ASSAULT, a furious effort to carry a fortified post, camp, or fortress, where the assailants do not screen themselves by any works. While an assault during a siege continues, the batteries cease, for fear of killing their own men. An assault is sometimes made by the regiments that guard the trenches of a siege, sustained by detachments from the army. _To give an_ ASSAULT, is to attack any post, &c. _To repulse an_ ASSAULT, to cause the assailants to retreat, to beat them back. _To carry by_ ASSAULT, to gain a post by storm, &c. ASSAUT, _Fr._ See ASSAULT. ASSIEGER, _Fr._ to besiege. ASSEMBLEE, _Fr._ the assembling together of an army. Also a _call_, or beat of the drum. See ASSEMBLY. ASSEMBLY, the second beating of the drum before a march; at which the men strike their tents, if encamped, roll them up, and stand to arms. See DRUM. ASSESSMENT, in a military sense, signifies a certain rate which is paid in England by the county treasurer to the receiver-general of the land-tax, to indemnify any place for not having raised the militia; which sum is to be paid by the receiver-general into the exchequer. The sum to be assessed is five pounds for each man, where no annual certificate of the state of the militia has been transmitted to the clerk of the peace: if not paid before June yearly it may be levied on the parish officers. Such assessment where there is no county rate is to be raised as the poor’s rate. ASSIETTE, _Fr._ the immediate scite or position of a camp. ASSOCIATION, any number of men embodied in arms for mutual defence in their district; and to preserve the public tranquility therein, against foreign or domestic enemies. ASTRAGAL. See CANNON. ATTACH. Officers and non-commissioned officers are said to be attached to the respective army, regiment, battalion, troop, or company with which they are appointed to act. ATTACHE, _Fr._ the seal and signature of the colonel-general in the old French service, which were affixed to the commissions of officers after they had been duly examined. ATTACK, any general assault, or onset, that is given to gain a post, or break a body of troops. ATTACK _of a siege_, is a furious assault made by the besiegers by means of trenches, galleries, saps, breaches, or mines, &c. by storming any part of the front attack. Sometimes two attacks are carried on at the same time, between which a communication must be made. See SIEGE. _False_ ATTACKS are never carried on with that vigor and briskness that the others are; the design of them being to favor the true attack, by amusing the enemy and by obliging the garrison to severer duty in dividing their forces, that the true attack may be more successful. _Regular_ ATTACK, is that which is carried on in form, according to the rules of art. See SIEGE, APPROACHES, &c. _To_ ATTACK _in front or flank_, in fortification, means to attack the saliant angle, or both sides of the bastion.