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The Military Resources of Prussia and France
The Military Resources of Prussia and France Author:Charles Cornwallis Chesney Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: service of real infantry, armed with good muskets and bayonets, and well provided with ammunition. Dragoons, in fact, should be clothed and shod so as to be able... more » to march with' facility.' The increased use of fieldworks visible in the American campaigns is now admitted to be as much the consequence of the peculiarities of the terrain and troops engaged on it, as of the increased range of firearms. Nevertheless, the subject should not be omitted in even a summary view of the progress of tactics. In an essay' written before the war closed, it was shown how the woods of Virginia were intrenched by the contending armies. But this knowledge of the value of breastworks was wanting to Grant himself in his early days, as we see by his surprise at Shiloh, which a few hours' labour with the axe would have prevented. European generals can have but little experience of forest warfare. Yet the mere account of it, now familiar by report, would have sufficed to save even the slow leaders of Austria from their surprise and disgrace among the pine woods of Hohenlinden. How easily these ready protections of an army can be improved by modern appliances and engineering skill so as to take the character of fortresses, has been remarkably illustrated by the successive sieges of Sebastopol, Diippel, and Petersburg. The Professional Papers of the Royal Engineers contain the first detailed notice of the works of the latter place that has been anywhere published. This monograph, by Lieutenant Featherstonehaugh, deservesour notice for its valuable account of that system of rifle-pits, which is destined henceforward to play an important part not only in regular sieges, but where- ever an intrenched position is taken up. Judging by its contents, we may believe that the younger members of the scientific ...« less