The history of siege warfare has more in it of human interest than any other branch of military history. It is full of the personal element, of the nobility of human endurance and of dramatic surprises. And more than any battles in the open field, it shows the great results of the courage of men fighting at bay. Think of Clive at Arcot. With 4 officers, 120 Europeans and 200 sepoys, with two 18-pounders and 8 lighter guns, he held the fort against 150 Europeans and some 10,000 native troops. "The fort" (says Orme) "seemed little capable of sustaining the impending siege. Its extent was more than a mile in circumference. The walls were in many places ruinous; the rampart too narrow to admit the firing of artillery; the parapet low and slightly built; several of the towers were decayed, and none of them capable of receiving more than one piece of cannon; the ditch was in most places fordable, in others dry and in some choked up," &c. These feeble ramparts were commanded almost everywhere by the enemy's musketry from the houses of the city outside the fort, so that the defenders were hardly able to show themselves without being hit, and much loss was suffered in this way. Yet with his tiny garrison, which timbered about one man for every 7 yds. of the enclosure, Clive sustained a siege of 50 days, ending with a really severe assault on two large open breaches, which was repulsed, and after which the enemy hastily decamped. Such feats as this make arguments about _successive lines of defence_ and the _necessity of keeps_ seem very barren. History, as far as the writer knows, shows no instances where successive lines have been held with such brilliant results. Clive's defence of his breaches, which by all the then accepted rules of war were untenable, brings us to another point which has been already mentioned, namely, that a garrison might honourably make terms when there was an open breach in their main line of defence. This is a question upon which Carnot delivers himself very strongly in endeavouring to impress upon French officers the necessity of defence to the last moment. Speaking of Cormontaingne's imaginary _Journal of the Attack of a Fortress_ (which is carried up to the 35th day, and finishes by the words "It is now time to surrender"), he says with great scorn: "Crillon would have cried, 'It is time to begin fighting.' He would have said as at the siege of Quilleboeuf, 'Crillon is within, the enemy is without.' Thus when Bayard was defending the shattered walls of Mezieres, M. de Cormontaingne, if he had been there, would have said, 'It is time to surrender.' Thus when Guise was repairing the breaches of Metz under the redoubled fire of the enemy, M. de Cormontaingne, if he had been there, would have said, 'It is time to surrender.'" Carnot of course allows that Cormontaingne was personally brave. His scorn is for the accepted principle, not for the man. Resisting "to the last."