Excerpt from Manual of Military Engineering (This book is divided into two parts. Officers should he thoroughly acquainted with the matter dealt with in Part I. Part II contains information useful for reference. The types of the various works described will vary according to the conditions of time, labour, and material. Officers and Non-commissioned Officers in charge of works should, while bearing the principles in mind, learn to modify the types according to local conditions.) 1. The object of fortification is to strengthen ground, and by thus ecomising the numbers of the defenders, to swell the force available for offensive movements, by which alone decisive results can be obtained. This object is secured by fulfilling, as far as possible, the following conditions: - (a) The position to be defended must be chosen with due regard to tactical requirements, and with a view to ecomising men; its strong and weak points must be carefully studied. (b) The enemy in attacking should be exposed as much as possible to the fire of the defenders during the advance. To this end the foreground may require more or less clearing. (c) Every endeavour must be made to deceive the enemy as to the strength and dispositions of the troops in the defence, and as to the character of the defensive works. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.