It was for a time the fashion to speak with contempt of entrenchments
and their utility. The cordon lines of the French frontier, which had
been often burst through; the entrenched camp at Breslau in which the
Duke of Bevern was defeated, the battle of Torgau, and several other
cases, led to this opinion of their value; and the victories of
Frederick the Great, gained by the principle of movement and the use of
the offensive, threw a fresh light on all kind of defensive action, all
fighting in a fixed position, particularly in intrenchments, and
brought them still more into contempt. Certainly, when a few thousand
men are to defend several miles of country, and when entrenchments are
nothing more than ditches reversed, they are worth nothing, and they
constitute a dangerous snare through the confidence which is placed in
them. But is it not inconsistent, or rather nonsensical, to extend this
view even to the _idea of field fortification_, in a mere swaggering
spirit (as Templehof does)? What would be the object of entrenchments
generally, if not to strengthen the defence? No, not only reason but
experience, in hundreds and thousands of instances, show that a
well-traced, sufficiently manned, and well defended entrenchment is,
_as a rule, to be looked upon as an impregnable point_, and is also so
regarded by the attack. Starting from this point of the efficiency of a
single entrenchment, we argue that there can be no doubt as to the
attack of an entrenched camp being a most difficult undertaking, and
one in which generally it will be impossible for the assailant to
succeed.
It is consistent with the nature of an entrenched camp that it should
be weakly garrisoned; but with good, natural obstacles of ground and
strong field works, it is possible to bid defiance to superior numbers.
Frederick the Great considered the attack of the camp of Pirna as
impracticable, although he had at his command double the force of the
garrison; and although it has been since asserted, here and there, that
it was quite possible to have taken it; the only proof in favour of
this assertion is founded on the bad condition of the Saxon troops; an
argument which does not at all detract in any way from the value of
entrenchments. But it is a question, whether those who have since
contended not only for the feasibility but also for the facility of the
attack, would have made up their minds to execute it at the time.
We, therefore, think that the attack of an entrenched camp belongs to
the category of quite exceptional means on the part of the offensive.
It is only if the entrenchments have been thrown up in haste are not
completed, still less strengthed by obstacles to prevent their being
approached, or when, as is often the case taken altogether, the whole
camp is only an outline of what it was intended to be, a half-finished
ruin, that then an attack on it may be advisable, and at the same time
become the road to gain an easy conquest over the enemy.