Circle the wagons

A wagon fort is a mobile fortification made of wagons arranged into a rectangle, a circle or other shape and possibly joined with each other, an improvised military camp. It is also known as a laager (from Afrikaans) (English: leaguer).

Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman army officer and historian of the 4th century, describes a Roman army approaching "ad carraginem" as they approach a Gothic camp. Historians interpret this as a wagon-fort. Notable historical examples include Hussites, which called it vozová hradba ("wagon wall"), known under the German word Wagenburg ("wagon castle"), tabors in the armies of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Cossacks, the Laager of the settlers in South Africa.

Similar ad hoc defense formations were used in the United States, and were called corrals. These were traditionally used by 19th century American settlers travelling to the West in convoys of Conestoga wagons. When faced with attack, such as by hostile Native American tribes, the travellers would rapidly form a circle out of their wagons, bringing the draft animals (sometimes horses, but more commonly oxen) and women and children to the center of the circle. The armed men would then man the perimeter, the circled wagons serving to break up the enemy charge, to create a certain amount of concealment from observation and shelter from enemy firearms fire. They would also slow down and separate any warriors who attempted to get past the wagons into the circle, making them easier to dispatch, although they never formed a perfect barricade as a true wall would. This tactic was popularly known as "circling up the wagons", and survives into the modern day as an idiom describing a person or group preparing to defend themselves from attack or criticism.

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