From that time to the present, continual progress
has been, made in the organization, discipline, and instruction of
the Chasseurs, and all the objections which at different periods were,
raised against the special composition and details of the force having
been one by one met and obviated, France now counts no less than
twenty-one battalions of them in her army.
It was for a long time thought by some, that, although the Chasseurs,
like the Zouaves, had been successful in the skirmishing engagements
of Algeria, they would not be found so useful in European warfare.
This opinion was proved to be erroneous at the siege of Rome, in 1849,
where the Chasseurs, armed with their new and terrible weapon, the
_carabine a tige_, in the management of which they had been thoroughly
drilled, rendered the most important service; and from what was seen
of them there it became evident that the existence of such a force,
so perfected in every particular, would hereafter greatly modify the
relations and conditions of the defence and attack of fortified works.
The importance of this fact will impress the reader, when he remembers
how large a part fortresses have played in warfare since 1815, and
especially when he glances at the tendency everywhere perceptible now
toward transforming military strongholds into great intrenched camps,
as revealed at Antwerp in Belgium, Fredericia in Denmark, Buda and
Comorn in Hungary, Peschiera, Mantua, Venice, Verona, and Rome in
Italy, Silistria and Sebastopol in the East, and Washington, Manassas,
and Richmond in America.
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