ARTILLERY, a term originally applied to all engines for discharging missiles, and in this sense used in English in the early 17th century. In a more restricted sense, artillery has come to mean all firearms too heavy or bulky to be carried by hand, and also the personnel and organization which serve and bring into action such weapons. Since the development of machine-guns (see SMALL ARMS), which are not classed as artillery, a more modern definition would be that "artillery" means all long range weapons which fire a bursting projectile. But with the advent of armoured fighting vehicles, manned by other than artillery per sonnel, even this line of demarcation is growing more faint. The present article deals with the development and contemporary state of the artillery arm in land warfare, in respect of its organiza tion, personnel and employment. For the materiel—the guns, their carriages and their ammunition—see ORDNANCE and AM MUNITION. For BALLISTICS see that heading, and for the work of artillery in combination with the other arms, see also TACTICS.
Artillery, as distinct from ordnance, is usually classified in accordance with the functions it has to perform. The simplest division is that into mobile and immobile artillery, the former being concerned with the handling of all weapons so mounted as to be capable of more or less easy movement from place to place, the latter with that of weapons which are installed in fixed posi I. Early Artillery.—Mechanical appliances for throwing pro jectiles were produced early in the history of organized warfare, and "engines invented by cunning men to shoot arrows and great stones" are mentioned in the Old Testament. These were con tinually improved, and, under the various names of catapulta, balista, onager, trebuchet, etc., were employed throughout the ancient and mediaeval periods of warfare (see ENGINES OF WAR). The machines finally produced were very powerful, and, even when gunpowder was discovered and applied, the supersession of the older weapons was not effected suddenly nor without con siderable opposition. The date of the first employment of cannon cannot be established with any certainty, but there is good evi dence to show that the Germans used guns at the siege of Cividale in Italy (1331). The terms of a commission given (1414) by Henry V. to his magister operationum, ingeniorum, et gunnarum ac aliarum ordinationum, one Nicholas Merbury, show that the organization of artillery establishments was grafted upon that which was already in existence for the service of the old-fashioned machines. Previously to this it is recorded that of some 34o men forming the ordnance establishment of Edward III. in 1344 only 12 were artillerymen and gunners. Two years later, at Crecy, it is said, the English brought guns into the open field for the first time. At the siege of Harfleur (1415) the ordnance establishment included 25 "master gunners" and 5o "servitour gunners." The "gunner" appears to have been the captain of the gun, with gen eral charge of the guns and stores, and the special duty of laying and firing the piece in action.
The Beginnings of Field Artillery.—It is clear, from such evidence as we possess, that the chief and almost the only use of guns at this time was to batter the walls of fortifications, and it is not until later in the 15th century that their employment in the field became general (see also CAVALRY). The introduction of field artillery may be attributed to John Liika, and it was in his Hussite wars (1419-1424) that the Wagenburg, a term of more general application, but taken here as denoting a cart or vehicle armed with several small guns, came into prominence. This device allowed a relatively high manoeuvring power to be attained, and it is found occasionally in European wars two cen turies later, as for instance at Wimpfen in 1622 and Cropredy Bridge in 1644. In an act of attainder passed by the Lancastrian party against the Yorkists
, it is stated that the latter were "traiterously ranged in bataill . . . their cartes with gonnes set before their batailles." The greatest example was the siege of Constantinople in
at which the Turks used a large force of artillery, and in particular some monster pieces, some of which survived to engage a British squadron in 1807, when a stone shot weighing some 700 lb. cut the mainmast of Admiral Sir J. T. Duckworth's flagship in two, and another killed and wounded 6o men. For siege purposes the new weapon was highly effective, and the castles of rebellious barons were easily knocked to pieces by the prince who owned, or succeeded in borrowing, a few pieces of ordnance. (Cf. Carlyle, Frederick the Great, book iii., chap. 1.) 3. The 16th Century.—In the Italian wars waged by Charles VIII., Louis XII. and Francis I. of France, artillery played a most conspicuous part, both in siege and field warfare. Indeed, cannon did excellent service in the field before hand firearms attained any considerable importance. At Ravenna ( i 512) and Marignano (i 515) field artillery did great execution, and at the second battle "the French artillery played a new and distinguished part, not only by protecting the centre of the army from the charges of the Swiss phalanxes, and causing them excessive loss, but also by rapidly taking up such positions from time to time . . . as en abled the guns to play upon the flanks of the attacking columns" (Chesney, Observations on Firearms, 1852). In this connection, it must, however, be observed that, when the arquebus and other small arms became really efficient (about 1525), less is heard of this small and handy field