BATTLE 447 BAUDELAIRE Ages, the battle ground was often chosen by agreement, and the battle was a mere trial of strength, a duel en gros; and, as the armies of the ancients were im- perfectly organized, and the combatants fought very little at a distance, after the battle had begun maneuvers were much more difficult, and troops almost entirely beyond the control of the general. Under these circumstances, the battle depended almost wholly upon the previous ar- rangements and the valor of the troops. In modern times, however, the finest combinations, the most ingenious maneu- vers, are rendered possible by the bet- ter organization of the armies, and it is the skill of the general rather than the courage of the soldier that now deter- mines the event of a battle. Battles are distinguished as offensive or defensive on either side, but there is a natural and ready transition from one method to the other. As a rule, the purely defensive attitude is condemned by tacticians, ex- cept in cases where the only object de- sirable is to maintain a position of vital consequence, the weight of precedent be- ing in favor of the dash and momentum of an attacking force, even where op- posed to superior forces. Where the greatest generals have acted upon the defensive, it has almost always been with the desire to develop an opportunity to pass the offensive. Tacticians have divided a battle into three periods: those of disposition, combat, and the decisive moment. BATTLE, a town in Sussex, England, 6 miles N. W. of Hastings. Encircled on three sides by wooded hills, it con- sists of one street, extending along a valley from N. W. to S. E. An unin- habited heathland then, Senlac by name, it received its present name from the battle of Hastings, fought here on Oct. 14, 1066, when the Normans, led by William the Conqueror, overthrew the old English monarchy under King Harold. William, to commemorate his victory, founded in 1067, on the spot where Harold fell, a splendid Benedictine Abbey, which was endowed with all the land within a league of it, and had the privileges of a sanctuary. Battle Abbey now consists of decorated and perpen- dicular buildings occupying three sides of a quadrangle — two sides in ruins, the third converted into a private dwelling- house. BATTLE CREEK, a city in Calhoun CO., Mich.; at the junction of Kalamazoo river and Battle creek, and on several railroads. It is an agricultural, fruit growing and sandstone quarrying re- gion. It contains a college, the head- quarters, and the publishing house of the Seventh-Day Adventists; Battle Creek Medical College; division offices of thp Grand Trunk railway; and one of th^ largest sanitariums in the world. The city is an attractive summer resort, with niore than 75 lakes in its immediate vi- cinity. In recent years it has become im- portant as a manufacturing city. Its cereal foods have now an international reputation. Pop. (1910) 25,267; (1920) 36,164. BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLE- COCK. See Badminton. BATTLEMENT. (1) A wall or ram- part built around the top of a fortified building, with interstices or embrasures to discharge arrows or darts, or f^re guns through. (2) A similar erection around the roofs of churches and other Gothic buildings, where the object was princi- pally ornamental. They are found not only upon parapets, but as ornaments on the transoms of windows, etc. (3) A wall built around a flat-roofed house, in the East and elsewhere, to prevent any one from falling into the street, area or garden. BATTLESHIP, a warship of the heaviest class, designed for fighting in line of battle. The modern battleship is the great fighting unit in a fleet engage- ment, designed to stand to her work and take the hardest of blows and to over- come any ship that may oppose her. Her armor is the least vulnerable, her guns are the heaviest, and the qualities of the cruiser and armored cruiser are subordinated to secure this preponder- ance of protection and armament. See Navy; Navy, United States. BAUDELAIRE, CHARLES (bod- lar'), a French poet, born in Paris, April 21, 1821. In his youth he traveled to India, and is said to have likewise visited the Mauritius and Madagascar. On his return to Paris he became a notable fig- ure in the second group of romantic poets who carried on the movement becrun bv the Romanticists of 1830. His "Flowers of Evil," a volume of poems issued in 1857, was the subject of a prosecution on the score of immorality. He afterward published "Artificial Paradises," con- taining selections from Poe and De Quincey, besides original material. His occasional essays, collected in a volume entitled "Romanesque Art," are remark- able for the finish of the style anr^ the su^^tlety of the criticism. Apart from his verse, however, Baudelaire's finest work is contained in his 50 "Little Poems in Prose." He died in Paris Aug. 31, 1867.
