History and Development of The Entrenching Tool
Entrenching tools go back at least to the times of the Roman Legion. Julius Caesar, as well as other ancient writers, documented the use of spades and other digging implements as important tools of war. The Roman Legion when on the march dug a ditch and rampart around their camps every night where established camps were not available.
Siege tactics throughout history required the digging of fortifications and often mining of walls was attempted, where saps were dug to a wall’s foundation, and collapsing the wall was attempted.
In more modern times the siege tactics of the Napoleonic Wars used spades and pickaxes as entrenching tools to dig trenches towards the walls of the fortifications being besieged, to allow men and munitions to get close enough to fire cannons at the walls to open a breach. Being too long and heavy to be transported by individual soldiers, entrenching shovels and spades were normally carried in the supply carts (logistics train) of a military column; only pioneer or engineer troops typically carried spades or shovels as part of their individual equipment. This frequently led to situations in which the infantry did not have access to entrenching equipment when it was needed. As one U.S. army infantry officer noted, "the intrenching tools of an army rarely get up to the front until the exigency for their use has passed."
In 1870, the U.S. Army introduced the trowel or spade bayonet, intended for individual soldiers as both a weapon and an entrenching tool. This was followed by the development of separate trowel and spade tools, small one-hand implements that could be carried as part of a soldier's individual equipment. While the entrenching trowel or spade gradually gave way in the U.S. and other modern armies to larger, heavier, and more effective entrenching tools, the concept of supplying each infantry soldier with a means of digging his own entrenchments or breastworks continued as a tactical doctrine.
Read more about this topic: Entrenching Tool
Famous quotes containing the words history, development, entrenching and/or tool:
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Information about child development enhances parents’ capacity to respond appropriately to their children. Informed parents are better equipped to problem-solve, more confident of their decisions, and more likely to respond sensitively to their children’s developmental needs.”
—L. P. Wandersman (20th century)
“... so far from entrenching human conduct within the gentle barriers of peace and love, religion has ever been, and now is, the deepest source of contentions, wars, persecutions for conscience sake, angry words, angry feelings, backbitings, slanders, suspicions, false judgments, evil interpretations, unwise, unjust, injurious, inconsistent actions.”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)
“The veto is a President’s Constitutional right, given to him by the drafters of the Constitution because they wanted it as a check against irresponsible Congressional action. The veto forces Congress to take another look at legislation that has been passed. I think this is a responsible tool for a president of the United States, and I have sought to use it responsibly.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)