Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 14, 2025
The moment for laying in wood is also that of the slaughtering. After entrenching against cold comes the defence against hunger.
Each night for such as had ears, if not official ones, wood and thicket rang with the blows of entrenching tool on bole and sapling, till past the very door of Sergeant-Major sipping his rum, or company officers seated around sirloin and baked potatoes would be dragged trunk and branches of a voting tree, that in peace time and warmer weather might have lived to grace an avenue.
But in the other particular characteristic of civilization they acted in the very opposite direction from all preceding inventions. Instead of entrenching the master in his monopoly of social power, instead of furthering the differentiation of society into master and man, they all played into the hands of the man.
To begin with, the men had no tools, except their "entrenching implements," so naturally the work could not be very elaborate. Moreover, the thought that such works would be wanted for longer than a day or two never entered their heads. Each man dug a shelter for himself, according to his skill, ingenuity and perseverance. There was little or no attempt at digging a long, consecutive trench.
Partially protected on the west, owing to the fact that an immense grass-grown park renders approach from this quarter without carefully entrenching and barricading simple suicide, there remain but two points of meagre dimensions at which the Chinese attack can be successfully developed without much preliminary preparation; the narrow northern end and a southwestern point formed by a regular rabbit-warren of Chinese houses that push right up to the Legation walls.
He also carries a bottle of liquid for damping the respirator. In the flap of his jacket is sewn a field dressing. Slung behind him is an entrenching tool. Any other space upon his person is at his own disposal, and he may carry what he likes, except "unsoldierly trinkets" whatever these may be.
Caesar, hoping to surprise this legion, and anxious to repair the loss sustained that day, left two cohorts employed in the works to make an appearance of entrenching himself, and by a different route, as privately as he could, with his other cohorts amounting to thirty-three, among which was the ninth legion, which had lost so many centurions, and whose privates were greatly reduced in number, he marched in two lines against Pompey's legion and his lesser camp.
In advancing to this point, we were under a sharp fire, to which we did not respond, but hastened to throw up pits. On the left of the regiment the firing was lively, as the men in the woods did not need to be in such haste entrenching. We were ordered to "rally by fours," and each group threw up a separate pit.
The chuckle with which he added this last showed that he, at any rate, had no doubt as to the fate of the fourth gun. This was evidently the end of the shelling, the enemy having, theoretically, made the field untenable. The actual casualties were, however, very slight, and the field entrenching tool, until now regarded as a toy, became a valued possession.
At least we fear the Prussians, in large force as they are, may temporarily drive us back. But it will not be for long. We shall recover our ground. Even now we are entrenching ourselves to the rear. When that time comes, Marie, you and the Padré will be in peril, for the French probably will have to shell the village. We hope it may not come to that.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking