The second maxim as to these camps is, that they are particularly advantageous to an army at home or near its base of operations. If a French army occupied an intrenched camp on the Elbe, it would be lost when the space between the Rhine and Elbe was held by the enemy; but if it were invested in an intrenched camp near Strasbourg, it might with a little assistance resume its superiority and take the field, while the enemy in the interior of France and between the relieving force and the intrenched army would have great difficulty in recrossing the Rhine. We have heretofore considered these camps in a strategic light; but several German generals have maintained that they are suitable to cover places or to prevent sieges,--which appears to me to be a little sophistical. Doubtless, it will be more difficult to besiege a place when an army is encamped on its glacis; and it maybe said that the forts and camps are a mutual support; but, according to my view, the real and principal use of intrenched camps is always to afford, if necessary, a temporary refuge for an army, or the means of debouching offensively upon a decisive point or beyond a large river. To bury an army in such a camp, to expose it to the danger of being outflanked and cut off, simply to retard a siege, would be folly. The example of Wurmser, who prolonged the defense of Mantua, will be cited in opposition to this; but did not his army perish? And was this sacrifice really useful? I do not think so; for, the place having been once relieved and revictualed, and the siege-train having fallen into the hands of the Austrians, the siege was necessarily changed into a blockade, and the town could only be taken by reason of famine; and, this being the case, Wurmser's presence ought rather to have hastened than retarded its surrender. The intrenched camp of the Austrians before Mayence in 1795 would, indeed, have prevented the siege of the place, if the French had possessed the means of carrying on a siege, as long as the Rhine had not been crossed; but as soon as Jourdan appeared on the Lahn, and Moreau in the Black Forest, it became necessary to abandon the camp and leave the place to its own means of defense. It would only be in the event of a fortress occupying a point such that it would be impossible for an army to pass it without taking it, that an intrenched camp, with the object of preventing an attack upon it, would be established; and what place in Europe is upon such a site? So far from agreeing with these German authors, on the contrary, it seems to me that a very important question in the establishment of these camps near fortified places on a river, is whether they should be on the same bank as the place, or upon the other. When it is necessary to make a choice, by reason of the fact that the place cannot be located to cover both banks, I should decidedly prefer the latter.