MILITARY ORGANIZATION OF PRUSSIA. 27 



to the foot of the walls. The walls are flanked by the flank fires of 

 bastions and by casemated batteries constructed at the gorge at the 

 extremity of each face of the towers. The communications with the 

 batteries of the bastions and with the towers are subterraneous. 



The towers may be placed in three very different positions ; they 

 occupy the place of the ancient te demi-lunes" or they may be posited 

 as a " reduit" in the interior of a bastion, or lastly they may be isso- 

 lated. In the first case, they have only two faces like the ancient 

 demi-lunes, and their walls are flanked as we have described. If 

 again they are isolated, they may have two, three, and even four 

 faces, and are closed at the gorge by a loopholed wall, in the centre 

 of which there is sometimes a defensive caserne. Their walls are 

 flanked, when they have more than two faces, by casemated batteries 

 constructed on the middle of their faces, perpendicularly to those 

 faces, and with which there is no communication but through the 

 interior of the towers. When they serve as a reduit to a bastion 

 they are circular. 



The destructive effect of artillery upon thick and solid masonry 

 like that of the towers in question, would be rapid and decisive in 

 their operation, but at a very short range, like the breaching batteries 

 of Vauban established on the crest of the covered way. Thus, 

 although a great part of the masonry of these towers may be seen 

 from the ground in their vicinity, it would only be possible to breach 

 them with batteries established at a very short distance. The author 

 of the Prussian system appears to have relied principally on the 

 action of artillery to retard, if we may judge from the number of 

 embrasures, which in some instances are so near each other, that the 

 merlons are not of a sufficient width. The sap and artillery are the 

 principal agents in the attack of fortified places, but in the defence 

 artillery is but an accessory, and it is only with the bayonet that they 

 are to be successfully defended. Should experience in the end prove 

 the goodness of the Prussian system, it will not be owing, in our 

 opinion, to the fire of its numerous artillery, but because it is adapted 

 to the execution of sorties. 



If we consider the great roads and the fortresses which Prussia has 

 constructed prospectively to the military operations that may result 

 from a war with France, Russia, or Austria, we shall find that it is in 

 the hypothesis of a war with the first mentioned power that the most 

 important of these works have been formed. In fact, the three new 

 fortresses, Cologne and Coblentz on the Rhine, and Minden on the 

 Weser, have been constructed in the Rhenane provinces, and in 

 Westphalia, Juliers upon the Roer and Sarre Louis upon the Sarre, 

 have been greatly enlarged. Two permanent bridges of boats are 

 thrown <tver the Rhine at Cologne and at Coblentz, and numerous 

 great roads have been made in Westphalia and the Rhenane pro- 

 vinces. The principal great roads are, that from Berlin to Luxem- 

 bourg, through Halle, Cassel, Coblentz, and Treves ; that from 

 Berlin to Aix-la-Chapelle, through Brunswick, Minden, Munster, 

 and Wesel ; lastly, the road from Aix-la-Chapelle to Sarre Louis, 

 through Treves, along the frontiers of Belgium, Luxembourg, and 



