step-ladders should be placed in each of the three saliant places of arms, and the eight communications from the four re-entering places of arms used besides.

It does not appear then that there is any such difficulty in filing out troops for sorties from existing places, as should induce us on this account to abandon obstacles which are absolutely necessary to prevent the besiegers from easily getting in. The new system of glacis coupés may be calculated to admit some brilliant, though generally rash exploits, from a place provided with a numerous garrison, or attacked with insufficient means; but it will prove most alarmingly defective when the places to which such works may be added come to fulfill the true purpose for which fortifications are erected-to enable a small force to oppose seven or eight times their number. When this occurs, the very facilities of egress, which under such circumstances the the besieged cannot use, will give facility of ingress which the besiegers will not fail to avail themselves of; and it appears to me that the purely defensive qualities of these works are so defective, that a small garrison, capable enough of defending for a time ordinary works of equal development, would be insecure in this; and that a weak garrison would be utterly incapable of defending such a place at all: and perhaps these works are more defective in partial application to old systems, than in a full adoption of the whole scheme of defence.

M. Carnot is so well aware of the impossibility of defending his glacis coupés de pied-ferme, and of using vertical fire at the same time, that he says these works should not be occupied lest the enemy should take them by assault, and, getting mixed with the troops posted in them, take prisoners in the mêlée, and thus prevent the besieged from firing upon the assailants.'

M. Carnot here again asserts the efficacy of vertical fire, to answer this obvious inference-that if the counterguard is not occupied, the besiegers may easily carry it by assault, and establish themselves upon it. He says that this cannot be done, on account, chiefly, of vertical fire; but we have shown that if he resorts to this mode of defence, he cannot occupy the escarpe-wall or saliant of the bastion either; and if so, the besiegers may not only take the counterguard, but proceed, without loss of time, to the attack of the bastion. We shall here say no more on the subject of sorties, but refer the reader to the plan. All the works-all the exterior debouches and ditches from which sorties can proceed, are, at this stage of the siege, under all sorts of fire. The passages between the ends of the demi-lunes and the faces of the counterguards are enfiladed and flanked from the different lodgments on the saliants of the glacis. The flanks of the attack are well secured against sorties from the adjoining fronts. The second parallel is appuyed upon redoubts, and covered from being turned, by being outflanked by the first place of arins. The third parallel is connected with the second by trenches of defence, or places of arms, flanked by the adjoining faces of the redoubts. The couronnement of the glacis is also covered in flank by the places of arms connecting batteries 11 and 13 at one extremity, and 12 and 14 at the other; and there is absolutely nothing in the proposed attack, bearing upon the question of making sorties, that should overturn the general principles already established by long experience as the governing considerations which should be consulted, and which it has been shown are not at all connected with any principles of construction.

When the couronnement of the glacis is completed, and the counterbatteries established, the position of the besiegers would be found still more capable of defeating and punishing the sorties; for the counter-slope forms a good oldfashioned glacis to the besieger's trenches on its crest, and gives them all the advantages of a covered-way and glacis opposed to the place;advantages surrendered to them for a very defective, and, in some cases, dangerous substitution, which saves the monstrous difficulties and labor attending the descent into the ditch, and enables the besiegers to cover the passage of it from batteries placed on the crest of (to them) a glacis proper.

M. Carnot mentions repeatedly, tne defence of Grave, in 1674, as a brilliant instance of protracted defence arising entirely from the effects of continual sorties; and supports his opinion of the advantages of a glacis en contrepente by stating, that the chief cause which contributed to the success of those enterprises of active defence which took place at Grave, was, precisely, that the place had nether counterscarp revetment, traverses, nor other obstacles in the covered-way;' and consequently that sorties were made with facility. It is proper therefore that we should look narrowly into the circumstances attending this siege, to see how far they confirm the theory which M. Carnot has endeavoured to establish upon it.

M. Rabenhaupt was detached by the prince of Orange, with about 11,000 men, to besiege Grave, in which there was a garrison of 4000 men commanded by M. Chamily, an officer already distinguished by his conduct at Candia and in Portugal.

The investing force required to attack a place such as Grave, containing a garrison of 4000 men, should not be under 21,000 men, at the very least. This is the very lowest calculation that can be made consistently with the number of troops required to furnish working parties, guard the trenches, and provide for camp and line duties.

The force required for guarding the trenches should not be less than three-fourths of the strength of the garrison, and unless this be observed the works of attack will be continually exposed to interruption, and perhaps to destruction, by sorties. Now, what sufficient appropriation of force to these several duties could M. Rabenhaupt have made with 11,000 men? The proportion required for line, camp, and other duties, is generally rated at, and cannot well be under, one-tenth of the whole. This taken at three reliefs is

Working parties, at least 1200 men, taken at three reliefs, is

Which taken from

3300

3600

Leaves, for guarding the trenches, &c. . 4100 This, taken at three reliefs, only furnishes 1366 men to oppose sorties which, no doubt, were made with 3000 men; and in the above calculation no allowance is made for sickness or casualties, and all the duty taken at three reliefs, which no troops could stand but for a very short service, in very fine weather.

