Part 40

_To_ FORM _en potence_, to wheel the right or left flank of a body of men, or to march them forward by files, so as to make that proportion of a line face inwards, and resemble a potence or angle. A double potence may be formed by running out both flanks, so that they stand in a perpendicular direction facing towards each other like the letter Λ, or thus, \__/; these oblique lines are the potence, so named by the power of their cross fire. This formation is not only extremely useful on actual service, but it conduces greatly to the accommodation of any body of men which may be marched into a place that has not sufficient extent of ground to receive it in line.

FORMATION, in a military sense, the methodical arrangement, or drawing up of any given body of men mounted, or on foot, according to prescribed rules and regulations.

_Cavalry_ FORMATION, consists of the following proportions.

Squadrons of cavalry are composed each of two troops; regiments are composed of ten.

FORMATION _of a troop_, is the drawing out of a certain number of men on horseback on their troop parade, in a rank entire, fixed according to the size roll, the tallest men in the centre.

FORMATION _of the squadron_, is the military disposition of two troops that compose it closed into each, from their several troop parades. In this situation, the officers move out, and form in a rank advanced two horses length, fronting to their troops. The serjeants and covering corporals rein back, and dress with the quarter-master in the rear. When the formation of a squadron has been completed, and its component parts have been accurately told off, the commanding officer is advanced a horse’s length before the standard. Two officers are posted, one on each flank of the front rank, covered by a non-commissioned officer. One officer is posted in the centre of the front rank with the standard, and is covered by a corporal. The serjeants are placed, one on the right of the front of each of the four divisions, except the right one, and each is covered by a corporal or private dragoon. The serre-files or supernumerary officers and serjeants, the quarter-masters and trumpeters, are in the rear of their several troops, divided in a line, at two horses distance from the rear rank. Farriers are behind the serre-files a horse’s length. Allowance is always made for sick and absent officers and non-commissioned officers; and if a sufficient number of any rank is not present, then serjeants replace officers, corporals replace serjeants, and lance-corporals or intelligent men replace corporals.

Formation, considered as to general circumstances, admits of a few deviations from the strict letter of the term. In order to preserve each troop entire, it is not material, if one division be a file stronger than another. The flank divisions indeed, both in cavalry and infantry regiments, will be strongest from the addition of officers. Officers, in the formation of squadrons, are recommended to be posted with their troops. Corporals not wanted to mark the divisions, or to cover officers or serjeants, will be in the ranks according to their size, or be placed in the outward flank file of their troops. Farriers are considered as detached in all situations of manœuvre.

All these general circumstances of formation apply and take place, whether the squadron be composed of two, or more troops, and whether the troops be more or less strong.

_General modes of_ FORMATION, are when a regiment broken into and marching in open column, must arrive at and enter on the ground on which it is to form in line, either in the _direction_ of that line, _perpendicular_ to that line, or in a direction more or less _oblique_ betwixt the other two.

_Infantry_ FORMATION, is the arrangement or disposition of any given number of men on foot according to prescribed rules and regulations. When the companies join, which are generally ten in number, the battalion is formed; there is not to be any interval between the relative parts, but the whole front must present a continuity of points, and one compact regular line from one flank file to the other.

The formation or drawing up of the companies will be from right to left. There is much folly prevalent on the subject of positions of companies. Steuben’s work has endeavored to fix a plan of alternation; but failed. A simple principle would be to number the companies from right to left, and form the first battalion of 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and the second of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. Officers commanding companies or platoons are all on the right of their respective ones.

The eight battalion companies will compose four grand divisions--eight companies or platoons--sixteen subdivisions--thirty-two sections, when sufficiently strong to be so divided, otherwise twenty-four, for the purposes of march. The battalion is likewise divided into right and left wings. When the battalion is on a war establishment, each company will be divided into two equal parts. When the ten companies are with the battalion, they may then be divided into five grand divisions from right to left. This is done to render the firings more exact, and to facilitate deploy movements.

The battalion companies will be numbered from the right to the left 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. The subdivisions will be numbered 1. 2. of each. The sections will be numbered 1. 2. 3. 4. of each. The files of companies will also be numbered 1. 2. 3. 4. &c. the grenadier and light companies will be numbered seperately in the same manner, and with the addition of those distinctions. No alteration is to be made in these appellations whether the battalion be faced to front or rear.

FORMATION _at close order_, is the arrangement of any given number of men in ranks at the distance of one pace, except where there is a fourth, or supernumerary rank, which has three paces. In firing order the ranks are more closely locked in.

