3-053-751 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Autumn Campaign on Cannock Chase, 1873. The British Army in Staffordshire. '1. Carrying Heather and Fascines for Marsh Bridge. 2. Mess Table of the Royal Engineers. 3. Making Roadway at head of Marsh Bridge. 4. Marsh Bridge, over the Devil's Drumble...The country hereabouts is very suitable for the display of mimic warfare on a small scale...At the Devil's Drumble the Royal Engineers distinguished themselves in the skilful construction of an extemporised bridge over a piece of morass. The method here used is that of laying bundles of brushwood on the surface of the bog, across the intended roadway, then placing supporting beams diagonally upon them...all being firmly lashed together; more fascines are added with stuffing of cut heather, and earth beaten hard on the top. This is quite a new style of bridge...After superintending such work the officers of the Royal Engineers have well earned a comfortable dinner; but their al fresco mess-table is merely a couple of planks laid upon a squared mound of turf or earth-heap, raised in the middle of a trench dug of convenient size for the gentlemen to sit round it, upon the edge at each side, as if they sat on benches. Necessity and campaigning experience are indeed the parents of invention'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.