POSEN AND STKASBURG. 
493 
of communication, may be all, or nearly all, body (constructed on the same 
principles of cover, &c., as the new works above described), with only such 
detached forts as may be necessitated by neighbouring shapes of the ground; 
a larger fortress, including a depot or arsenal, would require, in addition to 
a regularly fortified body, some detached works to contravene bombard¬ 
ment ; a fortress of the largest class, serving to protect a frontier and to 
secure a strategic camp, might consist almost entirely of a system of 
detached forts (including, of course, their proper concomitant supporting 
works), with a body only so far fortified as to be secure against surprise or 
assault—the amount of extensiveness of the system employed being no more 
than proportionate to the inherent importance of the place, on account of 
the great strength of garrison which the active defence of the system of 
detached forts demands. 
But in the two instances before us—the latest expression of the views of 
the most persistently scientific war-administration of the day—are no doubt 
evinced some leading principles for fortification under rifled-gun conditions. 
Additional principles may be yet to be developed, and the complete system 
not to be arrived at until after progressive trials and vicissitudes; but, in 
the meantime, the superiority must abide with those who shall detect the 
principles which underlie contemporary failures and successes, and who will 
thence be enabled to apply them to immediate practice with only such 
modifications of detail as the circumstances of the occasion may demand. 
London, 
June, 1876. 
