210 
B AT 
BAT 
are coitiposed of five sleepers or joists of 
wood, laid lengthways, the whole length of 
the intended platform ; and to keep them 
firm in their places, stakes must be driven 
into the ground on each side : these sleepers 
are then covered with sound thick planks, 
laid parallel to the parapet; and at the lower 
end of the platform, next to the parapet, a 
piece of timber six inches square, called a 
hurter, is placed, to prevent the wheels from 
damaging the parapet. Platforms are gene- 
rally made 18 feet long, 15 feet broad be- 
hind, and 9 before, with a slope of about 9 or 
10 inches, to prevent the guns from recoiling 
too much, and for bringing them more easily 
forward when loaded. The dimensions of the 
platforms, sleepers, planks, hurters, and nails, 
pught to be regulated according to the na- 
ture of the pieces that are to be mounted. 
d’he powder-magazines to serve the bat- 
teries ought to be at a convenient distance 
from them, as also from each other; the large 
one at least 55 feet in the rear of the bat- 
tery, and the small ones about 25. Some- 
times the large magazines are made either to 
the right or left of the battery, in order to 
deceive the enemy ; they are generally built 
five feet under ground; the sides and roof 
must be well secured with hoards, and cover- 
ed with earth, clay, or something of a similar 
substance, to prevent the powder from being 
fired: they are guarded by centinels. The 
balls are piled in readiness beside the merlins, 
between the embrasures. 
The oflicers of the artillery ought always 
to construct their own batteries and plat- 
forms, and not the engineers, as is practised 
in England; for certainly none can be so 
good judges of those things as the artillery 
officers, whose daily practice it is; conse- 
quently they are the most proper to direct 
the situation and to superintend the making 
of batteries on all occasions. 
Battery, mortar. These kind of bat- 
teries differ from gun-batteries, only in having 
no embrasures. They consist in a parapet 
of 18 or 20 feet thick, high in front, and 
6 in the rear ; of a berm 2\ or 3 feet broad, 
according to the quality of the earth; of a 
ditch 24 feet broad at the top, and 20 at the 
bottom. The beds must be 9 feet long, 6 
broad, 8 from each other, and 5 feet from the 
part: they are not to be sloping like the gun- 
/ platforms, but exactly horizontal. The in- 
sides of these batteries are sometimes sunk 
two or three feet into the ground, by which 
they are much sooner made than those of 
cannon. The powder-magazines and piles 
of shells are placed as is mentioned in Gun- 
battery. 
Battery, ricochet, so called by its inven- 
tor M. Vauban, and first used a’t the siege 
ofAeth, in 1697. It is a method of firing 
with a very small quantity of powder, and a 
little elevation, so as just to fire over the pa- 
rapet ; and then the shot will roll along the 
opposite rampart, dismounting the cannon, 
and driving or destroying the troops. In a 
siege they are generally placed at about 300 
feet before the first parallel, perpendicular to 
the faces produced, which they are to enfi- 
lade. Ricochet practice is not confined to 
cannon alone ; small mortars and howitzers 
may effectually be used for the same pur- 
pose. They are of singular usfe in action to 
enfilade the enemy’s ranks ; for when the 
men perceive the shells rolling about with 
B A T' 
, their fuses burning, expecting them to burst 
1 every moment, the bravest among them will 
not have courage to wait their approach and 
face the havock of their explosion. 
Batteries, horizontal , are such as have 
only a parapet and ditch ; the platform being 
only the surface of the horizon made level. 
Batteries, breach or sunk, are such as 
are sunk upon the glacis with a design to 
make an accessible breach in the faces or 
salient angles of the bastion and ravelin. 
Batteries, cross, are such as play 
athwart each other against the same object, 
forming an angle at the point of contact; 
whence greater destruction follows, because 
what one shot shakes, the other beats down. 
Batteries, oblique, or batteries enechurpe, 
are those which play on any work obliquely, 
making an obtuse angle with the line of range, 
after striking the object. 
Batteries, enfilading, are those that 
sweep or scour the whole length of a straight 
line, or the face or flank of any work. 
Batteries, redan, are such as flank each 
other at the salient and rentrant angles of a 
fortification. 
Batteries, direct, are those situated op- 
posite to the place intended to be battered, 
so that the bails strike the works nearly at 
right angles. 
Batteries, reverse, are those which play 
on the rear of the troops appointed to defend 
the place. 
Batteries, glancing, are such whose shot 
strike the object at an angle of about 20°, 
after which the ball glances from the object, 
and recoils to some adjacent parts. 
