Part 10

=Barrosa=, or =Barosa=. In Southern Spain, where a battle was fought on March 5, 1811, between the British army, commanded by Maj.-Gen. Sir Thomas Graham, afterwards Lord Lynedoch, and the French under Marshal Victor. After a long conflict, the British achieved one of the most glorious triumphs of the Peninsular war. Although they fought at great disadvantage the British compelled the French to retreat, leaving nearly 3000 dead, 6 pieces of cannon, and an eagle, the first that the British had taken. The loss of the British was 1169 men killed and wounded.

=Bar-shot.= An obsolete projectile, consisting of two shot connected by a bar of iron.

=Bar-sur-Aube.= An ancient town of France, on the Aube, in the department of Aube, where the French under Oudinot and MacDonald were defeated by the allies, February 27, 1814.

=Bar-sur-Seine.= A town in the department of Aube, France; often ruined and sacked during the wars of Burgundy. It was the scene of a severe engagement between Napoleon and the allies, May 25, 1814.

=Bartholomew, St.= The massacre of St. Bartholomew commenced at Paris on the night of the festival of this saint. According to Sully 70,000 Huguenots, or French Protestants, including women and children, were murdered throughout the kingdom by secret orders from Charles IX., at the instigation of his mother, the queen-dowager, Catherine de Médicis, August 24, 1572.

=Bartholomew, St.= A West India island held by Sweden. It was colonized by the French in 1648; and has been several times taken and restored by the British. It was ceded to Sweden by France in 1785.

=Bartizan.= A small stone closet thrown out upon corbels over doorways and on other parts of mediæval castles, generally for defensive purposes, but sometimes for the convenience of the inmates.

=Bascinet.= A light helmet, generally without a visor; so called from its resemblance to a basin.

=Baschi.= A Turkish title, signifying a superior commander, officer, chief, etc.; this title is only used in connection with the office title; the most prominent are:

TOPTSCHJY-BASCHI, general of artillery and inspector of forts, etc.

SOLACKI-BASCHI, sub-commander of the archers.

SANDSCHJACK-DARLARS-BASCHI, chief of the 50 color-bearers.

KONADSCHJY-BASCHI, quartermaster-general.

BOLUCK-BASCHI, colonel of a regiment (Boluck) of 1000 militia.

ODA-BASCHIS, company officers who superintend drill.

=Bascule Bridge.= A kind of draw-bridge with a counterpoise swinging up and down, and usually a pit behind it, in which the counterpoise falls or rises as the bridge rises or falls. Bascule is the arrangement of the counterpoise in bascule bridges.

=Base.= In fortifications, is the exterior side of the polygon, or that imaginary line which connects the salient angle of two adjacent bastions.

=Base.= In heraldry, denotes the lower part of the shield.

=Base-line.= In gunnery, is a line traced around the gun in rear of the vent; also the measured line used to obtain ranges by triangulation.

=Base of Operations.= That secure line of frontier or fortresses, or strong country occupied by troops, or of sea occupied by fleets, from which forward movements are made, supplies furnished, and upon which a retreat may be made, if necessary.

=Base of the Breech.= In gunnery, is the rear surface of the breech of a gun.

=Basel, Treaty of.= This place gives its name to two important treaties of peace, concluded here on April 5 and July 22, 1795, between the representatives of the French Republic, Prussia, and Spain, by which Prussia withdrew from the coalition against France, took under her protection all the states of Northern Germany which should like herself relinquish the war in which the German empire was engaged, and also give up to the victorious republic her possessions beyond the Rhine; whilst Spain gave up her portion of St. Domingo, and prepared the way for that alliance with France which was afterwards productive of consequences so important.

=Base-ring.= In gunnery, is a projecting band of metal adjoining the base of the breech, and connected with the body of the gun by a concave moulding.

=Bashaw.= See PASHA.

=Bashi-Bazouks.= Are irregular troops in the pay of the sultan. Very few of them are Europeans; they are mostly Asiatics, from some of the pashalics in Asiatic Turkey; they are wild, turbulent men, ready to enter the sultan’s service under some leader whom they can understand, and still more ready to plunder whenever an opportunity offers. During the Russo-Turkish war of 1854, etc., they had many encounters with the enemy in that kind of irregular warfare which the Russians intrust to Cossack horsemen; but the peaceful villagers had almost as much distrust of the Bashi-Bazouks as of the Russians. They were also partially employed by the British during the Crimean war.

