A Military Dictionary and Gazetteer. Thomas Wilhelm
movements are made, supplies furnished, and upon which a retreat may be made, if necessary.
Base of the Breech. In gunnery, is the rear surface of the breech of a gun.
Basel, Treaty of. This place gives its name to two important treaties of peace, concluded here on April 5 and July 22, 1795, between the representatives of the French Republic, Prussia, and Spain, by which Prussia withdrew from the coalition against France, took under her protection all the states of Northern Germany which should like herself relinquish the war in which the German empire was engaged, and also give up to the victorious republic her possessions beyond the Rhine; whilst Spain gave up her portion of St. Domingo, and prepared the way for that alliance with France which was afterwards productive of consequences so important.
Base-ring. In gunnery, is a projecting band of metal adjoining the base of the breech, and connected with the body of the gun by a concave moulding.
Bashaw. See Pasha.
Bashi-Bazouks. Are irregular troops in the pay of the sultan. Very few of them are Europeans; they are mostly Asiatics, from some of the pashalics in Asiatic Turkey; they are wild, turbulent men, ready to enter the sultan’s service under some leader whom they can understand, and still more ready to plunder whenever an opportunity offers. During the Russo-Turkish war of 1854, etc., they had many encounters with the enemy in that kind of irregular warfare which the Russians intrust to Cossack horsemen; but the peaceful villagers had almost as much distrust of the Bashi-Bazouks as of the Russians. They were also partially employed by the British during the Crimean war.
Bashkirs. A race supposed to be descended from the Nogay Tartars, who inhabit the Russian provinces of Ufa and Yekaterinboorg, in the governments of Orenburg and Perm respectively. They are but partially civilized, and are generally employed by Russia as guards on the frontier of Asia.
Basientello (Southern Naples). Here the army of Otto II., in an ambuscade, was nearly cut to pieces by the Greeks and Saracens, July 13, 982; the emperor barely escaped.
Basilisk. An ancient piece of ordnance, which was 10 feet long and weighed 7200 pounds; so called from its supposed resemblance to the serpent of that name, or from its size.
Basillard. An old term for a poniard.
Basket-hilt. The hilt of a sword, so made as to contain and guard the whole hand.
Basket-hilted. Having a hilt of basket-work.
Baskets. See Gabion.
Baslard. A short sword or dagger, worn in the 15th century.
Basnet. See Bascinet.
Basque Provinces (Northwest Spain, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and Alva). The Basques, considered to be descendants of the ancient Iberi, were termed Vascones by the Romans, whom they successfully resisted. They were subdued with great difficulty by the Goths about 580, and were united to Castile in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Basque Roads (Western France). Four French ships of the line, riding at anchor here, were attacked by Lords Gambier and Cochrane (the latter commanding the fire-ships), and all, with a great number of merchant and other vessels, were destroyed, April 11–12, 1809. Cochrane accused Gambier of neglecting to support him, and thereby allowing the French to escape. At a court-martial Lord Gambier was acquitted.
Bassée, La. A town in the department of the North, France, formerly fortified. It sustained several sieges. Louis XIV. captured it from the Spaniards and caused it to be dismantled.
Basseterre Roads, St. Christopher’s, West Indies. Here the French admiral, the Comte de Grasse, was repulsed with loss in three desperate attacks on the British fleet, commanded by Sir Thomas Graves, January 25–26, 1782.
Basson (Northern Italy). Here the Austrians under Wurmser were defeated by the French under Massena, September 8, 1796.
Bassorah, Basrah, or Bussorah (Asia Minor). A Turkish city, founded by the Caliph Omar about 635. It has been several times taken and retaken by the Persians and Turks.
Bass Rock. An isle in the Frith of Forth, Southern Scotland; granted to the Landers in 1316; purchased for a state prison, 1671; taken by the Jacobites, 1690; surrendered, 1694; granted to the Dalrymples, 1706.
Bastard, or Batarde (Fr.). An ancient piece of ordnance of about 8 pounds calibre, 91⁄2 feet long, and weighing 1950 pounds. It was invented by Jean Maurique de Lard, master-general of ordnance under Charles V. of France in 1535. He also had several bastards cast of a larger calibre. This term was also applied to guns of an unusual make or proportion, whether longer or shorter.
Bastarnæ, or Basternæ. A warlike German people who migrated to the country near the mouth of the Danube. They are first mentioned in the wars of Philip and Perseus against the Romans, and at a later period they frequently devastated Thrace, and were engaged in wars with the Roman governors of the province of Macedonia. In 30 B.C. they were defeated by Marcus Crassus, and driven across the Danube, and we find them, at a later period, partly settled between the Tyras (now Dniester) and Borysthenes (now Dnieper), and partly at the mouth of the Danube, under the name of Peucini, from their inhabiting the island of Peuce, at the mouth of the river.
Bastia. A fortified seaport town, and formerly capital of Corsica, on its northeast coast, and 67 miles from Ajaccio; besieged without success by the Piedmontese in 1748; captured by the English, 1794.
Bastide (Fr.). In ancient times, a bastion, block-house, fortress, or outer fortifications.
Bastile. Originally, a temporary wooden tower used in warfare; hence, any tower or fortification.
Bastile, or Bastille (Paris). A castle built by Charles V., king of France, in 1369, for the defense of Paris against the English; completed in 1383, and afterwards used as a state prison. Henry IV. and his veteran army assailed it in vain in the siege of Paris during the war, 1587–94. On July 14–15, 1789, it was pulled down by the populace, the governor and other officers seized, conducted to the Place de Grève, their hands and heads were cut off, and the heads carried on pikes through the streets.
Bastinado. A punishment among the Turkish soldiers, which is performed by beating them with a cane or flat of a sword on the soles of their feet.
Bastion. A work consisting of two faces and two flanks, all the angles being salient. Two bastions are connected by means of a curtain, which is screened by the angle made by the prolongation of the corresponding faces of two bastions, and flanked by the line of defense. Bastions contain, sheltered by their parapets, marksmen, artillery, platform, and guards. They are protected by galleries of mines, and by demi-lunes and lunettes outside the ditch, and by palisades, if the ditch is inundated. The faces of the bastion are the parts exposed to being enfiladed by ricochet batteries, and also to being battered in breach.
Bastion, Composed, is where two sides of the interior polygon are very unequal, which makes the gorges also unequal.
Bastion, Cut, is that which, instead of a point, has a re-entering angle.
Bastion, Deformed, is when the irregularity of the lines and angles puts the bastion out of shape; as, when it wants a demi-gorge, one side of the interior polygon being too short.
Bastion, Demi, is that which has only one face and one flank, cut off by the capital—like the extremities of horn- and crown-works.
Bastion, Double, is that which is raised on the plane of another bastion.
Bastion, Flat, is a bastion built in the middle of the curtain, when it is too long to