ENCAMl'MKXT. 



U'STIC PAIXTINi:. 



whil* using their cross-bow*. ( Hut. de U MUice ft*noou,' liv. vii., 



, !: | > 



In the modern sysUui of war, from the nec*.ity of avoiding u 

 much M po-aole the destructive ffcU of the enemy's artillery, and 

 the dssire of aUbrding all passible deralopment to tbe are of their own 

 iniiuitry. ooounandera of armies hare been compelled to abandon the 

 Miuare form of tbe ancient encampment*, and to adopt that of long and 

 narrow lines. But with this arrangement it seldom happen* that the 

 ground will permit a perfect regularity in the dispositions of the several 

 t^^H-^. anj nquadrona ; and the oocurrenoe of itreaiui or other acoi- 

 deaU of the country may break the continuity of the line, or may 

 render it neceeeary to give it a bent or waring direction. When, how- 

 ever, an army u encamped under tents, it may be regarded a* a general 

 rule *^r* the line should correspond to that in which the troop* are to 

 oe drawn up to engage the enemy; al*> that the tents of each battalion 

 should not occupy a greater space in front than the battalion itself 

 would cover when in order of battle, a practice which is said to have 

 originated with Gustsvus Adolphus. 



The length of the front of a battalion of 750 men, two deep, allow- 

 ing 21 inches to each file, will be 219 yards; and this would be the 

 extent of the line of tents, were it not that the line U regulated by 

 the probable number of effectives, inttnml of the numerical strength of 

 tin establishment. The depth of the encampment for a battalion 

 is of less importance ; but, when the ground will permit, it i 

 regulated by the following disposition, which is considered to afford 

 sufficient convenience. 



The tents of the privates may be ranged in two lines parallel to the 

 front, with an interval of about 12 feet as a street between ever)' two 

 companies in each line, and those of the captains and subalterns may 

 be in one line in the rear of these ; the field-officers and the commanding 

 officer may occupy a fourth line ; the staff a fifth ; and the line of 

 kitchens may be in the rear of all. By this arrangement the depth, 

 ;v<lin<ing a space for the sutler's tent, the batmen and horses, will 

 be about 90 yards ; but an interval of 16 yards should separate the 

 front of the men's tents from the line of parade, which is parallel to 

 that front. Opposite the centre of the battalion, and about 60 yards 

 in front of the line of parade, are the tents of the party which forms 

 ' what is called the quarter-guard; and at about 15 yards in rear of the 

 kitchens the party forming the rear-guard is situated. Including all 

 these intervals, the depth of the encampment for infantry will be 

 183 yards. 



The length of front for a complete regiment of cavalry, consisting 

 of eight troops, when formed two deep, is about 320 yards ; and this 

 may be considered as the extent occupied by the regiment in the line 

 of the encampment. The seven tents of each troop are ranged in a 

 line perpendicular to the front, and the horses are attached to pickets 

 in lines parallel to those of the tents ; the remainder of the space, 

 reckoned parallel to the front, being occupied by the breadths of the 

 streets. In rear of the men's tents, and parallel to the front, are 

 arranged the subalterns' horses in one line ; the tents of the captains 

 and subalterns in another ; those of the field-officers and commanding 

 officer in a third, and the kitchens in the rear of all. The standards 

 are placed parallel to the front at 10 yards before the tents of the 

 private* ; and the distance from thence to the line of parade is 30 

 yards with these dispositions the whole depth of a regiment of 

 cavalry will be 216 yards. 



A large army is encamped in two lines which, if the ground will 

 permit it, are parallel to, and at the distance of about 300 yards from 

 each other ; and a reserve, generally consisting of the best troops, is 

 formed in rear of the second. The stations of the cavalry arc on the 

 flanks of each line. The artillery attached to an army is formed into 

 brigades, and i posted either on the flanks of the camp or with the 

 lesenti in the rear ; the extent of front, for a heavy brigade, is 69 yards, 

 and the depth, including the line of guns, of limbers, and three lines 

 of waggons, is 82 yards. 



The circular tents at present in use are 13 feet 3 inches diameter 

 within the walls (the canvas which hongs vertically between the conical 

 part of the tent and the ground). Of the cavalry 12 men, and of the 

 infantry 15 men, are appointed to each tent. 



Kmm a document which is supposed to be of the time of Elizabeth, 

 it appears that then an English camp was divided into six portions, of 

 which three were assigned to the cavalry and three to the foot 

 oldiers ; and that between every division was a street 80 feet wide. 

 There was also a space allotted for the market, and within this was the 

 park of artillery, surrounded by carriages. It was regulated that 

 no man should pitch his tent within 140 feet of the ring, or periphery 

 of the camp. 



The soldiers' huts or tents were placed 25 deep ; each was eight 

 feet square, and contained two men ; the depth of the encampment, 

 including the depots, the officers' tents, and the cross streets, was 800 

 feet; and, including the street*, the whole extent in front of a 

 regiment consisting of 13 companies, each of 160 men, was 712 feet. 

 Originally, it nans, the officers' tents were placed in front of those 

 occupied by tbe men; but Sir James Turner states that Henry of 

 Nassau cbangrd that custom, and caused them to be placed in the rear, 

 as they are at present, in order that the soldiers might be enabled to 

 have more easy access to the parade in front of the line. (Urose, U. 

 -13,214.) 



