POSEN AND STBASBtJKG. 
489 
through, the defiles of the Black Forest on the east side of the river, and 
over the passages of the Yosges Mountains on the west side; and Strasburg 
would appear to have been founded (originally by the Celts, re-established 
by the Homans, obliterated by the Goths, and, after successive destructions, 
finally reinstated on the same site by the Franks—fortress and cathedral 
growing up together, and flourishing in virtue' of their reciprocal power, 
after the manner of the earlier middle ages) not, indeed, at the actual 
crossing of the road and river, but on the nearest spot of eligible land 
thereto—the adjacent country having been marshy and subject to flooding, 
whilst the actual site is sound and slightly raised above the neighbourhood. 
The original establishment, moreover, having been confined to an island of 
the Ill, enjoyed the advantage of complete enclosure by an important natural 
moat. This advantage, as the place has grown, has been converted into a 
power of very extensive inundation of the adjoining lands. 
In the matter of railway communications, Strasburg covers the southern¬ 
most intersection of a principal north-and-south line with one of those main 
east-and-west lines which, passing by or through the central depots—such 
as Magdeburg, Leipsig, Dresden, and Berlin—connect the two frontiers 
together, and allow of the rapid presentation of strength at either extremity. 
In strategic relation to the frontier, having Metz on its right front, it 
screens the remainder of South Germany against any operation from the 
west—much as Posen serves for Worth Germany towards the east. 
The fortifications of the place (strong from the earliest periods; tho¬ 
roughly re-established by Yauban on a most comprehensive scheme, and 
endowed by him with facilities for laying the country under water round 
fully three-fourths of their circuit; added to by succeeding engineers 
according to the vogue of the times; and reckoned, up to the beginning of 
the rifled-gun period, unapproachable and impregnable) presented at the 
time of the last war an encircling belt, of from a quarter to half a mile in 
depth, of manifold permanent works, in almost labyrinthine profusion of 
design—with citadel, bastioned enceinte, retrenchments, ditches (wet and 
dry and variable), counterguards, outworks, and advanced works; the inun¬ 
dation outside all except the western parts: yet, after resisting unshaken 
the first effort of the besiegers to override its powers of regular opposition 
by the sudden shock of unforeseen unprecedented bombardment from a 
distance (an essay which was very successful at some other places at about 
the same period), the fortress succumbed, in the short space of one month, 
to the German regular attack—fairly laid open by the immitigable ever- 
biting action of a persistent scientific fire from heavy rifled artillery. 
Now, to protect the place, as a centre of supplies and communications, 
from distant bombardment; and, moreover, to present to the regular attack 
defences less liable to rapid disablement than those of the earlier systems j 
at the same time establishing the seat of a great strategic camp; a ring of 
detached forts is being planted around it, at an average distance from the 
cordon of nearly 5000 yds. and from one another of somewhat more than 
2000 yds., with a margin of variation of nearly 1000 yds. either way- 
according as the local circumstances of the ground afford, in the former 
relation (as to radial distance) sufficiency of command nearer or further 
from home, and in the latter (as to lateral interval) sites more or less 
favourable for the operations of a besieger. Thus these works occur much 
63 
