vent; also the measured line used to obtain ranges by triangulation.
=Base of Operations.= That secure line of frontier or fortresses, or
strong country occupied by troops, or of sea occupied by fleets, from
which forward movements are made, supplies furnished, and upon which a
retreat may be made, if necessary.
=Base of the Breech.= In gunnery, is the rear surface of the breech of a
gun.
=Basel, Treaty of.= This place gives its name to two important treaties
of peace, concluded here on April 5 and July 22, 1795, between the
representatives of the French Republic, Prussia, and Spain, by which
Prussia withdrew from the coalition against France, took under her
protection all the states of Northern Germany which should like herself
relinquish the war in which the German empire was engaged, and also give
up to the victorious republic her possessions beyond the Rhine; whilst
Spain gave up her portion of St. Domingo, and prepared the way for that
alliance with France which was afterwards productive of consequences so
important.
=Base-ring.= In gunnery, is a projecting band of metal adjoining the
base of the breech, and connected with the body of the gun by a concave
moulding.
=Bashaw.= See PASHA.
=Bashi-Bazouks.= Are irregular troops in the pay of the sultan. Very few
of them are Europeans; they are mostly Asiatics, from some of the
pashalics in Asiatic Turkey; they are wild, turbulent men, ready to
enter the sultan’s service under some leader whom they can understand,
and still more ready to plunder whenever an opportunity offers. During
the Russo-Turkish war of 1854, etc., they had many encounters with the
enemy in that kind of irregular warfare which the Russians intrust to
Cossack horsemen; but the peaceful villagers had almost as much distrust
of the Bashi-Bazouks as of the Russians. They were also partially
employed by the British during the Crimean war.
=Bashkirs.= A race supposed to be descended from the Nogay Tartars, who
inhabit the Russian provinces of Ufa and Yekaterinboorg, in the
governments of Orenburg and Perm respectively. They are but partially
civilized, and are generally employed by Russia as guards on the
frontier of Asia.
=Basientello= (Southern Naples). Here the army of Otto II., in an
ambuscade, was nearly cut to pieces by the Greeks and Saracens, July 13,
982; the emperor barely escaped.
=Basilisk.= An ancient piece of ordnance, which was 10 feet long and
weighed 7200 pounds; so called from its supposed resemblance to the
serpent of that name, or from its size.
=Basillard.= An old term for a poniard.
=Basket-hilt.= The hilt of a sword, so made as to contain and guard the
whole hand.
=Basket-hilted.= Having a hilt of basket-work.
=Baskets.= See GABION.
=Baslard.= A short sword or dagger, worn in the 15th century.
=Basnet.= See BASCINET.
=Basque Provinces= (Northwest Spain, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and Alva). The
Basques, considered to be descendants of the ancient Iberi, were termed
Vascones by the Romans, whom they successfully resisted. They were
subdued with great difficulty by the Goths about 580, and were united to
Castile in the 13th and 14th centuries.
=Basque Roads= (Western France). Four French ships of the line, riding
at anchor here, were attacked by Lords Gambier and Cochrane (the latter
commanding the fire-ships), and all, with a great number of merchant and
other vessels, were destroyed, April 11-12, 1809. Cochrane accused
Gambier of neglecting to support him, and thereby allowing the French to
escape. At a court-martial Lord Gambier was acquitted.
=Bassée, La.= A town in the department of the North, France, formerly
fortified. It sustained several sieges. Louis XIV. captured it from the
Spaniards and caused it to be dismantled.
=Basseterre Roads=, St. Christopher’s, West Indies. Here the French
admiral, the Comte de Grasse, was repulsed with loss in three desperate
attacks on the British fleet, commanded by Sir Thomas Graves, January
25-26, 1782.
=Basson= (Northern Italy). Here the Austrians under Wurmser were
defeated by the French under Massena, September 8, 1796.
=Bassorah=, =Basrah=, or =Bussorah= (Asia Minor). A Turkish city,
founded by the Caliph Omar about 635. It has been several times taken
and retaken by the Persians and Turks.
=Bass Rock.= An isle in the Frith of Forth, Southern Scotland; granted
to the Landers in 1316; purchased for a state prison, 1671; taken by the
Jacobites, 1690; surrendered, 1694; granted to the Dalrymples, 1706.
