ABSTRACT
This conclusion chapter presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. Long before the trench warfare in Virginia in 1865, or the deadlock of 1914-18, armies had on rare but significant occasions taken to a form of linear, positional warfare which confronted the challenge which the fortresses alone had been unable to meet. This posture was adopted by the French in their lines in the last campaigns in the War of the Spanish Succession, and it was taken up again by the Austrians when they held the Prussians on the upper Elbe in 1778. Despite the record of achievement, the change in the character of military engineering, which summed up as 'professionalism', did not in every respect work to the integration of the engineering art in warfare. It is remarkable how the men, who excelled in exploring new ideas in fortification and siegework, or setting up bureaucratic structures, were succeeded by specialists.