=Bashkirs.= A race supposed to be descended from the Nogay Tartars, who inhabit the Russian provinces of Ufa and Yekaterinboorg, in the governments of Orenburg and Perm respectively. They are but partially civilized, and are generally employed by Russia as guards on the frontier of Asia.

=Basientello= (Southern Naples). Here the army of Otto II., in an ambuscade, was nearly cut to pieces by the Greeks and Saracens, July 13, 982; the emperor barely escaped.

=Basilisk.= An ancient piece of ordnance, which was 10 feet long and weighed 7200 pounds; so called from its supposed resemblance to the serpent of that name, or from its size.

=Basillard.= An old term for a poniard.

=Basket-hilt.= The hilt of a sword, so made as to contain and guard the whole hand.

=Basket-hilted.= Having a hilt of basket-work.

=Baskets.= See GABION.

=Baslard.= A short sword or dagger, worn in the 15th century.

=Basnet.= See BASCINET.

=Basque Provinces= (Northwest Spain, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and Alva). The Basques, considered to be descendants of the ancient Iberi, were termed Vascones by the Romans, whom they successfully resisted. They were subdued with great difficulty by the Goths about 580, and were united to Castile in the 13th and 14th centuries.

=Basque Roads= (Western France). Four French ships of the line, riding at anchor here, were attacked by Lords Gambier and Cochrane (the latter commanding the fire-ships), and all, with a great number of merchant and other vessels, were destroyed, April 11-12, 1809. Cochrane accused Gambier of neglecting to support him, and thereby allowing the French to escape. At a court-martial Lord Gambier was acquitted.

=Bassée, La.= A town in the department of the North, France, formerly fortified. It sustained several sieges. Louis XIV. captured it from the Spaniards and caused it to be dismantled.

=Basseterre Roads=, St. Christopher’s, West Indies. Here the French admiral, the Comte de Grasse, was repulsed with loss in three desperate attacks on the British fleet, commanded by Sir Thomas Graves, January 25-26, 1782.

=Basson= (Northern Italy). Here the Austrians under Wurmser were defeated by the French under Massena, September 8, 1796.

=Bassorah=, =Basrah=, or =Bussorah= (Asia Minor). A Turkish city, founded by the Caliph Omar about 635. It has been several times taken and retaken by the Persians and Turks.

=Bass Rock.= An isle in the Frith of Forth, Southern Scotland; granted to the Landers in 1316; purchased for a state prison, 1671; taken by the Jacobites, 1690; surrendered, 1694; granted to the Dalrymples, 1706.

=Bastard=, or =Batarde= (_Fr._). An ancient piece of ordnance of about 8 pounds calibre, 9¹⁄₂ feet long, and weighing 1950 pounds. It was invented by Jean Maurique de Lard, master-general of ordnance under Charles V. of France in 1535. He also had several bastards cast of a larger calibre. This term was also applied to guns of an unusual make or proportion, whether longer or shorter.

=Bastarnæ=, or =Basternæ=. A warlike German people who migrated to the country near the mouth of the Danube. They are first mentioned in the wars of Philip and Perseus against the Romans, and at a later period they frequently devastated Thrace, and were engaged in wars with the Roman governors of the province of Macedonia. In 30 B.C. they were defeated by Marcus Crassus, and driven across the Danube, and we find them, at a later period, partly settled between the Tyras (now _Dniester_) and Borysthenes (now _Dnieper_), and partly at the mouth of the Danube, under the name of _Peucini_, from their inhabiting the island of Peuce, at the mouth of the river.

=Bastia.= A fortified seaport town, and formerly capital of Corsica, on its northeast coast, and 67 miles from Ajaccio; besieged without success by the Piedmontese in 1748; captured by the English, 1794.

=Bastide= (_Fr._). In ancient times, a bastion, block-house, fortress, or outer fortifications.

=Bastile.= Originally, a temporary wooden tower used in warfare; hence, any tower or fortification.

=Bastile=, or =Bastille= (Paris). A castle built by Charles V., king of France, in 1369, for the defense of Paris against the English; completed in 1383, and afterwards used as a state prison. Henry IV. and his veteran army assailed it in vain in the siege of Paris during the war, 1587-94. On July 14-15, 1789, it was pulled down by the populace, the governor and other officers seized, conducted to the Place de Grève, their hands and heads were cut off, and the heads carried on pikes through the streets.

