184 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
SOME OBSERVATIONS 
AMONGST GERMAN ARMIES 
DURING 1870. 
BY 
COLONEL H. A. SMYTIL, R.A. 
Haying been enabled through the kindness of General Von 
Zastrow, commanding the 7th corps of the Prussian army, to be 
present at the bombardment of Thionville, to examine the fortifi¬ 
cations and neighbourhood of Metz, and to make some observations 
of novelties in Prussian tactics, I beg to offer my account of the first, 
together with my remarks on the remainder, to the consideration of 
such officers as may be interested therein. 
Thionville , 
Situation a I° WI] °f about 5,000 inhabitants within the walls, 
1 Uc 1 ' and some small suburbs outside the “ zone of clearance/ 5 is 
situated astride the Moselle at a point where the valley of this river, 
generally some five miles wide and remarkable for its fertility and 
extreme plainness, is narrowed, by the intrusion of the prevailing hilly 
country, to within two miles; and was no doubt originally intended 
to control the passage up and down the valley, as the hills are of a 
somewhat mountainous and difficult character: at the present day it 
commands two lines of railway as well as a slight navigation on the 
Moselle, on which small steamers ply upwards as far as Metz. The 
configuration of the ground furnished the cause for the origin of this 
fortress, the incentive to its sieges, and, in these last days, the 
means for its capture. 
Having around it, for a mile more or less, an almost 
01 1 ca 10n ’ theoretical plain, fortified by Vauban somewhat after his 
first system, but with the addition of a labyrinth of counterguards 
