ion of that city cut off his hopes of winter quarters there,
and the premature rigor of the season destroyed the horses of his
artillery and provision-trains, retreat became impossible, and the awful
fate of his immense army was closed by scenes of horror to which there
is scarcely a parallel in history. This point might be still further
illustrated by the Russian campaign of Charles XII., in 1708-9, the
fatal advance of the French army on Lisbon, in the Peninsular war, and
other examples of the same character.

Even single works sometimes effect the object of lines of
fortifications, and frustrate the operations of an entire army. Thus,
Lille suspended for a whole year the operations of Prince Eugene and
Marlborough; the siege of Landrecies gave Villars an opportunity of
changing the fortunes of the war; Pavia, in 1525, lost France her
monarch, the flower of her nobility, and her Italian conquests; Metz, in
1552, arrested the entire power of Charles V., and saved France from
destruction; Prague, in 1757, brought the greatest warrior of his age to
the brink of ruin; St. Jean d'Acre, in 1799, stopped the successful
career of Napoleon; Burgos, in 1812, saved the beaten army of Portugal,
enabled them to collect their scattered forces, and regain the
ascendancy; Strasburg has often been, the bulwark of the French against
Germany, saving France from invasion, and perhaps subjugation.

In nearly the language of Napoleon, (Memoirs, vol. IX.,) If Vienna had
been fortified in 1805, the battle of Ulm would not have decided the
fate of the war. Again, in 1809, if this capital had been fortified, it
would have enabled the Archduke Charles, after the disaster of Eckmuhl,
by a forced retreat on the left of the Danube, to form a junction with
the forces of General Hiller and the Archduke John.

If Berlin had been fortified in 1806, the army routed at Jena would have
rallied there and been joined by the Russians. If Madrid had been
strongly fortified in 1808, the French army, after the victories of
Espinosa, Tudela, Burgos, and Sommo-Sierra, would not have marched
towards that capital, leaving in rear of Salamanca and Valladolid, both
the English army of General Moore and the Spanish army of Romana. If
Moscow had been fortified in 1812, its conflagration would have been
avoided, for, with strong defensive works, and the army of Kutusoff
encamped on its ramparts, its capture would have been impossible.

Had not Constantinople been we