

SKETCHES IN THE TRENCHES. 



AFTER an interval of peace of nearly eighteen years, the French 

 army, that had been for some time previously concentrating on the 

 northern frontier, and panting for an appeal to arms, received, on the 

 15th of November, orders to make a forward movement on Belgium. 

 The joy with which the news was received at head-quarters was 

 enthusiastic. [However, up to the very last moment, even when they 

 had arrived under the walls of the citadel of Antwerp, a very general 

 apprehension pervaded the ranks, that the demon of protocols would 

 yet rob them of the glorious opportunity of distinguishing them- 

 selves. <e Tonnerre de Dieu ! " exclaimed an old moustache of the 

 65th regiment, " if we are not now allowed ( de bruler une amorce,' I 

 will tear the cockade from my shako, and replace it by a sop/' But 

 all their fears were soon dissipated. Under cover of a dense fog, 

 ground was broken, on the night of the 29th of November, before the 

 devoted citadel of Antwerp: by noon of the following day, the 

 " ultima ratio regum " had succeeded to the tiresome delays of the 

 conference, and the timorous hesitation of diplomacy. 



All the preliminary details being completed, on the night of the 

 29th, detachments of infantry, whose strength was determined by the 

 engineer department, received orders to commence the operations of 

 breaking ground. Superior and subaltern officers of these two arms, 

 placed under the orders of a "Major de Tranchee," who himself was 

 subordinate to a general officer whose period of duty lasted twenty- 

 four hours, were distributed along the entire length of the parallel to 

 command the different working and covering parties. The latter, pre- 

 viously to arriving at the depot of entrenching tools, divested them- 

 selves of their sabres and cartouch boxes, took off their shakos and put 

 on their foraging caps, slung their firelocks, and were furnished with 

 five rounds of cartridges. Thus prepared, they arrived at the trench 

 depot, formed in two ranks, and received from the engineer depart- 

 ment, those of the first rank a shovel and pickaxe, and the second a 

 shovel only, with a fascine or a gabion. They were then marched in 

 the greatest silence behind the trace of the parallel, where, throwing 

 down their arms, they immediately commenced the operation of open- 

 ing the trenches, protected by their comrades who had preserved 

 their arms, and directed by the sappers of the engineer corps. So 

 unsound and spungy was the nature of the ground, that in less than 

 three hours the workmen had completed the trench ; and with the 

 earth taken from it, an escarpment was formed on the side of the 

 citadel that effectually covered them. If General Chasse had this 

 night kept a good look out, his artillery might have made dreadful 

 havoc in the ranks of the besiegers ; for whatever may be the courage 

 of the French soldiers, the devotion and intelligence of the officers, 

 and, above all, the skill of the engineers and artillery, it is doubtful 

 if a well directed sortie, favoured as it would have been by the dark- 

 ness of the night and a pelting rain, would not have caused both 



