_General Brialmont's Theoretical Claim for the Defence of a Country._--Before going into details, it is worth while to state the full claim of strategic fortification advanced by General Brialmont, the most thorough of all its advocates. It is as follows:--
B. Fortify the points where main lines of communication pass a strategic barrier.
C. Make an entrenched camp at the most important centre of communication in each zone of invasion: and support it by one or two places arranged so as to make a fortified district.
[Illustration: From Brialmont's _Progrès de la défense des états et de la fortification depuis Vauban_, by permission of Commandant G. Meeüs.
D. Close with barrier forts the lines necessary to an enemy across mountains or marshes.
E. Make a central place behind a mountain chain as a pivot for the army watching it.
F. Defend mountain roads by provisional fortifications.
G. Make a large place in each theatre of war which is far from the principal theatre, and where the enemy might wish to establish himself.
Objections to these proposals will be readily supplied by the officials of the national treasury and the commanders-in-chief of the active armies.
So many types of detached forts have been proposed by competent authorities, as well as actually constructed in recent years, that it is impossible here to consider all of them, and a few only will be reproduced of those which are most representative of modern continental thought.
Taking first the type of heavily armed fort, which contains guns for the artillery fight as well as safety armament, we must give precedence to General Brialmont. The two works here shown are taken from the _Progrès de la défense des états, &c._, published in 1898. The pentagonal fort (fig. 47) has two special features. In section 1 is shown a concrete infantry parapet, with a gallery in which the defenders of the parapet may take shelter from the bombardment preceding an assault. In section 2 it will be seen that the counterscarp galleries flanking the ditch are drawn back from the face of the counterscarp. This is to counteract proposals that have been made to obscure the view from the flanking galleries, and perhaps drive the defenders out of them by throwing smoke-producing materials into the ditch at the moment of an assault. The arrangement may save the occupants of the galleries from excessive heat and noxious fumes, but will not of course prevent the smoke from obscuring the view.
