Annals of a FortressViollet-le-Duc, Eugène-Emmanuel
History
Annals of a Fortress
Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène-Emmanuel
Fortification -- France -- History; Fortification -- History; Siege warfare -- History
with their centre broken through, were unable to use their arms. Some
fell and were suffocated. Those who were on the projecting part of the
rampart began to turn and fly into the midst of their advancing
comrades, who not seeing what was taking place behind the rampart, were
for compelling them to return to the battle.
The crowd fell into confusion, and disregarding the voice of the chiefs,
accumulated in such masses in the ditch, the escarpments and the
rampart-walk, that it could act only by its weight, and offered itself
to attack without power of defence. Most threw down their bucklers which
hampered their movements.
Sigild kept advancing, and all the warriors not engaged in defending the
intrenchment formed behind him in a column which became denser each
moment. As soon as they were outside the intrenchment, these warriors
turned about and threw themselves on the bulk of the assailants, who
were separated into two masses. Caught as in a pair of pincers by
Sigild's band, and by those coming from the terminal egresses of the
intrenchment, they were slaughtered without resistance.
In vain did the chiefs of the enemy sound a retreat. The bulk of
assailants, who were massed between the rampart and the intrenchment,
could neither advance nor recede. Very few succeeded in rejoining their
companions. Fatigue alone stayed the defenders; it was no longer a
combat but a massacre.
Although the warriors of the Val d'Avon had suffered considerable loss,
the success of the defence had intoxicated them, and they were eager to
take advantage of the disorder of the enemy to sally forth from the
Oppidum and fall upon them. Sigild was obliged to swear to them by the
most terrible of oaths, that their vengeance would be more effective by
delay.
He told them, moreover, that the enemy were very numerous, and that the
losses they had suffered had not weakened them to such a degree as to
render them contemptible; that they were burning for revenge, and that
to attack them in their camp was to give them the very opportunity they
desired. The authority of the chiefs of the tribes of the Druids had,
however, to be appealed to, to keep the warriors within the Oppidum.
Night fell on the narrow battle-field covered with the dead and wounded.
The Brenn took re-possession of the ramparts, had the wattle parapet
hastily repaired, the enemy's wounded put to death, and his own carried
into the middle of the camp, where they were consigned to the care of
the women; then he ascended one of the unburnt towers of that front,
hoping to perceive Tomar's signal. But the night was hazy, and the fires
of the enemy three or four hundred paces distant were scarcely visible.
It was evident that Tomar could not have lighted his fire, or if he had
lighted it, it was impossible to see it through the haze.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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