The great extent of the space which, for the reasons before men- 

 tioned, is unavoidably occupied by an army in the fit-Id, renders it. in 

 most oases, impossible to fortify the site of the encampment by a 

 continuous line of parapet like that with which the Roman armies 

 surrounded themselves on taking up a defensive position ; and the 

 security of a modern army against surprises is now obtained prin- 

 cipally by the situation being difficult of access, from streams, marshal, 

 or inequalities of the ground, and by keeping numerous advanced 

 posts to watch all the approaches by which an enemy might arrive at 

 the camp. 



There are, however, some circumstances which render it indispen- 

 sable that an encampment should be strengthened by fortifications ; 

 as when the troops are inexperienced or the army is deficient in 

 cavalry ; but chiefly when a position is occupied which it is of the 

 utmost importance to hold, because the possession of it would ! 

 advantageous to the enemy. The latter may then be reduced to the 

 alternative of attacking the encampment at a disadvantage, or of 

 suffering a loss of valuable time in mating the movements necessary 

 to turn it In these cases, every resource of the engineer in the con- 

 struction of works and in obstructing the approaches should be put in 

 practice for the purpose of augmenting the resistance which the army 

 may be capable of making. 



A continuous line of works may therefore be admissible for an army 

 inferior to that of the enemy, provided the extent of the line be not 

 so great as to prevent the intrenchments from being sufficinitly 

 manned in every part ; but a camp so fortified would possess no 

 advantages for an army which is strong enough to assume the offensive 

 on a favourable occasion presenting itself ; and it is evident that, in 

 this case, it would be sufficient to construct merely a few redoubts in 

 situations from whence a fire of artillery might be directed for the 

 purpose of defending the approaches, while the disposable force <! th- 

 army might be kept in masses ready, at a proper time, to make a 

 movement to the front through the intervals between tbe works. 



This principle does not, till lately, appear to have been well under- 

 stood ; and the cautious spirit with which a campaign was conducted 

 during the 18th century contrasts strongly with the bold measures 

 generally pursued in the wars of Napoleon. Marshal Daun, though 

 always superior in number to the Prussians, intrenched himself with 

 the utmost anxiety ; 'and in 1759, when he took up a position near 

 Dresden, though the King of Prussia had lost the battle of Kuners- 

 dorf , and the Austrian army was encamped upon steep rocks, covered 

 by a stream difficult to pass, yet the marshal surrounded himself with 

 works so numerous, that even the smallest paths were protected by 

 them, and BO strong, that twenty years afterwards they were in exist- 

 ence. But one of the most celebrated of these intrenched camps was that 

 which, in 1761, the King of Prussia took up at Buntzelwitz, in order 

 to cover Breslau. This camp was formed within a chain of hills pro- 

 tected on three aides by streams : six salient points on the contour 

 were fortified by bastions, the fires from which would have flanked 

 the intermediate parts of the line, and these were further protected l>\ 

 jitrlia, constituting a sort of broken curtain between every two 

 redoubts. Nearly 180 pieces of artillery were planted to defend the 

 avenues, and the camp was surrounded by abatis and other obstacles 

 by which the approach of an enemy might be impeded. (Jomini, 

 ' Traite" des Orondea Operations Militaires,' torn, iv.) Such intrench- 

 ments, however, avail nothing when the army is not commanded by a 

 man of great military genius. The French camp at Malplaquet, in 

 1709, is stated to have been fortified with a triple line, consisting of 

 breastworks, hedges, and felled trees ; it was forced, however, though 

 with great loss, by the allies under the Duke of Marlborough. 



It is remarkable that, during the war in Spain, which in general 

 was distinguished by inattention to the means of strengthening the 

 positions occupied by the troops, one of the finest examples of an 

 intrenched camp was afforded in that which the British army occupied 

 before Lisbon in 1810. This consisted of a double line of detached 

 redoubts constructed on all the commanding points of ground, for the 

 purpose of defending the four great roads and the accessible passes by 

 which the enemy could approach to that city. The first line began at 

 the mouth of the /.i/.-imini on the Atlantic ; it crowned the heights 

 above Torres Vedras, and following the chain of Monte Graca, ex- 

 tended to the Tagus at Alhandra, its whole length being about 29 

 miles. The second was about six miles in the rear of the first ; it 

 began at the mouth of the S. Lorenzo, on the ocean, passed over the 

 heights at Mafra, Montechique, and BuceUas, and reached the Tagus, 

 at Quintella, its whole extent, in length, being about 24 miles. Th.- 

 weakest part seems to have been the valley of Calhaudria, near the 

 Tagus, on the exterior line ; but this part was afterwards strengthened 

 by a double row of abatis, besides breast-works of earth and thick 

 stone walls. When the lines were completed, they consisted of 152 

 redoubts, armed, in all, with 584 pieces of ordnance, and required 

 above 34,000 men for their garrisons. The disbursements for their 

 construction amounted to nearly 100,0001. (Colonel Jonea, ' Memo- 

 randa on the Lines about Lisbon,' p. 107.) [LuM or INTKCNCUME.VT ; 

 MILITARY POSITIONS.] 



ENCAUSTIC PAINTING (tymvarutt, encaustike) is a kind of 

 painting much in vogue among the anciunU, in which by heating or 

 burning in (as the Greek term implied), the colours were rendered per- 

 manent in all their original splendour. In speaking of encaustic 



