"The Boches had been building a redoubt, and we turned on some h.e.s.

February 12th, 1885.To-day, Captain Sauvallier attacked the enemy with extreme vigour, fought all the day against considerable forces, and captured successively three redoubts.

The Bulgarian infantry stormed the redoubts in the moonlight.

Lieutenant Willard was working with a will to strengthen the redoubt.

Curtained by a double palisade of beams eighteen feet high by two feet thick, strengthened by flanking redoubts, ditches, and traverses, honeycombed with rifle-pits and bomb-proof chambers below ground, "large enough to hold a whist-party," it was a model Maori fortification of the later style.

When that work was finished, he distributes garrisons, and closely fortifies redoubts, in order that he may the more easily intercept them, if they should attempt to cross over against his will.

Before the batteries could meet the charge, clearing the ditch, they gained the redoubt through the embrasures, leaping over the parapet, and overwhelming by their superior force the small party stationed there.

Fernando's riflemen had been waiting for this, and, with wild yells, they leaped the redoubts, deployed along the stone fences and houses and picked off the redcoats so rapidly, that they fled pell mell to their own works, glad to escape the bullets of those unerring riflemen.

Antony, because of his conflict and because he himself on his return had been defeated in a cavalry battle by Caesar's advance guard, no longer thought it well to encamp in two different places, but during the night left the redoubt which was near his opponents and retired to the other side of the narrows, where the larger part of his army had bivouacked.

The troops occupied one redoubt, but were so dominated by the French musketry that they could get no further, and Wolfe deemed it desirable to recall them and to stop the advance across the ford.

As soon as it had quitted the Mauconseil redoubt, the battalion rapidly formed itself into an attacking column, and a moment afterwards they heard the intermittent sound of an advance at the double.

Our guns were not heavy enough to cope with those of the fortress, and so we passed the time shelling the redoubts thrown up on the little hillocks around the town, alternating these operations with an occasional assault of one of the nearest of them when the men got impatient for some active movement.

It was impossible for a man to approach the redoubt without being seen by the sentinel.

Deep trenches surrounded inaccessible redoubts, while thick barricades, with pointed palisades, defended the approaches to the heights, from the summits of which Wallenstein calmly and securely discharged the lightnings of his artillery from amid the dark thunder-clouds of smoke.

During this time the garrison of the oppidum attacked the redoubts of Rebilus several times, which obliged him to interrupt the work of the countervallation, which, indeed, he had not sufficient forces to defend.

Wednesday, 3rd May: The troops of General Lacretelle carry the redoubt of Moulin Saquet.

There were two steep ridges to the west of the city, crowned by strong stone breastworks and held by considerable detachments of regulars, being positions of supreme importance, as they commanded the redoubts on that side from a distance of 300 to 500 yards.