The Connection of Intrenched Camps and Têtes de Ponts with Strategy.
It would be out of place here to go into details as to the sites of ordinary camps and upon the means of covering them by advanced guards, or upon the advantages of field-fortifications in the defense of posts. Only fortified camps enter into the combinations of grand tactics, and even of strategy; and this they do by the temporary support they afford an army.
It may be seen by the example of the camp of Buntzelwitz, which saved Frederick in 1761, and by those of Kehl and Dusseldorf in 1796, that such a refuge may prove of the greatest importance. The camp of Ulm, in 1800, enabled Kray to arrest for a whole month the army of Moreau on the Danube; and Wellington derived great advantages from his camp of Torres-Vedras. The Turks were greatly assisted in defending the country between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains by the camp of Shumla.
The principal rule in this connection is that camps should be established on strategic points which should also possess tactical advantages. If the camp of Drissa was useless to the Russians in 1812, it was because it was not in a proper position in reference to their defensive system, which should have rested upon Smolensk and Moscow. Hence the Russians were compelled to abandon it after a few days.
The maxims which have been given for the determination of the great decisive strategic points will apply to all intrenched camps, because they ought only to be placed on such points. The influence of these camps is variable: they may answer equally well as points of departure for an