=Bastard=, or =Batarde= (_Fr._). An ancient piece of ordnance of about 8
pounds calibre, 9¹⁄₂ feet long, and weighing 1950 pounds. It was
invented by Jean Maurique de Lard, master-general of ordnance under
Charles V. of France in 1535. He also had several bastards cast of a
larger calibre. This term was also applied to guns of an unusual make or
proportion, whether longer or shorter.
=Bastarnæ=, or =Basternæ=. A warlike German people who migrated to the
country near the mouth of the Danube. They are first mentioned in the
wars of Philip and Perseus against the Romans, and at a later period
they frequently devastated Thrace, and were engaged in wars with the
Roman governors of the province of Macedonia. In 30 B.C. they were
defeated by Marcus Crassus, and driven across the Danube, and we find
them, at a later period, partly settled between the Tyras (now
_Dniester_) and Borysthenes (now _Dnieper_), and partly at the mouth of
the Danube, under the name of _Peucini_, from their inhabiting the
island of Peuce, at the mouth of the river.
=Bastia.= A fortified seaport town, and formerly capital of Corsica, on
its northeast coast, and 67 miles from Ajaccio; besieged without success
by the Piedmontese in 1748; captured by the English, 1794.
=Bastide= (_Fr._). In ancient times, a bastion, block-house, fortress,
or outer fortifications.
=Bastile.= Originally, a temporary wooden tower used in warfare; hence,
any tower or fortification.
=Bastile=, or =Bastille= (Paris). A castle built by Charles V., king of
France, in 1369, for the defense of Paris against the English; completed
in 1383, and afterwards used as a state prison. Henry IV. and his
veteran army assailed it in vain in the siege of Paris during the war,
1587-94. On July 14-15, 1789, it was pulled down by the populace, the
governor and other officers seized, conducted to the Place de Grève,
their hands and heads were cut off, and the heads carried on pikes
through the streets.
=Bastinado.= A punishment among the Turkish soldiers, which is performed
by beating them with a cane or flat of a sword on the soles of their
feet.
=Bastion.= A work consisting of two faces and two flanks, all the angles
being salient. Two bastions are connected by means of a curtain, which
is screened by the angle made by the prolongation of the corresponding
faces of two bastions, and flanked by the line of defense. Bastions
contain, sheltered by their parapets, marksmen, artillery, platform, and
guards. They are protected by galleries of mines, and by demi-lunes and
lunettes outside the ditch, and by palisades, if the ditch is inundated.
The _faces_ of the bastion are the parts exposed to being enfiladed by
ricochet batteries, and also to being battered in breach.
BASTION, COMPOSED, is where two sides of the interior polygon are very
unequal, which makes the gorges also unequal.
BASTION, CUT, is that which, instead of a point, has a re-entering
angle.
BASTION, DEFORMED, is when the irregularity of the lines and angles puts
the bastion out of shape; as, when it wants a demi-gorge, one side of
the interior polygon being too short.
BASTION, DEMI, is that which has only one face and one flank, cut off by
the capital,--like the extremities of horn- and crown-works.
BASTION, DOUBLE, is that which is raised on the plane of another
bastion.
BASTION, FLAT, is a bastion built in the middle of the curtain, when it
is too long to be defended by the bastions at its extremes.
BASTIONS, HOLLOW, are those surrounded only with a rampart and parapet,
having the space within unoccupied where the ground is so low that no
retrenchment can be made in the centre in the event of the rampart being
taken.
BASTION, REGULAR, is that which has true proportion of faces, flanks,
and gorges.
BASTIONS, SOLID, are those which have the void space within them filled
entirely, and raised of an equal height with the rampart.
=Bastioned Fort.= A fort having bastions.
=Baston.= A staff or cudgel formerly used in tournaments. In heraldry, a
staff or cudgel generally borne as a mark of bastardy, and properly
containing one-eighth in breadth of the bend-sinister.
=Bat de Mulet= (_Fr._). A pack-saddle used on service when mules are
employed to carry stores. Aparejos in the United States service are used
for a similar purpose. See PACK-SADDLES.
=Batage= (_Fr._). The time employed in reducing gunpowder to its proper
consistency. The French usually consumed 24 hours in pounding the
materials to make good gunpowder. Supposing the mortar to contain 16
pounds of composition, it would require the application of the pestle
3500 times each hour. The labor required in this process is less in
summer than in winter, because the water is softer.
