FIELD FORTIFICATION. 
87 
given them every advantage, we find the British garrison engaged hand 
to hand and suffering serious loss; the loss of the enemy being probably 
confined to the 6 dead and wounded left behind. 
In the case of battle-fields, it must be to the interest of the enemy 
to make a vigorous and concentrated attack on some point or points 
which he considers weakest, or the capture of which will give him the 
most decisive results. In defending these points no sources of strength 
should be abandoned, and under ordinary circumstances obstacles do 
constitute a source of strength, though it may well be a question 
whether time and labour are first to be devoted to them or to other 
works. 
Before dealing with the details of obstacles, it is well to consider the 
conditions which they must comply with. The chief are— 
1. Not to give cover or screen to the enemy. 
2. To be within effective range of line of defence. 
3. To be easily made with the means available in the field. 
4. To be effective in detaining the enemy under fire and breaking 
up his formation. 
The first is obviously a necessary condition, as a clear field of fire is 
of even more importance than an obstacle. 
As regards the second condition, it is generally laid down that the 
obstacle should not only be within effective range, but it should not be 
too close to the line of defence, as it is damaging to the morale of the 
defenders to see the attackers in very superior force quite close to them: 
between 100 and 300 yards from the line of defence is generally con¬ 
sidered a suitable position for obstacles in battle-fields. 
The other two conditions require more detailed notice. There is, I 
think, too much tendency to judge of obstacles as regards the impedi¬ 
ment they offer, not to masses of men, but to individuals, and judged 
by this standard, such an obstacle as “shallow military pits,” especially 
when estimated-by the obstacle formed by a few constructed for peace 
training, seems trivial and useless; even the ordinary form of wire 
entanglement seems hardly sufficient, and there is a craving for such 
elaborate “ forms ” as the barbed wire entanglements of our text¬ 
books. But the conditions of war are very different. We must picture 
to ourselves the attaching line gradually made denser and denser by 
wave after wave of reinforcements as it approaches the line of defence; 
for it is difficult to conceive how the attack can finally advance to the 
shock in the face of a resolute enemy standing shoulder to shoulder 
under good cover, unless they are themselves, not merely shoulder to 
shoulder in single line, but in more or less of masses; for we know that 
the feeling of being in a mass lends force to an attack. It is to such a 
mass that our obstacle is designed to form a hindrance : a inass burn¬ 
ing to cross the small space intervening between them and the enemy, 
and to put a stop to the awful fire : and it need not be an obstacle 
calculated to stop an individual that will break up the formation of the 
mass, throw it into confusion, and check it under deadly close range 
fire. If it can be arranged that the enemy shall come suddenly on 
an unexpected obstacle, the effect is much increased. And no detail is 
