means of construction, such as steel joists, railway rails, reinforced
concrete and wire, in conjunction with the defensive
power of modern firearms, makes it possible to extemporize
in a very short time works having much of the resisting power
of a permanent fortress. Further, such works can be expanded
from the smallest beginnings; and, if the site is not too exposed,
in the presence of the enemy.
Field fortification offers, as regards the actual constructions, a very limited scope to the engineer; and a little consideration will show that its defensive possibilities were not greatly affected by the change from machine-thrown projectiles to those fired by rude smooth-bore guns. There is therefore nothing in the history of this branch of the subject that is worth tracing, from the earliest ages to about the end of the 18th century. One or two points may be noticed. The use of obstacles is probably one of the earliest measures of defence. Long before missile weapons had acquired such an importance as to make it worth while to seek shelter from them, it would obviously have been found desirable to have some means of checking the onrush of an enemy physically or numerically superior. Hence the use by savage tribes, to this day, of pits, pointed stakes hidden in the grass, entanglements and similar obstacles. In this direction the ages have made no change, and the most highly civilized nations still use the same obstacles on occasion.
Another use of field defences common to all ages is the protection of camps at night, where small forces are operating against an enemy more numerous but inferior in arms and discipline. In daylight such an enemy is not feared, but at night his numbers might be dangerous. Hence the Roman practice of making each foot-soldier carry a couple of stakes for palisades; and the simple defence of a thorn zariba used by the British for their camps in the Sudan.
Palisades and trenches, abatis and sharpened stakes have always been used. Except wire, there is practically no new material. As to methods, the laagers of the Boers are preceded by the wagon-forts of the Hussites, and those no doubt by similar arrangements of British or Assyrian war chariots; and so in almost every direction it will be found that the expedient of to-day has had its forerunners in those of the countless yesterdays. The only really marked change in the arrangements of field defences has been caused not by gunpowder but by quick-firing rifled weapons. For that reason it is worth while to consider briefly what were the principles of field fortification at the end of the 18th century. That period has been chosen because it gives us the result of a couple of centuries of constant fighting between disciplined troops with fairly effective firearms. The field defences of the 19th century are transitional in character. Based mainly on the old methods, they show only faint attempts at adaptation to new conditions, and it was not till quite the end of the century that the methods now accepted began to take shape.
The essential elements of fieldworks up to the time of the Peninsular War were command and obstacle; now they are protection and concealment.
The command and obstacle were as necessary in the days of
smooth-bore muskets and guns as in those of javelins and
arrows. When the enemy could get close up to a
work without serious loss, and attack in close order,
the defenders needed a really good obstacle in front
Old type
of field defences.
of them. Moreover, since they could not rely on their
fire alone to repulse the attack, they needed a two-deep line, with
reserves close at hand, to meet it with the “arme blanche.”
For this purpose a parapet 7 or 8 ft. high, with a steep slope,
perhaps palisaded, up which the attackers must climb after
passing the obstacle, was excellent. The defenders after firing
their last volley could use their bayonets from the top of the
parapet with the advantage of position. The high parapet had
also the advantage that the attackers could not tell what was
going on inside the redoubt, and the defenders were sheltered
from their fire as well from view until the last moment.
The strength of a fortified line in the 18th century depended principally on its redoubts. Lines of shelter trenches had little power of defence at the time, unless they held practically as many men as would have sufficed to fight in the open. Obstacles on the other hand had a greater value, against the inelastic tactics of the time, than they have now. A good position therefore was one which offered good fire-positions for redoubts and plenty of facilities for creating obstacles. Strong redoubts which could resist determined assaults; good obstacles in the intervals, guns in the redoubts to sweep the intervals, and troops in formed bodies kept in reserve for counter-strokes—these were the essentials in the days of the smooth-bore.
The redoubts were liable to a heavy cannonade by field-guns before the attack. To withstand this, the parapets had to be made of a suitable thickness—from 4 or 5 ft. upwards—according to the time available, the resisting nature of the soil, and the severity of the bombardment expected.
The whole of the earth for the parapet was as a rule obtained from the ditch, in order to make as much as possible of this obstacle. The garrison in all parts of the interior of the redoubt were to be sheltered, if possible, from the enemy’s fire, and with this object great pains were bestowed on the principle of “defilade.” 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. This problem of defilade became quite out of date after the development of time shrapnel, but was nevertheless taught with great rigour till within the last twenty years.
The sectional area of the ditch was calculated so that with an addition of about 10% for expansion it would equal that of the parapet. If a wider and deeper ditch was considered necessary, the surplus earth could be used to form a glacis.
The interior of the redoubt had to afford sufficient space to allow the garrison to sleep in it, which was sometimes a matter of some difficulty if a small irregularly shaped work had to contain a strong garrison. Consideration of the plan and sections of these works will show that the banquette for infantry with its slopes, and the gun platforms, took off a good deal from the interior space within the crest-line. Guns were usually placed at the salients, where they could get the widest field of fire. They were sometimes placed on the ground level, firing through embrasures in the parapet, and sometimes on platforms so as to fire over the parapet (en barbette).
As in permanent fortification, immense pains were taken to elaborate theoretically the traces of works. A distinction was made between forts and redoubts, the former being those which were arranged to flank their own ditches, while the redoubts did not. Redoubts again were classed as “closed,” those which had an equally strong defence all round; and “half-closed,” those which had only a slight parapet or timber stockade for the gorge or rear faces. Open works (those which had no gorge defence) were named according to their trace, as redans and lunettes. A redan is a work with two faces making a salient angle. It was frequently used in connexion with straight lines of trench or breastwork. A lunette is a work with two faces, usually forming an obtuse angle, and two flanks.
The forts described in the text-books, as might be expected, were designed with great ingenuity, with bastioned or demi-bastioned fronts, star traces, and so forth, and in the same books intricate calculations were entered into to balance the remblai and déblai, that is, the amount of earth in the parapets with that excavated from the ditches. In practice such niceties of course disappeared, though occasionally when the ground allowed of it star forts and bastioned fronts were employed.
On irregular ground the first necessity was to fit the redoubt to the ground on which it stood, so as to sweep the whole of the foreground, and this was generally a sufficiently difficult matter without adding the complications of flanking defences. Sir John Jones, speaking of the traces of the several works in the Torres Vedras lines, says:—