=Bataillon de la Salade= (_Fr._). A name formerly given in France to old
corps which wore a peculiar kind of helmet called salade. See SALADE.
=Batardeau= (_Fr._). A wall built across a ditch or fortification, with
a sluice-gate by which the height of the water in the ditch on both
sides may be regulated. To prevent this wall being used as a passage
across the ditch, it is built up to an angle at the top, and armed with
iron spikes; and to render the attempt to cross still more difficult, a
tower of masonry is built on it.
=Batavia and Batavian Republic.= See HOLLAND.
=Bateau= (_Fr._). A light boat.
=Bateau-bridge.= Is a floating bridge supported by bateaux or light
boats. See PONTONS.
=Bateau d’Avant-garde= (_Fr._). A small light boat attached to the
advance-guard of an army. It is 33 feet in length by 5 feet 6 inches in
breadth.
=Bate Isle.= An island of Hindostan, belonging to the province of
Guzerat, situated at the southwestern extremity of the Gulf of Cutch.
It was formerly a rendezvous for pirates, who were the dread of all
traders on the western coast of India. In 1803 a naval force, consisting
of a British frigate and two Bombay cruisers, succeeded in destroying
several of the pirate boats and vessels; but an attack upon the castle,
though conducted under the fire of the ships, was repulsed with some
loss. In 1807 a treaty was entered into with the chiefs of the island,
whereby they consented to relinquish their piratical practices.
=Bath, Knights of the.= See ORDER OF KNIGHTS OF THE BATH.
=Bat-horse.= A baggage horse which bears the bat or pack.
=Bat-man.= A servant in charge of the bat-horses. The term is now
applied in the English service to a soldier who acts as servant to an
officer.
=Baton.= A truncheon borne by generals in the French army, and
afterwards by the marshals of other nations. Henry III. of France before
he ascended the throne was made generalissimo of the army of his brother
Charles IX., and received the baton as the mark of the high command,
1569.
=Baton.= A staff used by drum-majors of foot regiments.
=Baton Rouge.= A city of Louisiana. It was captured by the Federals
August 5, 1862, after a fierce conflict.
=Batourin.= A town of Russia, 63 miles east of Tcheringov, on the Seim.
It was the residing place of the hetman of the Ukraine Cossacks from
1699 to 1708; captured and sacked by the Russians in 1708.
=Batta.= An allowance made to military officers in the service of the
East India Company in addition to their pay. See HALF-BATTA.
=Battalia.= The order of battle; disposition or arrangement of troops,
brigades, regiments, battalions, etc., as for action. Formerly the term
applied to the main body of an army in array, as distinguished from the
wings.
=Battailant.= Equipped for battle; warlike; a combatant. This word is
now obsolete.
=Battalion.= A body of troops, so called from being originally a body of
men arranged for battle; consisting in European armies of about 800 or
1000 men; in the U. S. service, an aggregation of from two to twelve
companies.
=Battard.= An early cannon of small size.
=Batten.= The sloping of a wall which brings the perpendicular from the
top inside the base.
=Batter.= A cannonade of heavy ordnance, from the first or second
parallel of intrenchment, against any fortress or works. To batter _in
breach_ implies a heavy cannonade of many pieces directed to one part of
the revetment from the third parallel.
=Batterie en Rouage= (_Fr._). Is an enfilading battery, when directed
against another battery.
=Battering.= In military affairs, implies the firing with heavy
artillery on some fortification or strong post possessed by an enemy, in
order to demolish the works.
=Battering Charge.= The charge of powder used in battering. The heaviest
charge used in a gun.
=Battering-pieces.= Are large pieces of ordnance, used in battering a
fortified town or post.
=Battering-ram.= In antiquity, a military engine used to batter and beat
down the walls of places besieged. There were two different kinds of
battering-rams, one rude and plain, the other compound. The former seems
to have been no more than a great beam, which the soldiers bore on their
arms and shoulders, and with one end of it, by main force, assailed the
walls. The compound ram was a large beam with a head of iron, which was
sometimes made to resemble the head of a ram. It was suspended by ropes
to a beam supported by posts, and balanced so as to swing backwards and
forwards, and was impelled by men against the wall. These rams were
sometimes 120 feet in length.
=Battering-train.= A train of artillery used solely for besieging a
strong place, inclusive of mortars and howitzers. See SIEGE-TRAIN.
