The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: which advantageously flanked the tower and the breach. The English and the Turks laboured at these works without cessation, and every step was taken to increase the effect of the fire from the flanking batteries, and to prepare for a counter attack against the' trenches of the besiegers. Under cover of the...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: which advantageously flanked the tower and the breach. The English and the Turks laboured at these works without cessation, and every step was taken to increase the effect of the fire from the flanking batteries, and to prepare for a counter attack against the' trenches of the besiegers. Under cover of the fire from the towers and elevated walls, they formed their outworks with a degree of facility; and it was evidently impossible for the French to make any impression without a far superior artillery, and a greater quantity of ammunition than they were provided with: several times did they carry these worksj but were always driven from them. On the 1st of May four 18-pounders were directed against the tower, for the purpose of widening the breach; in the evening 20 grenadiers were ordered to effect a lodgment in the tower, and, in some measure, succeeded; but they were exposed to a cross fire of the marines in the fosse, and, feeling the impossibility of passing through the tower, desisted from the attempt. At the moment the grenadiers were mounting the breach at the tower the besieged made a strong sortie from their right; they were charged by two companies of grenadiers .with such impetuosity and effect, that all those who could not retire under the protection of the fire from the gunboats, were cut off or driven into the sea. Buonaparte' gave orders that a second breach should be made in the curtain of the fortifications to the Eastward: a sapping against the fosses, and the formation of a mine, in order to Wow up the connterscarp, were also ordered. Until the 4th of May the works and operations of the besiegers and the besieged were carried on with great ardour and activity; when the ammunition of the French began to fail, and Buonaparte ordered the fire to be slacken...