artillery, which had hitherto been the only means of breaking up the heavy masses of the hostile pike men. We have seen that artillery was not ignored in England; but, in view of the splendid and unique efficiency of the archers, there was no great opportunity of developing the new arm. In the time of Henry VIII., the ordnance in use in the field con sisted in the main of heavy culverins and other guns of position, and of lighter field pieces, termed sakers, falcons, etc. It is to be noticed that already the lightest pieces had disappeared, the small est of the above being a 2-pounder. In the earlier days of field artillery, the artillery train was a miscellaneous congeries of pon toon, supply, baggage and tool wagons, heavy ordnance and light guns in carts. With the development of infantry firearms the use of the last-named weapons died out, and it is largely due to this fact that "artillery" came to imply cumbrous and immobile
of position. Little is, therefore, heard of smart manoeuvring, such as that at Marignano, during the latter part of the 16th cen tury. The guns now usually came into action in advance of the troops, but, from their want of mobility, could neither accompany a farther advance nor protect a retreat, and they were generally captured and recaptured with every changing phase of the fight. Great progress was in the meanwhile made in the adaptation of ordnance to the attack and defence of fortresses, and, in particu lar, vertical fire came into vogue.
Such, in its broadest outlines, is the history of artillery work during the first three centuries of its existence. Whilst the material had undergone a very considerable improvement, the organization remained almost unchanged, and the tactical employment of guns had become restricted, owing to their slowness and difficulty of movement on the march and im mobility in action. In wars of the type of the War of Dutch In dependence and the earlier part of the Thirty Years' War, this heavy artillery naturally remained useful enough, and the Wagen burg had given place to the musketry initiated by the Spaniards at Bicocca and Pavia, which since 1525 had steadily improved and developed. It is not, therefore, until the appearance of a cap tain whose secret of success was vigour and mobility that the first serious attempt was made to produce field artillery in the proper sense of the word, that is, a gun of good power, and at the same time so mounted as to be capable of rapid movement. Maur ice of Nassau, indeed, helped to develop the field gun, and the French had invented the limber, but Gustavus Adolphus was the first to give artillery its true position on the battlefield. At the first battle of Breitenfeld (1631) Gustavus had 12 heavy and 42 light guns engaged as against Tilly's heavy 24-pounders, which were naturally far too cumbrous for field work. At the Lech (163 2) Gustavus seems to have obtained a local superiority over his opponent owing to the handiness of his field artillery even more than by its fire power. At Lutzen (163 2) he had sixty guns to Wallenstein's 21. His field pieces were not the celebrated "leather" guns (which were an experiment tried in, but abandoned after, Gustavus's Polish wars), but iron 4-pounders. These were distributed amongst the infantry units, and thus began the system of "battalion guns" which survived in the armies of Europe long after the conditions requiring it had vanished. The object of thus dispersing the guns was doubtless to ensure in the first place more certain co-operation between the two arms, and in the sec ond to exercise a military supervision over the lighter and more useful field pieces which it was as yet impossible to exercise over the personnel of the heavy artillery.
More than 30o years after the first employment of ordnance, the men working the guns and the transport drives were still civilians. The actual com mander of the artillery was indeed, both in Germany and in Eng land, usually a soldier, and Lennart Torstensson, the commander of Gustavus's artillery, became a brilliant and successful general. But the transport and the drivers were still hired, and even the gunners were chiefly concerned for the safety of their pieces, the latter being of ten the property, not of the king waging war, but of some "master gunner" whose services he had secured, and the latter's apprentices were usually in entire charge of the material. These civilian "artists," as they were termed, owed no more duty to the prince than any other employes, and even Gustavus, it would appear, made no great improvement in the matter of the reorganization of artillery trains. Soldiers as drivers do not ap pear until 15o years later, and in the meanwhile companies of "firelocks" and "fusiliers" (q.v.) came into existence, as much to prevent the gunners and drivers from running away as to protect them from the enemy. A further cause of difficulties, in England at any rate, was the age of the "gunners." In the reign of Eliza beth, some of the Tower gunners were over 90 years of age. Com plaints as to the inefficiency of these men are frequent in the years preceding the English Civil War. Gustavus, however, has the merit of being the first to make the broad classification of artil lery, as mobile or non-mobile, which has since been almost uni versally in force. In his time the 12-pounder was the heaviest gun classed as mobile, and the "feildpeece" par excellence was the 9-pounder or demi-culverin. After the death of Gustavus at Lutzen (1632), his principles came universally into practice, and amongst them were those of the employment of field artillery.
