Bridge-Head, or téte-de-pont, in fortification, a permanent or field 
work, thrown up at the further end of a bridge in order to protect 
the bridge, and to enable the party holding it to manoeuvre on 
both banks of the river. The existence of bridge-heads is 
indispensable to those extensive modern fortresses situated on 
large rivers or at the junction of 2 rivers. In such a case the 
bridge-head is generally formed by a suburb on the opposite side 
and regularly fortified; thus, Castel is the bridge-head of Mentz, 
Ehrenbreitstein that of Coblentz, and Deutz that of Cologne. No 
sooner had the French got possession, during the revolutionary 
war, of Kehl, than they turned it into a_ bridge-head for 
Strasbourg. In England, Gosport may be considered the bridge- 
head of Portsmouth, although there is no bridge, and though it 
has other and very important functions to fulfil. As in this latter 
case, a fortification on the further side of a river or arm of the sea 
is often called a bridge-head, though there be no bridge; since the 
fortification, imparting the power of landing troops under its 
protection and preparing for offensive operations, fulfils the same 
functions, and comes, strategetically speaking, under the same 
denomination. In speaking of the position of an army behind a 
large river, all the posts it holds on its opposite bank are called its 
bridge-heads, whether they be fortresses, intrenched villages, or 
regular field works, inasmuch as every one of them admits of the 
army debouching in safety on the other side. Thus, when 
Napoleon’s retreat from Russia, in 1813, ceased behind the Elbe, 
Hamburg, Magdeburg, Wittenberg, and Torgau were his bridge- 
heads on the right bank of that river. In field fortification, 
bridge-heads are mostly very simple works, consisting of a bonnet a 

Bridge-Head 257 

prétre,* or sometimes a horn-work or crown-work, open toward the 
river, and with a redoubt close in front of the bridge. Sometimes a 
hamlet, a group of farm-houses, or other buildings close to a 
bridge, may be formed into a sufficient bridge-head by being 
properly adapted for defence; for, with the present light-infantry 
tactics, such objects, when at all capable of defence, may be made 
to offer a resistance as great, or greater, than any field works 
thrown up according to the rules of the art. 

Written in the first half of February 1858 Reproduced from The New Ameri- 

Cyclopaedi 

Cyclopaedia, Vol. III, 1858