=Bastinado.= A punishment among the Turkish soldiers, which is performed by beating them with a cane or flat of a sword on the soles of their feet.

=Bastion.= A work consisting of two faces and two flanks, all the angles being salient. Two bastions are connected by means of a curtain, which is screened by the angle made by the prolongation of the corresponding faces of two bastions, and flanked by the line of defense. Bastions contain, sheltered by their parapets, marksmen, artillery, platform, and guards. They are protected by galleries of mines, and by demi-lunes and lunettes outside the ditch, and by palisades, if the ditch is inundated. The _faces_ of the bastion are the parts exposed to being enfiladed by ricochet batteries, and also to being battered in breach.

BASTION, COMPOSED, is where two sides of the interior polygon are very unequal, which makes the gorges also unequal.

BASTION, CUT, is that which, instead of a point, has a re-entering angle.

BASTION, DEFORMED, is when the irregularity of the lines and angles puts the bastion out of shape; as, when it wants a demi-gorge, one side of the interior polygon being too short.

BASTION, DEMI, is that which has only one face and one flank, cut off by the capital,--like the extremities of horn- and crown-works.

BASTION, DOUBLE, is that which is raised on the plane of another bastion.

BASTION, FLAT, is a bastion built in the middle of the curtain, when it is too long to be defended by the bastions at its extremes.

BASTIONS, HOLLOW, are those surrounded only with a rampart and parapet, having the space within unoccupied where the ground is so low that no retrenchment can be made in the centre in the event of the rampart being taken.

BASTION, REGULAR, is that which has true proportion of faces, flanks, and gorges.

BASTIONS, SOLID, are those which have the void space within them filled entirely, and raised of an equal height with the rampart.

=Bastioned Fort.= A fort having bastions.

=Baston.= A staff or cudgel formerly used in tournaments. In heraldry, a staff or cudgel generally borne as a mark of bastardy, and properly containing one-eighth in breadth of the bend-sinister.

=Bat de Mulet= (_Fr._). A pack-saddle used on service when mules are employed to carry stores. Aparejos in the United States service are used for a similar purpose. See PACK-SADDLES.

=Batage= (_Fr._). The time employed in reducing gunpowder to its proper consistency. The French usually consumed 24 hours in pounding the materials to make good gunpowder. Supposing the mortar to contain 16 pounds of composition, it would require the application of the pestle 3500 times each hour. The labor required in this process is less in summer than in winter, because the water is softer.

=Bataillon de la Salade= (_Fr._). A name formerly given in France to old corps which wore a peculiar kind of helmet called salade. See SALADE.

=Batardeau= (_Fr._). A wall built across a ditch or fortification, with a sluice-gate by which the height of the water in the ditch on both sides may be regulated. To prevent this wall being used as a passage across the ditch, it is built up to an angle at the top, and armed with iron spikes; and to render the attempt to cross still more difficult, a tower of masonry is built on it.

=Batavia and Batavian Republic.= See HOLLAND.

=Bateau= (_Fr._). A light boat.

=Bateau-bridge.= Is a floating bridge supported by bateaux or light boats. See PONTONS.

=Bateau d’Avant-garde= (_Fr._). A small light boat attached to the advance-guard of an army. It is 33 feet in length by 5 feet 6 inches in breadth.

=Bate Isle.= An island of Hindostan, belonging to the province of Guzerat, situated at the southwestern extremity of the Gulf of Cutch. It was formerly a rendezvous for pirates, who were the dread of all traders on the western coast of India. In 1803 a naval force, consisting of a British frigate and two Bombay cruisers, succeeded in destroying several of the pirate boats and vessels; but an attack upon the castle, though conducted under the fire of the ships, was repulsed with some loss. In 1807 a treaty was entered into with the chiefs of the island, whereby they consented to relinquish their piratical practices.

=Bath, Knights of the.= See ORDER OF KNIGHTS OF THE BATH.

=Bat-horse.= A baggage horse which bears the bat or pack.

=Bat-man.= A servant in charge of the bat-horses. The term is now applied in the English service to a soldier who acts as servant to an officer.