=Battery.= A battery consists of two or more pieces of artillery in the
field. The term battery also implies the implacement of ordnance
destined to act offensively or defensively. It also refers to the
company charged with a certain number of pieces of ordnance. The
ordnance constitutes the battery; men serve it; horses drag it, and
epaulments may shelter it.
AMBULANT BATTERY, heavy guns mounted on traveling carriages, and moved
as occasion may require, either to positions on the coast or in besieged
places.
BARBETTE BATTERIES are those without embrasures, in which the guns are
raised to fire over the parapet.
BATTERY D’ENFILADE is one that sweeps the whole length of a line, or the
face or flank of any work.
BATTERY DE REVERSE is one which plays upon the rear of the troops
appointed to defend a place.
BATTERY EN ECHARPE is that which plays obliquely.
BREACHING BATTERY. See BREACH.
COVERED, or MASKED BATTERY is when the cannon and gunners are covered by
a bank or breastwork, commonly made of brushwood, fagots, and earth.
CROSS-BATTERIES are two batteries which play athwart each other upon the
same object, forming there an angle, and battering with more effect,
because what one battery shakes the other beats down.
FACINE and GABION BATTERIES are batteries constructed of those machines
where sods are scarce, and the earth very loose and sandy.
FLOATING BATTERIES are such as are erected either on rafts or on the
hulls of ships.
GUN-BATTERY is a defense constructed of earth faced with green sods or
fascines, sometimes of gabions filled with earth. It consists of a
breastwork, epaulment, or parapet; the open spaces through which the
muzzles of the cannon are pointed are called _embrasures_, and the solid
masses between the embrasures, _merlons_; the _genouilleres_ are those
parts of the parapet which cover the carriage of the gun. The platforms
are plank floors made to prevent the cannon from sinking into the
ground; they are made with a slope to check the recoil of the guns, and
to render it more easy to bring them forward again when loaded.
HALF-SUNKEN BATTERY. This term is applied to a battery in which the
earth to form the parapet is derived partly from a ditch in front and
partly from the excavation of the terre-plein. See ARTILLERY, also
CAVALIER.
MORTAR-BATTERIES differ from gun-batteries in this, that the parapets
have no embrasures, and the platforms have no slope, but are exactly
horizontal; the shells being fired quite over the parapet, commonly at
an elevation of 45°.
OPEN BATTERY is a number of cannon, commonly field-pieces, ranged in a
row abreast on some natural elevation of ground, or on an artificial
bank raised for that purpose.
RAISED BATTERY, one whose terre-plein is elevated considerably above the
ground.
REDAN BATTERIES are such as flank each other at the salient and
re-entrant angles of a fortification.
RICOCHET BATTERY, so called by its inventor Vauban, was first used at
the siege of Aeth in 1697. It is a method of discharging cannon with a
very small charge of powder, and with just elevation enough to fire over
the parapet. When properly managed its effects are most destructive; for
the shot, rolling along the opposite rampart, dismounts the cannon and
disperses or destroys the troops. Ricochet practice is not confined to
cannon alone; small mortars and howitzers may be effectually employed
for the same purpose.
SUNKEN BATTERY, where the sole of the embrasures is on a level with the
ground, and the platforms are consequently sunk below it.
=Battery-boxes= are square chests or boxes, filled with earth or dung;
used in making batteries, where gabions and earth are not to be had.
They must not be too large, but of a size that is governable.
=Battery-wagon.= It consists, besides the limber, of a long-bodied cart
with a round top, which is connected with the limber in the same way as
all other field-carriages. The lid opens on hinges placed at the side;
and in the rear is fixed a movable forage-rack for carrying along
forage. One of these wagons accompanies each field battery, for the
purpose of transporting carriage-maker’s and saddler’s tools, spare
parts of carriages, harness, and equipments, and rough materials for
replacing different parts. Both it and the forge are made of equal
mobility with the other field-carriages, in order to accompany them
wherever they may be required to go. See ORDNANCE, CARRIAGES FOR.
=Battery, Electric.= The apparatus used to generate a current of
electricity.
=Battery=, or =Traveling Forge=. See ORDNANCE, CARRIAGES FOR.
