Barbette

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This is one of a number of articles beginning with B for which Marx received a request in the summer of 1857. He forwarded this request to Engels in his letter of August 26, 1857 (see present edition, Vol. 40). The list of articles asked for by Charles Dana has not survived, but later, in connection with an additional request from New York for articles beginning with B, Marx repeated it in his letter to Engels of February 1, 1858, reminding him of the work already done. The list included: “Barbette”, “Bastion”, “Bayonet”, “Barclay de Tolly”, “Battery”, “Battle”, “Bern”, “Bennigsen”, “Berthier”, “Bernadotte”, “Bessières”, “Bivouac”, “Blindage”, “Blücher”, “Blum”, “Bolivar y Ponte”, “Bomb”, “Bombardier”, “Bombardment”, “Bomb (-ketch, -proof, -vessel)”, “Bonnet”, “Bosquet”, “Bourrienne”, “Bridge (pontoon)”, “Brown (Sir George)”, “Brune”, and “Bugeaud”. There is also a list of articles beginning with B (with some of the items crossed out) at the end of Marx’s notebook for 1857.

In his letter of August 26, 1857 Marx asked Engels to send articles for the Cyclopaedia as soon as possible. By September 15 he had received three articles which, together with the articles "Barclay de Tolly" and "Berthier", he dispatched to New York on that day, as seen from his notebook entry for September 15: "Barclay. Berthier. Bayonet. Barbet. Bastion für die Cyclopaedia". On the same day Marx wrote to Engels that besides these articles he had forwarded to Dana the articles "Blum" and "Bourrienne", but according to his notebook they were dispatched to New York a week later, with other material.

In a battery, guns are said to be placed en barbette when they stand high enough to fire over the crest of the parapet instead of, as usual, through embrasures. To raise the guns to this height, various means are adopted. In field fortifications, an earthwork platform behind the parapet forms the station for the gun. In a permanent fortification, the common high sliding carriage or the traversing platform raises the gun to the required level. Guns placed en barbette have not the same cover from the enemy’s fire as those firing through embrasures; they are, therefore, disposed in this manner where the parapet cannot afford to be weakened by the cutting of embrasures, or where it is desirable to extend their range more to the right and left than would be possible with embrasures. On this account, guns are placed en barbette in field fortifications; in the salient angles of works; and in strand batteries destined to act against ships, especially if the parapet is of masonry. To protect them from enfilading fire, traverses and bonnets are constructed when necessary.