=Baton.= A truncheon borne by generals in the French army, and afterwards by the marshals of other nations. Henry III. of France before he ascended the throne was made generalissimo of the army of his brother Charles IX., and received the baton as the mark of the high command, 1569.

=Baton.= A staff used by drum-majors of foot regiments.

=Baton Rouge.= A city of Louisiana. It was captured by the Federals August 5, 1862, after a fierce conflict.

=Batourin.= A town of Russia, 63 miles east of Tcheringov, on the Seim. It was the residing place of the hetman of the Ukraine Cossacks from 1699 to 1708; captured and sacked by the Russians in 1708.

=Batta.= An allowance made to military officers in the service of the East India Company in addition to their pay. See HALF-BATTA.

=Battalia.= The order of battle; disposition or arrangement of troops, brigades, regiments, battalions, etc., as for action. Formerly the term applied to the main body of an army in array, as distinguished from the wings.

=Battailant.= Equipped for battle; warlike; a combatant. This word is now obsolete.

=Battalion.= A body of troops, so called from being originally a body of men arranged for battle; consisting in European armies of about 800 or 1000 men; in the U. S. service, an aggregation of from two to twelve companies.

=Battard.= An early cannon of small size.

=Batten.= The sloping of a wall which brings the perpendicular from the top inside the base.

=Batter.= A cannonade of heavy ordnance, from the first or second parallel of intrenchment, against any fortress or works. To batter _in breach_ implies a heavy cannonade of many pieces directed to one part of the revetment from the third parallel.

=Batterie en Rouage= (_Fr._). Is an enfilading battery, when directed against another battery.

=Battering.= In military affairs, implies the firing with heavy artillery on some fortification or strong post possessed by an enemy, in order to demolish the works.

=Battering Charge.= The charge of powder used in battering. The heaviest charge used in a gun.

=Battering-pieces.= Are large pieces of ordnance, used in battering a fortified town or post.

=Battering-ram.= In antiquity, a military engine used to batter and beat down the walls of places besieged. There were two different kinds of battering-rams, one rude and plain, the other compound. The former seems to have been no more than a great beam, which the soldiers bore on their arms and shoulders, and with one end of it, by main force, assailed the walls. The compound ram was a large beam with a head of iron, which was sometimes made to resemble the head of a ram. It was suspended by ropes to a beam supported by posts, and balanced so as to swing backwards and forwards, and was impelled by men against the wall. These rams were sometimes 120 feet in length.

=Battering-train.= A train of artillery used solely for besieging a strong place, inclusive of mortars and howitzers. See SIEGE-TRAIN.

=Battery.= A battery consists of two or more pieces of artillery in the field. The term battery also implies the implacement of ordnance destined to act offensively or defensively. It also refers to the company charged with a certain number of pieces of ordnance. The ordnance constitutes the battery; men serve it; horses drag it, and epaulments may shelter it.

AMBULANT BATTERY, heavy guns mounted on traveling carriages, and moved as occasion may require, either to positions on the coast or in besieged places.

BARBETTE BATTERIES are those without embrasures, in which the guns are raised to fire over the parapet.

BATTERY D’ENFILADE is one that sweeps the whole length of a line, or the face or flank of any work.

BATTERY DE REVERSE is one which plays upon the rear of the troops appointed to defend a place.

BATTERY EN ECHARPE is that which plays obliquely.

BREACHING BATTERY. See BREACH.

COVERED, or MASKED BATTERY is when the cannon and gunners are covered by a bank or breastwork, commonly made of brushwood, fagots, and earth.

CROSS-BATTERIES are two batteries which play athwart each other upon the same object, forming there an angle, and battering with more effect, because what one battery shakes the other beats down.

FACINE and GABION BATTERIES are batteries constructed of those machines where sods are scarce, and the earth very loose and sandy.

FLOATING BATTERIES are such as are erected either on rafts or on the hulls of ships.

GUN-BATTERY is a defense constructed of earth faced with green sods or fascines, sometimes of gabions filled with earth. It consists of a breastwork, epaulment, or parapet; the open spaces through which the muzzles of the cannon are pointed are called _embrasures_, and the solid masses between the embrasures, _merlons_; the _genouilleres_ are those parts of the parapet which cover the carriage of the gun. The platforms are plank floors made to prevent the cannon from sinking into the ground; they are made with a slope to check the recoil of the guns, and to render it more easy to bring them forward again when loaded.

