490 
POSEN AND. STRASBUKG. 
nearer together on and near the ridge of low hills which faces the place, at 
nearly three miles distance, from the north-west, which was occupied in the 
last siege by the earliest works of the besieging army, whence the first shells 
were thrown into the fortress, and which constitutes almost the only rising 
ground within bombarding ranges; and much further apart on the low 
lands adjoining the rivers. 
Nine of the detached forts, on the west side of the Rhine, are already 
completed and armed; three more, on the east side, are under construction ; 
and report says that two more are to be added to these three. They are all 
on one general plan—though some of them may run a little larger and 
contain a few more guns than others, where occupying more important 
sites—and are mainly noticeable for their massive construction, their essen¬ 
tial disposition for cover, and their provident accommodation for their 
armaments. The form is that of a very obtuse-angled lunette, closed at the 
gorge with a small bastioned front; with a command over the country of 
apparently about 25 ft., a thickness of parapet of 25 ft., earthen traverses 
(one running the whole length of the capital and carrying within itself very 
roomy interior communications, and one to each gun, with internal bomb¬ 
proof chamber) nearly as thick, and overtopping the parapets by a good 
3 ft.; the gorge works notably lower than those of the front ,'* and the 
interior space deeply sunk; the faces and flanks having detached escarps, the 
tops of which are some 10 or 12 ft. lower than the opposite crests of the 
glacis, which are raised 6 or 8 ft., at a slope of 45°, from the summits of 
the counterscarps; the ditches having a width of about 40 ft., and a depth 
of nearly 30 ft. These latter are defended by three covered musketry capon- 
nieres, of which that at the salient, having its sides traced perpendicularly 
to the faces which they flank, and its front somewhat rounded, assumes a 
kind of dove-tail or fan shape in plan; while those at the shoulders, having 
towards the front a mere dead continuation of the escarp wall of the face, 
are loopholed only on their reverse sides, which defend, and are perpen¬ 
dicular to, the flanks. In each case they are carried across the whole 
breadth of the ditch, which is nevertheless preserved at its proper width 
around their ends by sufficiently recessing the counterscarp at the required 
places: these recesses are provided with loopholed counterscarp galleries, 
which are of self-defensive trace and complete the defence of the caponnieres. 
The small bastion front of the gorge defends its own ditch—the more 
* It appeared to me, judging roughly by eye, that the gorge crests were, according to the 
normal design, some 10 or 12 ft. lower than the front crests, with a direct horizontal distance 
averaging from 80 to 100 ft. This amount of drop would not indeed be sufficient to keep these 
works below the effective reach of good curved fire; but in many instances, where the slopes of the 
ground have lent themselves to the situation, the lunette has been planted with its faces just 
occupying the top of the swell, and its gorge lying a little' way down the reverse slope. Thus, 
constructed on a plane of site inclined to the rear, the fort certainly lies little open to ordinary 
projectiles arriving from the front; but, it must be observed, by this same construction it is pro¬ 
portionally exposed, in its main rampart and means of action, to any enterprises contrived against 
it from the rear. 
The interior spaces, 12 or 15 ft. lower and 20 or 25 ft. nearer to the front, may be considered 
pretty well out of all but vertical fire. It is to be observed of them, however, that they have 
become so circumscribed in extent by the inward slope of the massive earthen banks all round 
them, as seriously to threaten the maintenance of that freedom of assembly and of movement of 
troops which has been hitherto generally essential to activity of defence* 
