488 
POSEN AND STRASBURG. 
The armament is composed of rifled guns for the general defence, and of 
smooth-bore field pieces (old bronze muzzle-loaders) for most of the flanks— 
the Germans having satisfied themselves that the fire of the latter is more 
effective, over a limited range, than that of the mitrailleuse; and this 
determination of the question must be regarded, at any rate, in so far pure 
and unbiassed, as that the usual perturbing considerations of economy were 
in abeyance—the country having in store a superfluity of either weapon. 
The rifled artillery appears to consist principally of 8-in. howitzers and 6-in. 
guns—the former of bronze, of the pattern originally termed and treated as 
mortars, mounted on mechanically-traversing, labour-saving, recoil-checking 
carriages; the latter, forming the main strength of the armament, of various 
patterns, lengths, and weights, and variously of iron, steel, or bronze (this 
being also the order of their power and weight)—the last metal being still 
considered eligible, on account of convenience of manufacture and econo¬ 
mical conversion of the stocks in hand, for the construction of those shorter 
and lighter guns which, burning but moderate powder-charges, do not 
demand great strength or resisting power in their material. 
One incidental feature of the interior economy generally observed with 
regard to the armament of German fortresses—-viz., the keeping the guns 
and carriages, not on the works, but dismounted in convenient adjacent 
storehouses—lends a peculiar value to the artilleristic training involved in 
the general exercise for' the garrison (which comes off every year for several 
consecutive days) of carrying out the operations of the defence against a 
given supposititious regular attack. On these occasions, outposts, pickets, 
and guards are established, the works concerned are manned and armed, 
embrasures are cut, expense magazines and supplies of all kinds made ready; 
so the different branches of the service learn not only their own place and 
work, but also their relation to and dependence on one another, to a degree 
which is not so generally attainable in the more settled regularity of British 
garrisons. 
Strasburg,* on the river Ill, nearly a mile west from the Rhine, commands 
the principal natural lines of communication by land and water up and 
down the Rhine valley, at the points where they are crossed by the main 
east-and-west road between Southern Germany and Trance. This road was 
necessarily determined, from the earliest times, by the best natural track* 
increasing size and character of the sort of work to which it was originally applied. The word 
which was precisely fitted to such defences as a Roman legion in Britain would throw up to secure 
its halting-place for the night, can hardly be appropriate to a chain of permanent forts, 20 or 
30 miles long, resting on a first-class fortress. 
* Owing to an accident in the transmission of my application for permission to inspect this 
fortress, I visited it without that special authorisation from the German Head-Quarter Staff which 
had procured for me every facility and personal kindness in my pursuit of fortificational information 
at Posen. I found that without such authority I could obtain no more privilege of observation 
than the ordinary tourist, who is supposed to be effectively precluded from any close investigations. 
Nevertheless, working as a tourist, I had no great difficulty in making myself acquainted with all 
the principal features of the place; and I should suppose that, in the present day, in fortresses of 
the new and extended system, but few particulars can be reserved from the cognizance of observant 
military travellers; unless those connected with subterranean defence. 