HALF-SUNKEN BATTERY. This term is applied to a battery in which the earth to form the parapet is derived partly from a ditch in front and partly from the excavation of the terre-plein. See ARTILLERY, also CAVALIER.

MORTAR-BATTERIES differ from gun-batteries in this, that the parapets have no embrasures, and the platforms have no slope, but are exactly horizontal; the shells being fired quite over the parapet, commonly at an elevation of 45°.

OPEN BATTERY is a number of cannon, commonly field-pieces, ranged in a row abreast on some natural elevation of ground, or on an artificial bank raised for that purpose.

RAISED BATTERY, one whose terre-plein is elevated considerably above the ground.

REDAN BATTERIES are such as flank each other at the salient and re-entrant angles of a fortification.

RICOCHET BATTERY, so called by its inventor Vauban, was first used at the siege of Aeth in 1697. It is a method of discharging cannon with a very small charge of powder, and with just elevation enough to fire over the parapet. When properly managed its effects are most destructive; for the shot, rolling along the opposite rampart, dismounts the cannon and disperses or destroys the troops. Ricochet practice is not confined to cannon alone; small mortars and howitzers may be effectually employed for the same purpose.

SUNKEN BATTERY, where the sole of the embrasures is on a level with the ground, and the platforms are consequently sunk below it.

=Battery-boxes= are square chests or boxes, filled with earth or dung; used in making batteries, where gabions and earth are not to be had. They must not be too large, but of a size that is governable.

=Battery-wagon.= It consists, besides the limber, of a long-bodied cart with a round top, which is connected with the limber in the same way as all other field-carriages. The lid opens on hinges placed at the side; and in the rear is fixed a movable forage-rack for carrying along forage. One of these wagons accompanies each field battery, for the purpose of transporting carriage-maker’s and saddler’s tools, spare parts of carriages, harness, and equipments, and rough materials for replacing different parts. Both it and the forge are made of equal mobility with the other field-carriages, in order to accompany them wherever they may be required to go. See ORDNANCE, CARRIAGES FOR.

=Battery, Electric.= The apparatus used to generate a current of electricity.

=Battery=, or =Traveling Forge=. See ORDNANCE, CARRIAGES FOR.

=Battery Gun.= A gun capable of firing continuously a great number of shots in a short time. Applied to guns mounted upon tripods, stands, swivels, or carriages. A _magazine cannon_ in contradistinction to a magazine small-arm. Also called _machine gun_ and _mitrailleur_. Guns of this kind existed as early as the 14th century. From the arrangement of the barrels they were called _killing organs_. They have always been used in various forms, but were comparatively inefficient till recent times, when the introduction of the metallic cartridge gave the subject a new importance.

_Puckle’s revolver_, 1718, was ingeniously mounted upon a tripod with good elevating and traversing arrangements. It had one barrel and a movable rotating breech containing nine charges. These were fired in succession, and a new breech, ready charged, was slipped on. Two kinds of bullets were used,--round bullets against Christians and square ones for Turks.

_Winans’s steam gun_, invented about 1861 by the celebrated American inventor and engineer Thomas Winans, of Baltimore, was a battery gun of large calibre. The shot fell from a hopper into a breech-chamber, and were projected through the barrel by the sudden admission behind it of steam under enormous pressure.

The _infernal machine_ with which Fieschi killed Marshal Mortier and a large number of others in his attempt to assassinate Louis Philippe, in 1835, was a crude form of battery gun, consisting of a row of gun-barrels fired by a train of powder. Many battery guns are of this type.

The _Requa battery_--American--used in the civil war, 1861-65, consisted of a row of 24 barrels on a wheel-carriage, so arranged as to give either parallel or divergent fire. It was breech-loading, the cartridges being forced into the barrels by a transverse bar worked by levers. It was capable of seven volleys a minute.

One of the forms of _mitrailleur_ used in the Franco-Prussian war was very much the same. The loading-bar was rotating, and had two sets of chambers. One set was fired while the other was being loaded.

The _Abbertini gun_ used in Europe has 10 barrels arranged as in the Requa battery. It is worked by a crank. The cartridges are conveyed by mechanical devices from a box magazine to the rear of the barrels.