Fortifications in the context of "Stormings of Turtucaia"

The Great Wall of China (traditional Chinese: 萬里長城; simplified Chinese: 万里长城; pinyin: Wànlǐ Chángchéng, literally "ten thousand li long wall") is a series of fortifications in China. They were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic groups from the Eurasian Steppe. The first walls date to the 7th century BC; these were joined together in the Qin dynasty. Successive dynasties expanded the wall system; the best-known sections were built by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).

To aid in defense, the Great Wall utilized watchtowers, troop barracks, garrison stations, signaling capabilities through the means of smoke or fire, and its status as a transportation corridor. Other purposes of the Great Wall have included border controls (allowing control of immigration and emigration, and the imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road), and the regulation of trade.

A defense line or fortification line is a geographically recognizable line of troops and armament, fortified and set up to protect a high-value location or defend territory, which is an "area of defense".

A defense line may be based on natural difficult terrain features, such as rivers or marshes, mountain ranges, or coastlines; temporary field fortification works such as trenches; and/or more permanent fortifications such as fortresses and bunkers.

A sapper, also called a combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, preparing field defenses, and road and airfield construction and repair.

Sappers are also trained and equipped to serve secondarily as provisional infantry.

Surrender, in military terms, is the relinquishment of control over territory, combatants, fortifications, ships or armament to another power. A surrender may be accomplished peacefully or it may be the result of defeat in battle. A sovereign state may surrender following defeat in a war, usually by signing a peace treaty or capitulation agreement. A battlefield surrender, either by individuals or when ordered by officers, normally results in those surrendering becoming prisoners of war.

Digging, also referred to as excavation, is the process of using some implement such as claws, hands, manual tools or heavy equipment, to remove material from a solid surface, usually soil, sand or rock on the surface of Earth. Digging is actually the combination of two processes, the first being the breaking or cutting of the surface, and the second being the removal and relocation of the material found there. In a simple digging situation, this may be accomplished in a single motion, with the digging implement being used to break the surface and immediately fling the material away from the hole or other structure being dug.

Many kinds of animals engage in digging, either as part of burrowing behavior or to search for food or water under the surface of the ground. Historically, humans have engaged in digging for both of these reasons, and for a variety of additional reasons, such as engaging in agriculture and gardening, searching for minerals, metals, and other raw materials such as during mining and quarrying, preparing for construction, making fortifications and irrigation, and also excavations in archaeology, searching for fossils and rocks in palaeontology and geology and burial of the dead.

A bombardment is an attack by artillery fire or by dropping bombs from aircraft on fortifications, combatants, or cities and buildings.

Prior to World War I, the term was only applied to the bombardment of defenseless or undefended objects, houses, public buildings, etc. It was only loosely employed to describe artillery attacks upon forts or fortified positions in preparation for assaults by infantry. Since then, it has come to mean any mass attack delivered by artillery or short-range tactical missiles, and later, aerial bombardment delivered by aircraft or long-range missiles.