Retirade

as practised by the ancients: these were walls hastily run up behind breaches that were made by the battering rams. The able commentator upon Polybius observes, that in no instance, did the skill of the great men of antiquity appear in so conspicuous a light, as in the various chicanes to which they resorted for the preservation of a town. Their ingenuity and resolution increased in proportion as the danger approached. Instead of offering to capitulate as the moderns generally do, when a practicable breach has been opened by a besieging enemy, the ancients, in that emergency, collected all their vigor, had recourse to various stratagems, and waited behind the retirades or temporary retreats to give the enemy a warm and obstinate reception. Cæsar, in his Commentaries, has given a minute description of the manner in which these retirades were constructed; and we find them mentioned by Joseph us, in his history of the war of the Jews against the Romans. The intermediate periods, since the days of the Greeks and Romans, and before the modern era furnish various examples on this head. In 1219, Genghis Khan set all his battering rams to work, for the purpose of effecting a breach in the walls of Ottrar; but, to his great surprise, he no sooner entered the town, than he found a fresh line of entrenchments that had been thrown up in the very heart of the city. He saw every street cut asunder with temporary ditches, and every house presented fresh obstacles: so much so, that he experienced more difficulty in subduing the inhabitants after he had forced the walls, than had occurred in practising the breach. When the emperor Charles V. laid siege to Metz in 1552, the duke de Guise, who was governor of the town, instantly adopted the nece ary precautions to defend it to the last. He built a new wall behind the one against which the principal attack was directed; and when the breach was made, the besiegers found themselves obstinately opposed afresh, within a short space of the ground they had carried. In consequence of this unexpected check, the enemy’s troops grew disheartened; and their want of confidence soon convinced the emperor that the place could not be taken. The siege was unexpectedly raised, and the preservation of the town was entirely owing to the wise precautions that had been adopted by the duke de Guise. In 1742, marshal Broglio, being closely besieged in the city of Prague, threw up retrenchments within the walls, and prepared to make a most vigorous resistance. An occasion, however presented itself, of which he took advantage, that rendered any further precautions usele . He made a vigorous sortie and forced the enemy to raise the siege.