When a battalion is formed in close order, the field officers and adjutant are mounted. The commanding officer is the only officer advanced in front for the general purpose of exercise, when the battalion is single; but in the march in line, and during the firings, he is in the rear of the colors. The lieutenant colonel is behind the colors, six paces from the rear rank. The major and adjutant are six paces in the rear of the third and sixth companies. One officer is on the right of the front rank of each company or platoon, and one on the left of the battalion. All these are covered in the rear by their respective serjeants, and the remaining officers and serjeants are in a fourth rank behind their companies. There are no coverers in the centre rank to officers or colors. The colors are placed between the fourth and fifth battalion companies, both in the front rank, and each covered by a non-commissioned officer, or steady man in the rear rank. One serjeant is in the front rank betwixt the colors; he is covered by a second serjeant in the rear rank, and by a third in the supernumerary rank. The sole business of these three serjeants is, when the battalion moves in line, to act as guides, and direct the march according to prescribed instructions. The place of the first of those serjeants, when they do move out, is preserved by a named officer or serjeant, who moves up from the supernumerary rank for that purpose. The pioneers are assembled behind the centre, formed two deep, and nine paces from the third rank. The drummers of the eight battalion companies are assembled in two divisions, six paces behind the third rank of their 2d and 7th companies. The music are three paces behind the pioneers, in a single rank, and at all times, as well as the drummers and pioneers, are formed at loose files only, occupying no more space than is necessary. The staff officers are three paces behind the music.

FORMATION _at open order_, is any open disposition, or arrangement of men by ranks, at straight lines parallel to each other.

When a battalion is directed to take open order, the rear ranks fall back one and two paces, each dressing by the right the instant it arrives on the ground. The officers in the front rank, as also the colors, move out three paces. Those in the rear, together with the music, advance through the intervals left open by the front rank officers, and divide themselves in the following manner: the captains covering the second file from the right, the lieutenants the second file from the left, and the ensigns opposite the centre of their respective companies. The music form between the colors and the front rank. The serjeant coverers move up to the front rank, to fill up the intervals left by the officers. The pioneers fall back to six paces distance behind the centre of the rear rank. The drummers take the same distance behind their divisions. The major moves to the right of the line of officers; the adjutant to the left of the front rank. The staff place themselves on the right of the front rank of the grenadiers. The colonel and lieutenant-colonel dismounted, advance before the colors four and two paces.

FORMERS, round pieces of wood that are fitted to the diameter of the bore of a gun, round which the cartridge paper, parchment, lead, or cotton is rolled before it is sewed.

FORMERS were likewise used among officers and soldiers to reduce their clubs to an uniform shape, before the general introduction of tails.

FORMATION _of guards_. See GUARDS.

FORT, in the military art, a small fortified place, environed on all sides with a ditch, rampart, and parapet. Its use is to secure some high ground, or the passage of a river, or to make good an advantageous post, to defend the lines and quarters of a siege, &c.

Forts are made of different figures and extents, according to the exigency of the service, or the peculiar nature of the ground. Some are fortified with bastions, others with demi-bastions. Some are in form of a square, others of a pentagon. Some again are made in the form of a star, having 5 or 7 angles. A fort differs from a citadel, the last being built to command some town. See CITADEL.

_Royal_-FORT, one whose line of defence is at least 26 toises long.

_Triangular_ FORTS, are frequently made with half bastions; but they are very imperfect, because the faces are not seen or defended from any other part. If, instead of being terminated at the angle, they were directed to a point about 20 toises from it, they would be much better, as then they might be defended by that length of the rampart, though but very obliquely. The ditch ought to be from 8 to 10 toises. Sometimes instead of half bastions at the angles, whole ones are placed in the middle of the sides. The gorges of these bastions may be from 20 to 24 toises, when the sides are from 100 to 120; the flanks are perpendicular to the sides, from 10 to 12 toises long; and the capitals from 20 to 24. If the sides happen to be more or less, the parts of the bastions are likewise made more or less in proportion. The ditch round this fort may be 10 or 12 toises wide.

The ramparts and parapets of these sorts of works are commonly made of turf, and the outside of the parapet is fraised; that is, a row of pallisades are placed about the middle of the slope, in an horizontal manner, the points declining rather a little downwards, that the grenades or fireworks thrown upon them may roll down into the ditch; and if the ditch is dry, a row of pallisades should be placed in the middle of it, to prevent the enemy from passing over it unperceived, and to secure the fort from any surprise.

FORT _de campagne_, _Fr._ a field fortification, See FORTIFICATION.

FORTERESSE, _Fr._ Fortress. Any strong place rendered so by art, or originally so by local advantages, or by means of both nature and art. Places which are strong by nature generally stand upon mountains, precipices, in the middle of a marsh, on the sea-coast, in a lake, or on the banks of some large river. Places which are strong by art, owe their strength to the labor of man, whose ingenuity and perseverance substitute ditches and ramparts where mountains and rivers are wanting.

