M'lIEX ABANDON KI) l;V Till': AUMY. 131) ' lo be defended by musketry ; to establish there chap. ' separate batteries, each armed with some pieces ' ' of canuon, and in this way to concentrate upon ' all the approaches of the town a powerful front ' and flank fire of artiller}' and musketry, endeav-
- ouring to sweep with as mucli fire as possible all
- the bendin,^s of the broken ground by which the
' enemy might approach.' * The object of the works to be undertaken on this general plan was to provide against the event of an assault at whatever part of the line it might be attempted •,f but the way in which they were tiietwo to produce their result was to be by enabling the wluuhiie garrison to meet every column of assault with a Jucea slaughtering fire. Whilst some thought much of the physical obstacles to the advance of assailants which the engineers' art can contrive, and others, remembering Suwarroff, spoke rather in praise of the bayonet, Todleben was always steadfast in declaring that against an assault of the Allies the garrison had but one defence. According to him, that one defence lay in the volume of shot which the garrison might be able to pour into bodies of troops coming on within grape-shot range; and i.y meeting one single word, he used to say, at the time, was wirh niu- enough lo describe his main purpose. The word was— ':Mitrail!'+ The round.?hot, the shell, the
- Todlebeu, vol. i. i. 259.
t Ibid. p. 264. t Originally, it seems, ' mitiail,' or, as the Fiench sjiell it, ' luitraille,' meant 'canister' .shot specially; and even now, perliaps, in strictness, it describes only grape and canister ; but m common parlance— and it was sotliat Todleben used it — the