It appears, therefore, that M. Rabenhaupt attacked the place with means so insufficient as necessarily to expose himself to all that occurred, even had he been opposed to a less enterprising officer. This, indeed, is admitted as the cause of the protracted defence, by the very historian who celebrates the event. M. Quincy, in his Histoire Militaire de Louis XIV., vol. i. page 387, says that from the frequency of the sorties it was difficult to pronounce whether M. Rabenhaupt was the assailant or the defender; which showed the general the error he had committed in having flattered himself that he could re duce the place with the small force which had been given him.'

M. Carnot is in error as to what he advances respecting there having been no traverses in the covered-way, or other exterior obstacles at Grave The Histoire du Corps Impérial du Génie in forms us, page 114, that M. de Chamilly, cer tain of being attacked, had perfected all the works-thickened and reveted the parapets→ made bomb-proof magazines under the rampart -placed a double row of palisades, barriers, as traverses, in the covered-way;' and that he op posed all sorts of exterior obstacles to the che minemens de l'ennemi.' This differs very mate rially from M. Carnot's account. It shows tha the usual defensive obstacles of a regular covered

asserts, that should the besiegers even succeed in opening the counterguard, and in breaching the escarpe-wall, it would nevertheless be impossible for them to assault the bastion, because the columns of attack would be taken in both flanks by sorties from the ditch of the bastion, and by the chemin-des-rondes;-turned and cut off by great sorties issuing from the glacis en contrepente. But it is evident that, whenever the saliant of the escarpe-wall is breached, both branches of the chemin-des-rondes may be enfiladed from the lodgments on the counterguard; or, if only a few feet of the top of the wall were knocked down, that the remote ends of the chemin-des-rondes would be so much exposed as to prevent the besieged from re-occupying them, when, ceasing their vertical fire, they send forth their corps d'élite,' as M. Carnot states, to chase away the debris of the assailant's columns. It may indeed reasonably be expected that, when the lodgments on the counterguards are formed, the escarpe-wall will be found to have received very material injury from the ricochet batteries; and the chemin-des-rondes be much encumbered, and perhaps rendered impassable in many places, by fragments of masonry, and rubbish from the slopes of the work, which the ricochet fire will have beaten off, and rolled down into the hollow space. With respect to the sorties to be made in the main ditch, to take the columns of assault in both flanks,' the attack has provided against such enterprises, by lodgments and epaulements which oppose them with double tiers of fire, and against which the troops would have to advance in narrow columns, presenting their alinements to these batteries. As to the large sorties issuing from the glacis en contrepente, to turn or cut off the assailants, M. Carnot must have aimed this observation at such assaults as might be imprudently made before a complete lodgment should be established on the crest of the covered-way; and to have fancied, throughout, that his system would be attacked in the same spirit of rash bravery and 'brute force,'-disregard of science and human life, as that in which the defensive scheme has been conceived.

A lodgment should now be made on the saliant of the bastion, either by assault, or by sapping up the exterior slope. Battery 15 will cover this operation by throwing shells into the interior of the work; and the howitzer-batteries 9 and 10 will participate, first by a heavy fire on the saliant and faces of the bastion; and, during the assault, by throwing shells into the interior of the bastion and upon the battery on

the circular portion of the retrenchment général. According to M. Carnot's doctrine, the actual assault of the breach will be opposed by vertical fire: so long therefore as the batterie de gorge continues to throw vertical fire, the assailants are safe from coups de main;' for no part of the interior of the bastion can then be occupied by the besieged. When the fire ceases, they may be expected. This is what M. Carnot calls reversing the character of the operations of a siege: it does so; and brings the alternation to this-that the besieged must now move forward, à découvert, from the gorge of the bastion, under a great profusion of all sorts of vertical fire, to attack the besiegers lodged on its saliant; for it is clear that the batteries which we have enumerated may play upon the interior of the bastion during the assault, and also whilst the besiegers are establishing and defending their ledgment on its saliant. This lodgment being formed, the mode of further proceeding will depend upon the condition in which the besiegers find the circular portion of the escarpe-wall. If, as may reasonably be expected, it is much ruined, there will be little to apprehend from the batteries blindées. The most formidable battery is that on the circular portion of the retrenchment, against which therefore every piece of ordnance that can be brought to bear should be directed. The mortar-howitzer-battery 15-all the guns of 13 and 14-the howitzer-batteries 7, 8, 9, and 10, may all combine in various degrees; and under the influence of such a mass of fire there can be no doubt that a lodgment may be formed in the saliant of the bastion; when the guns of battery 22 will be brought up to arm a battery established there. This will soon complete the ruin of the scarp-wall: the interior of the casemates will then be completely exposed; and the barricades in the postern, being seen through the central casemate, may then be broken open and destroyed. But it is evident that the place can oppose no further effectual resistance, after a lodgment in the bastion is established: for, as soon as the escarpe-wall is ruined, the casemates become untenable, and may then prove extremely useful to the assailants in the assault of the retrenchment, by the cover they afford to preparatory dispositions: and the chemins-des-rondes being gained from the back of the casemates, columns of attack may circulate in them, to turr the troops opposing the direct assault of the sa liant.