=Battery Gun.= A gun capable of firing continuously a great number of
shots in a short time. Applied to guns mounted upon tripods, stands,
swivels, or carriages. A _magazine cannon_ in contradistinction to a
magazine small-arm. Also called _machine gun_ and _mitrailleur_. Guns of
this kind existed as early as the 14th century. From the arrangement of
the barrels they were called _killing organs_. They have always been
used in various forms, but were comparatively inefficient till recent
times, when the introduction of the metallic cartridge gave the subject
a new importance.
_Puckle’s revolver_, 1718, was ingeniously mounted upon a tripod with
good elevating and traversing arrangements. It had one barrel and a
movable rotating breech containing nine charges. These were fired in
succession, and a new breech, ready charged, was slipped on. Two kinds
of bullets were used,--round bullets against Christians and square ones
for Turks.
_Winans’s steam gun_, invented about 1861 by the celebrated American
inventor and engineer Thomas Winans, of Baltimore, was a battery gun of
large calibre. The shot fell from a hopper into a breech-chamber, and
were projected through the barrel by the sudden admission behind it of
steam under enormous pressure.
The _infernal machine_ with which Fieschi killed Marshal Mortier and a
large number of others in his attempt to assassinate Louis Philippe, in
1835, was a crude form of battery gun, consisting of a row of
gun-barrels fired by a train of powder. Many battery guns are of this
type.
The _Requa battery_--American--used in the civil war, 1861-65, consisted
of a row of 24 barrels on a wheel-carriage, so arranged as to give
either parallel or divergent fire. It was breech-loading, the cartridges
being forced into the barrels by a transverse bar worked by levers. It
was capable of seven volleys a minute.
One of the forms of _mitrailleur_ used in the Franco-Prussian war was
very much the same. The loading-bar was rotating, and had two sets of
chambers. One set was fired while the other was being loaded.
The _Abbertini gun_ used in Europe has 10 barrels arranged as in the
Requa battery. It is worked by a crank. The cartridges are conveyed by
mechanical devices from a box magazine to the rear of the barrels.
The form in which a _cluster of barrels_ is used was probably first
introduced in France, and was made by inserting 25 gun-barrels into the
bore of a brass field-piece, into the breech of which a slot was cut,
the open rear ends of the barrels being flush with the front wall of the
slot. A cylinder-case containing cartridges being placed in the slot, a
set of plungers pushed the cartridges into the barrels. The case was
then replaced by a firing-block containing a lock and pin for each
cartridge.
This was improved by mounting the barrels (37) without the casing and
replacing the cartridge-case by a steel block in which the cartridges
were fired without being pushed into the barrels.
The first successful gun in which the _cluster of barrels_ was made to
revolve was the Gatling. (See GATLING GUN.) In this both the barrels and
the locks revolve. The Gatling gun in its various forms is used by all
the leading nations of Europe. It is used in a variety of ways for field
service, mountain service, flank defense of fortifications, in the
main-tops of ships, etc. It has been mounted upon the backs of camels,
on tripods, swivels, and field-carriages. In Europe its principal rival
is the _Nordenfelt_, in which the barrels are stationary and the breech
mechanism works horizontally. It is probably superior to the Gatling in
the amount of metal thrown in a given time. In mechanism and accuracy it
is inferior. Its principal claim to superiority is that it fires either
volleys or single shots. The recoil, which is always great in
volley-guns, requires a very heavy stand, making it clumsy and unwieldy
compared to the Gatling. Accidents have also happened in its use from
defective mechanism. Among other American battery or machine guns are
the _Lowell_ and _Gardner_, both of which have won enviable reputations.
A late form of the Gardner consists of two barrels fixed in a brass
casing, giving it the external appearance of an ordinary field-piece. It
has less rapidity of fire (its maximum being about 357 shots a minute)
than some other guns, but it is simple, strong, and efficient.
The _Taylor gun_ was something like the Nordenfelt in principle, having
a fixed cluster of barrels and a sliding breech mechanism, firing
volleys or single shots at discretion. A later form of Taylor gun has
the barrels in a horizontal row. The improvement consists in rapidity of
loading. The cartridges are carried in the ordinary paper or wooden
cases, exposing the heads. The gun has a number of upright pieces at the
breech with grooves between them. By drawing the cartridge-case downward
over these uprights the cartridges are caught in the grooves by their
flanged heads. They fall by gravity, and are conducted by suitable
devices in grooved channels to the barrels. This gun, it is believed,
fires more shots a minute than any other, but its mechanism is not so
perfect as several of its rivals.