SIEGE OPERATIONS IN INDIA.

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the amount of trench-work was smaller, and the dangerous part was chieflyexecuted by the Sappers, the working parties of the Line being employed inwidening and improving the previous work. There is no doubt that BrigadierCheape’s project of carrying the suburbs by assault, taking the town, and then pro-secuting the attack on the fort or citadel, saved much time and fatigue to the besiegers,which would inevitably have been incurred by the adoption of the attack on thenorth-east angle of the citadel, without dispossessing the enemy of their coverin the gardens and houses and city walls; and, in all probability, with the city, theywould have stood an assault, trusting to make terms in or to secure their flight fromthe town.

2. The attack from the town after its capture was most judicious, and the breacheson that side would, owing to the destruction of the great mosque magazine on the30th December, in the upper line of works in the citadel, have been carried withgreater ease than those on the north-east: this fact should not be overlooked, thesite of a breach in a re-entering angle being deemed objectionable.

Twenty-seven days were occupied in the operations of the second siege. Some ofthese might, perhaps, have been saved, and it is easy to look back; but consideringthe necessary loss of life in accelerating the attack, and the difiiculties incurred inremoving rubbish and clearing houses for the emplacement of batteries and magazinesincident to an Indian city, the time that might have been gained is not now worthconsideration.

3. As for the details of the siege, the following may be worthy of notice:

The engineers’ works were probably too much in advance of the artillery; a moreactive enemy might have taken advantage of this; and, as a general rule, the defencesshould be ruined before the sap is commenced. The fort of Mooltan is so far peculiar,that it might be impossible to silence it altogether; but the towers of the advancedline should have been destroyed at an earlier period by the 24-pounders in batterynear the Shumstabrez.

4. The artillery practice was most excellent, and the exertions of officers and menindefatigable. It is impossible to overrate the service rendered by the 8-inch and10-inch howitzers. The walls are mostly of mud, or brick and mud; and it so hap-pened that the part selected for the breach was very defective, a mere facing over theold wall. In this the 24-pounder shot brought down large masses; hut where thewall was sound, the shot buried themselves, whereas the shells penetrated, and thenacted as small mines. Against a mud fort a howitzer must therefore be consideredfar preferable to a gun, though of course the latter would be more effective against awell-built stone wall. The inconvenience to howitzers is the difficulty of preservingthe cheeks of the embrasures. The iron howitzer might, perhaps with advantage, belengthened.

5. Lieut . Taylor, Bengal Engineers, who had charge of the engineer park duringthe siege, contributed greatly to the security of the gunners by the supply of palm-trees roughly squared, which were fixed at the throat of the embrasures, on whichshutters of 4-inch planks were hung as mantlets. The only other novelty in theengineering operations was the attempt to construct elevated batteries rapidly bybuilding up the solid portion with fascines nine feet long, of which there wasabundance. Four Officers of Engineers and two Sepoy sappers erected a two-gunportion in little more than half an hour, all the material being close at hand; suchbatteries are, however, highly inflammable, and once on fire, cannot be extinguished,as occurred on the 9tli January in one of them.

C. Captain Siddons proposed a field powder-magazine of a new construction;and inasmuch as it might afford sufficient protection against the vertical fire of an