"As for myself I cannot quit a neighbourhood where I have lived with my brother, and where we have met with so much sympathy."
Extracts from Captain Jean's papers.
Attack implies a shock or onset; defence is a resistance to this onset. Whether a piece of ordnance discharges a ball against a plate of iron, or a casing of masonry, or an earthwork; or an assaulting column climbs a breach, the problem is substantially the same; in either case we have to oppose to the impulsive force a resistance that will neutralise its effect.
When there were no projectile weapons, or their range was inconsiderable, only a normal resistance had to be opposed to the shock—a man to a man—or if the effect was to be rendered certain, two men to one. But when projectile arms acquired a longer range, the position of the attack and defence became a question of importance. Thus were evolved for combatants in open ground the elements of tactics, and for fortification, arrangements of a more and more complicated character.
It is evident, for example, that when it came to a close engagement—a hand-to-hand struggle with an adversary; if the latter found himself placed behind a circular enclosure, the obstacle that protected him would give him a considerable advantage—an advantage that could only be compensated for by renewing the attack.
Fig. 76.
To make this very simple principle intelligible at a glance, suppose ([Fig. 76]) a circular enclosure containing forty defenders separated from each other about a yard apart; a hand-to-hand struggle can only be carried on with a number equal to that of the defenders—or nearly so—and these under cover. It is no use for the assailants to assemble as at A, they can only present a front equal to that of the defence, and if this is energetic, the triangle a, b, c, will be effective only at c.