FORTIFICATION, is the art of fortifying a town, or other place; or of putting it in such a posture of defence, that every one of its parts defends, and is defended by some other parts, by means of ramparts, parapets, ditches, and other outworks; to the end that a small number of men within may be able to defend themselves for a considerable time against the assaults of a numerous army without; so that the enemy, in attacking them, must of necessity suffer great loss.

_Fortification_ may be divided into ancient and modern; offensive, and defensive; regular, and irregular; natural, and artificial, &c.

_Ancient_ FORTIFICATION, at first, consisted of walls or defences made of trunks, and other branches of trees, mixed with earth, for security against the attacks of an enemy. Invention owes its origin to necessity; _fortification_ seems to have had fear for its basis; for when man had no other enemy but the wild beasts, the walls of his cottage were his security; but when pride, ambition, and avarice, had possessed the minds of the strong and the daring to commit violences upon their weaker neighbors, either to subject them to new laws, or to plunder their little inheritance, it was natural for the latter to contrive how to defend themselves from such injuries.

Our Aborigines of North America, have left traces of _fortification_ in its infancy, of which there are some curious and magnificent remains on the _Miami_ river, in the state of Ohio.

There are abundance of Indian villages fenced round by long stakes driven into the ground, with moss or earth to fill the intervals; and this is their security (together with their own vigilance) against the cruelty of the savage neighboring nations.

Nor is _fortification_ much less ancient than mankind; for Cain, the son of Adam, built a city with a wall round it upon mount Liban, and called it after the name of his son Enoch, the ruins of which, it is said, are to be seen to this day; and the Babylonians, soon after the deluge, built cities and encompassed them with strong walls.

At first people thought themselves safe enough with a single wall, behind which they made use of their darts and arrows with safety: but as other warlike instruments were continually invented to destroy these feeble structures, so on the other hand persons acting on the defensive were obliged to build stronger and stronger to resist the new contrived forces of the desperate assailants.

What improvements they made in strengthening their walls many ages ago, appear from history. The first walls we ever read of, and which were built by Cain, were of brick; and the ancient Grecians, long before Rome was ever thought of, used brick and rubble stone, with which they built a vast wall, joining mount Hymetus to the city of Athens. The Babylonian walls, built by Semiramis, or, as others will have it, by Belus, were 32 feet thick, and 100 feet high, with towers 10 feet higher, built upon them, cemented with bitumen or asphaltus. Those of Jerusalem seem to have come but little short of them, since, in the siege by Titus, all the Roman battering rams, joined with Roman art and courage, could remove but 4 stones out of the tower of Antonia in a whole night’s assault.

After _fortification_ had arrived at this height it stopped for many ages, ’till the use of gunpowder and guns was found out; and then the round and square towers, which were very good flanks against bows and arrows, became but indifferent ones against the violence of cannon; nor did the battlements any longer offer a hiding place, when the force of one shot both overset the battlement, and destroyed those who sought security from it.

_Modern_ FORTIFICATION, is the way of defence now used, turning the walls into ramparts, and square and round towers into bastions, defended by numerous outworks; all which are made so solid, that they cannot be beat down, but by the continual fire of several batteries of cannon. These bastions at first were but small, their gorges narrow, their flanks and faces short, and at a great distance from each other, as are those now to be seen in the city of Antwerp, built in 1540 by Charles V. emperor of Germany; since which time they have been greatly improved and enlarged, and are now arrived to that degree of strength, that it is almost a received opinion, that the art of fortification is at its height, and almost incapable of being carried to a much greater perfection.

_Offensive_ FORTIFICATION, shews how to besiege and take a fortified place; it further teaches a general how to take all advantages for his troops; the manner of encamping, and method of carrying on either a regular or irregular siege, according as circumstances may direct.

_Defensive_ FORTIFICATION, shews a governor how to make the most of a garrison committed to his care, and to provide all things necessary for its defence.

_Regular_ FORTIFICATION, is that built in a regular polygon, the sides and angles of which are all equal, being commonly a musquet shot from each other, and fortified according to the rules of art.

_Irregular_ FORTIFICATION, on the contrary, is that where the sides and angles are not uniform, equi-distant, or equal; which is owing to the irregularity of the ground, vallies, rivers, hills, and the like.

_To_ FORTIFY _inwards_, is to represent the bastion within the polygon proposed to be fortified; and then that polygon is called the _exterior polygon_, and each of its sides the _exterior side_, terminating at the points of the two nearest bastions.

_To_ FORTIFY _outwards_, is to represent the bastion without the polygon proposed to be fortified, and then the polygon is called the _interior polygon_, and each of its sides the _interior side_, terminating in the centres of the two nearest bastions.

_Elementary_ FORTIFICATION, by some likewise called the theory of fortification, consists in tracing the plans and profiles of a fortification on paper, with scales and compasses; and examining the systems proposed by different authors, in order to discover their advantages and disadvantages. The elementary part is likewise divided into regular and irregular fortification, which see.

