486 
POSEN AND STEASBUBG. 
now patent, in their lofty walls, to the accurately curved course of rifled 
projectiles, may certainly be ruined from a distance; and the same predica¬ 
tion applies, under an essential peremptory limitation, to all the masonry 
escarps of the place—under the condition, that is, of a sufficient amount of 
means being available. The amount of means sufficient to destroy from a 
distance a suitable extent of the escarps of this system—taking into account 
the depth and narrowness of the ditches, the peculiar construction of the 
detached escarps/* and the solidity and counter-arching of all the revetment 
walls—would no doubt be large; but the quantity, granted the recent im¬ 
provements in quality, lies within the province of fair calculation, and may 
be duly and fully provided. 
Yet, however great the degree of intrinsic strength which may be credited 
to the actual works which enclose the place, its interior has become dis¬ 
tinctly liable to bombardment from a distance. Barracks, storehouses, 
magazines, workshops, and town, within, as well as the very extensive 
railway plant and stations without,t might be destroyed with certainty and 
convenience under a given expenditure of time and ammunition, and the 
place be left a mere self-defensive shell from which the kernel of active force 
had been burnt out. 
Therefore the existing fortress is to be surrounded by a series of eleven 
detached forts, at distances from the cordon of between 3000 and 5000 yds., 
and at intervals from one another of between 2000 and 3000 yds. These 
forts will be supported, according to the necessities resulting from the shape 
of the ground, by intermediate batteries in retired positions, to the number 
of five or six. These batteries are to be composed of little more than a 
massive parapet with a moderate allowance of obstacle, the exact form and 
armament remaining to be adjusted at the last moment to the developments 
of the purpose of the enemy. The batteries, in their turn, are to be sup¬ 
ported by adjacent covered way, with parapet, which is to be constructed 
wherever desirable. A circular road will connect all the forts together— 
running, as directly as may be, just in rear of them; a “girdle” railroad 
will pass round between this and the body of the place (the existing rail¬ 
roads, where running tangentially to the latter, being largely utilised); radial 
railroads and roads will run to the individual forts; and telegraph wires 
will be laid from each of them, underground, to the centre and to its 
fellows. 
It is worthy of note that, whereas the original design for the detached 
forts had laid them down at distances averaging nearly 5000 yds. from the 
enceinte, according to which the road of circuit would have measured some 
30 miles—the present Governor of the fortress having remonstrated against 
the occupation of such an extensive line, on account of its necessary aggra¬ 
vation of the task of the general military defence in such matters as the 
system of outposts, guards, reliefs, communication, and superintendence—the 
* It is proper to remember that these escarp walls, having the upper two-thirds of their height 
detached and only the lower third backed by the earth of the rampart, cannot possibly, when cut 
down so far by fire, let down any sufficient quantity of earth or debris to neutralise the effective 
obstacle still offered by their remaining solid-revetment bases. 
f In these eastern regions of vast plains and cumbrous long trains, the depots, few and far 
between, cover a very great extent of ground, and are found necessarily outside the enceinte of 
regularly fortified places. 
