Another way of making a breach is by piercing the wall sufficiently to admit two or three miners, who cross the ditch, and make their entry during the night into the wall, where they establish two or three small mines, sufficient to make a breach. See ARTILLERY at Siege; see also BATTERY. _To repair a_ BREACH, is to stop or fill up the gap with gabions, fascines, &c. and prevent the assault. _To fortify a_ BREACH, is to render it inaccessible by means of chevaux-de-frize, crow’s-feet, &c. _To make a lodgment in the_ BREACH. After the besieged are driven away, the besiegers secure themselves against any future attack in the breach. _To clear the_ BREACH, that is, to remove the ruins, that it may be the better defended. BREAK _off_, a term used when cavalry or infantry are ordered to diminish its front. It is also used to signify wheeling from line; as BREAKING-off to the left, for _wheeling_ to the left. BREAK-_Ground_, the first opening of the earth to form entrenchments, as at the commencement of a siege. It applies also to the striking of tents and quitting the ground on which any troops had been encamped. _To_ BREAK _ground_, to begin, to open and work at the trenches in a siege, &c. BREAST PLATE, in military antiquity, a piece of defensive armor worn on the breast of both men and horses. They are but seldom used now. BREAST-_work_ See PARAPET. BREECH _of a gun_, the end near the vent. See CANNON. BREVET _rank_, is a rank in the army higher than that for which you receive pay; and gives a precedence (when corps are brigaded) to the date of the brevet commission. BREVET, _Fr._ commission, appointment. Under the old government of France it consisted in letters or appointments signed by the king, by virtue of which every officer was authorised to discharge his particular duty. All officers in the old French service, from a cornet or sub-lieutenant up to a marshal of France were stiled _Officiers à Brévet_. BREVET _d’Assurance ou de Retenue d’Argent_, _Fr._ certain military and civil appointments granted by the old kings of France, which were distinguished from other places of trust, in as much as every successor was obliged to pay a certain sum of money to the heirs of the deceased, or for the discharge of his debts. Hence the term _brevet d’Assurance ou de retenue_. BRICKS, in military architecture, supply the place of stone in common buildings, and are composed of an earthy matter, hardened by art, to a resemblance of that kind: they may be very well considered as artificial stone. The Greeks and Romans, &c. generally used bricks in their buildings, witness the Pantheon, &c. In the east they baked their bricks in the sun. The Romans used them unburnt, having first left them to dry in the air for 3, 4, or 5 years.