_Front_ FORTIFICATION, any proportion of the body of a place, consisting of two half bastions and a curtain.

_Practical_ FORTIFICATION, consists in forming a project of a fortification, according to the nature of the ground, and other necessary circumstances, to trace it on the ground, and to execute the project, together with all the military buildings, such as magazines, store houses, barracks, bridges, &c.

_The names of every part of a_ FORTIFICATION; and first of lines, which are divided into right lines, and curve lines.

_Line of defence_, is the distance between the saliant angle of the bastion, and the opposite flank; that is, it is the face produced to the flank. Common experience, together with some of the greatest artists in fortification, unanimously agree, that the _lines of defence_ may extend (though not exceed) 150 fathom. Some indeed will affirm, that as a musquet does not carry more than 130 fathom point blank, the angle of the bastion should be no further removed from its opposite flank. We agree that a musquet carries no farther point blank; but we are sure it will do execution, and kill, at 180 fathom. The enemy generally makes his breaches near the middle of the face; which if granted, the line of fire from the flank to the breach, scarcely exceeds 130 fathom; besides, the cannon of the flank does less execution upon a short _line of defence_ than on a long one.

_Line of defence fichant_, is a line drawn from the angle of the curtain, to the point of the opposite bastion, which is not to exceed 120 fathom; and from the point of the curtain, and flank, to the face of the opposite bastion, which is to be defended. This line may not improperly be called in good English the _butting flank_, since it partly sees the opposite faces in reverse; and the shot from it, especially near the orillon, strike against the faces. Authors are numerous both for and against the _fichant_ and _rasant_ lines; we can only set down as a fixed rule, that the more powerful the active quality is, the more the passive must suffer; that in fortification the active quality is the fire, which discovers the assailants (who are the passive) going to attack the face of the opposite bastion; consequently, the more this active quality is augmented, by so much the more must the passive subjects suffer; and from thence we argue for the _fichant flank_, since it augments this active quality, by all the fire of the curtain added to the flank, which is the principal action in the art of defence.

_Line of defence rasant_, is a line drawn from the point of the bastion along the face, ’till it comes to the curtain, which shews how much of the curtain will clear, or defend the face. This line may very justly in our language be called the _sweeping flank_; because the shot as it were sweeps along the opposite faces. This line, as well as the _fichant_, has many supporters, and as many opponents. In our humble opinion, the _line fichant_ is preferable to the _line rasant_.

_Line of circumvallation._ See SIEGE. See CIRCUMVALLATION.

_Line of contravallation._ See CONTRAVALLATION.

_Line of counter-approach._ See APPROACHES.

_Capital line_, is an imaginary line which divides the work into two equal and similar parts, or a line drawn from the point of the bastion to the point where the two demi-gorges meet, &c.

_Line of defence prolonged_. In the square, and most polygons of the lesser fortification, you prolong the line of defence; but in the polygons of the greater and meaner, you draw a line from the angle of the opposite shoulder to the angle of the curtain, upon which you raise a perpendicular, which serves for the first line of the flank.

_Names of the angles in a_ FORTIFICATION.

_Angle of the centre_, in a polygon, is formed by two radii drawn to the extremities of the same side, or from the centre, terminating at the two nearest angles of the figure.

_Angle of a bastion_, _Flanked angle_, that which is made by the two faces, being the outermost part of the bastion, most exposed to the enemy’s batteries, frequently called the saliant angle, or point of the bastion.

_Angle of the polygon_, is made by the concourse of two adjacent sides of a polygon, in the centre of the bastion.

_Angle of the triangle_, is half the angle of the polygon.

_Angle of the shoulder_, _Angle of the epaule_, is made by the face and flank of the bastion.

_Angle of the flank_, _Angle of the curtain_ that which is made by, and contained between the curtain and the flank.

_Angle of the tenaille_, _Flanking angle_, made by two lines fichant, that is, the face of the two bastions extended till they meet in an angle towards the curtain, and is that which always carries its point towards the work.

_Dead-angle_. Every angle is so called, that points inwards, or is not well defended.

_Angle of the ditch_, is formed before the centre of the curtain, by the outward line of the ditch.

_Angle rentrant_, _Re-entering angle_, is any angle whose point turns inwards, or towards the place; that is, whose legs open towards the field.

_Saliant angle_, is that which points outwards or whose legs open towards the place.

_Angle of the complement of the line of defence_, is the angle formed by the intersection of the two complements with each other.

_Inward flanking angle_, that which is made by the flanking-line and the curtain. See ANGLE.

_Names of the solid works of a_ FORTIFICATION.

_Advanced-foss_, _Avant-fossé_, or ditch, made at the foot of the glacis: it is but very seldom made, because it is easily taken, and serves for a trench to the besiegers.