Batteries, joint, \ when several 
Batteries, camarade, ) guns fire on the 
same object at the same time. When ten 
guns are fired at once, their effect will be 
much greater than when fired separately. 
Batteries, sunk, are those whose plat- 
forms are sunk beneath the level of the field, 
the ground serving for the parapet, and in it 
the embrasures are made. This often hap- 
pens in mortar, but seldom in gun, batteries. 
Battery sometimes signifies the guns them- 
selves placed in a battery. 
Batteries, fascine, \ are batteries made 
Batteries, gabion, ] of those machines 
where sods are scarce and the earth very loose 
or sandy. 
BATTERY-pfattAw are those planks or boards 
used in making platforms. 
Battery-^oxcs are square chests or boxes 
filled with earth or dung, used in making bat- 
teries, where gabions and earth are not to be 
had: they must not be too large, but of a size 
that is governable. 
Battery-/?/!!:/.? are wooden pins made of 
the toughest wood, with which the planks that 
cover the platforms, are fastened. Iron nails 
might strike fire against the iron-work of the 
wheels, in recoiling, &c. and be dangerous. 
Battery, in law, the striking, beating, or 
offering any violence to another person,- for 
which damages may be recovered. But if 
the plaintiff made the first assault the defend- 
ant shall be quit, and the plaintiff amerced to 
the king for his false suit. Battery is fre- 
quently confounded with assault, though, in 
law, they are different offences; for in the 
trespass tor assault and battery, one may be 
found guilty of assault, yet acquitted of the 
battery ; there may therefore be assault with- 
out battery, but battery always implies an 
assault, bee Assault. 
BA 1 I IT., m the military art, has ever 
been the last resource ot good generals. 'V 
situation where chance and accident often 
bailie and overcome the most prudential and 
most able arrangements, and' where superi- 
ority of numbers by no means ensures suc- 
cess, is such as is never entered into without 
a clear necessity for so doing. I he inditing 
a battle only because the enemy is near, or 
from having no other formed plan of offence, 
is a direful way of making war. Darius lost 
his crown and life by it ; king Harold of Eng- 
land did the same; and Francis I. at Pavfa 
lost the battle and his Iibertv. King John of 
France fought the battle of Poictiers, though 
i u in attended his enemy it he had not fought. 
r I he true situation for giving battle is when 
an army’s situation cannot be worse, if defeat- 
ed, than if it does not fight at all ; and when 
the advantage may be great, and the loss 
little. Such was the duke of Cumberland’s 
at Hastenbeck, in 1/5/, and prince Ferdi- 
nand’s at V elfin ghausen, in 1761. The rea- 
sons and situations for giving battle are so 
numerous, that to treat of them all would fill 
a large volume ; we shall therefore content 
ourselves with the following ; — There may be 
exigencies of state that require its army to 
attack the enemy at all events. Such were 
the causes of the battle of Blenheim in 1704, 
of Zorndorffin 1758, of Cunnersdorff’in 1759J 
and of Rosbach in 1757. To raise a siege,! 
to defend or cover a country. A11 army is 
also obliged to engage when shut up in a post. 
An army may give battle to effect its junc- 
tion with another army, &c. 
The preparations for battle admit of infinite 
variety. By a knowledge of the detail of 
battles, the precept will accompany the ex- 
ample. 1 he main general preparations are, " 
to profit by any advantage of ground ; that 
the tactical form of the army be in some mea- 
sure adapted to it; and that such form be, if 
possible, a form tactically belter than the 
enemy’s; and, in forming the arm v, to have 
a most careful attention to multiply resources,! 
so that the fate of the army may not hang on 
one or two efforts; to give any particular part 
of the army, whose quality is superior to such 
part ot the enemy’s army, a position that en- 
sures action ; and, finally, to have a rear by 
nature or if possible by art, capable of check- 
ing the enemy in case of defeat. 
The dispositions of battles admit likewise 
of an infinite variety of cases ; for even the 
difference of ground which happens at almost 
every step, gives occasion to change the dis- I 
position or plan; and a general’s experience! 
will teach him to profit by tins, and take the 
advantage the ground offers him. It is an 
instant, a coup-d'oeil, which decides this ; for 
it is to be feared the enemy may deprive you 
of those advantages, or turn them to his own 
profit ; and for that reason this admits of no ' 
precise rule, the whole depending on the time 
and the occasion. 
With regard to battles, there are three-l 
things to be considered : what precedes, what 
accompanies, and what follows the action. i 
As to what precedes the action, you should 
unite all your force, examine the advantage : 
of the ground, the wind, and the sun (things 
not to be neglected), and choose if possibles 
field of battle proportioned to the number of) 
your troops. 