Even in the English Civil War (Great Rebellion), in which artillery was hampered by the previ ous neglect of a century, its field work was not often contemptible, and on occasion the arm did excellent service. But in the cam paigns of this war, fought out by men whose most ardent desire was to decide the quarrel swiftly, the marching and manoeuvring were unusually rapid. The consequence of this was that the guns were sometimes either late in arriving, as at Edgehill, or absent altogether, as at Preston. The role of guns was further reduced by the fact that there were few fortresses to be reduced, and country houses, however strong, rarely required to be battered by a siege train. The New Model army usually sent for siege guns only when they were needed for particular service. On such oc casions, indeed, the heavy ordnance did its work so quickly and effectively that the assault often took place one or two days after the guns had opened fire. Cromwell in his sieges made great use of shells, 22-inch, and even larger mortars being employed. The castle of Devizes, which had successfully resisted the Parliamen tary battering guns, succumbed at once to vertical fire.
Cromwell's practice of relegating heavy guns to the rear, except when a serious siege operation was in view, and in very rapid movements leaving even the field pieces far behind, was followed to some extent in the campaigns of the age of Louis XIV. The number of ammunition wagons, and above all of horses, required for each gun was four or five times as great as that required even for a modern quick firer. In the days of Turenne heavy guns were much employed, as the campaigns of the French were directed as a rule to the methodical conquest of territory and fortified towns. Similarly, Marlborough, working amidst the fortresses of the Netherlands in 2706, had over ioo pieces of artillery (of which 6o were mor tars) to a force of some i i,000 men, or about 9 pieces per i,000 men. On the other hand, in his celebrated march to the Danube in 2704, he had but few guns, and the allied armies at Blenheim brought into the field only i piece per i,000 men. At Oudenarde "from the rapidity of the march . . . the battle was fought with little aid from artillery on either side." (Coxe, Marlborough.) There was less need now than ever before for rapid manoeuvres of mobile artillery, since the pike finally disappeared from the scene about 1700, and infantry fire-power had become the decisive factor in battles. In the meantime, artillery was gradually ceasing to be the province of the skilled workman, and assuming its posi tion as an arm of the military service. In the 17th century when armies were as a rule raised only "for the war," and disbanded at the conclusion of hostilities, there had been no very pressing need for the maintenance in peace of an expensive personnel and ma terial. Gunners therefore remained, as civilians, outside the regu lar administration of the forces, until the general adoption of the "standing army" principle in the last years of the century (see ARMY). From this time steps were taken, in all countries, to organize the artillery as a military force. After various attempts had been made, the "Royal Regiment of Artillery" came into existence in England in 1716. It is, however, stated that the Eng lish artillery did not "begin to assume a military appearance until the Flanders campaigns" of the War of the Austrian Succession. Even in the War of American Independence a dispute arose as to whether a general officer, whose regimental service had been in the Royal Artillery, was entitled to command troops of all arms, and the artillery drivers were not actually soldiers until 1793 at the earliest. French artillery officers received military rank only in 1732.
8. Artillery in the Wars of Frederick the Great.—By the time of Frederick the Great's first wars, artillery had thus been divided into (a) those guns moving with} an army in the field, and (b) those which were either wholly stationary or were called upon only when a siege was expected. The personnel was gradually be coming more efficient and more amenable to discipline; the trans port arrangements, however, remained in a backward state. Siege and fortress artillery was now organized and employed in accord ance with the system of the "formal attack" as finally developed by Vauban. For details of this, as involving the tactical procedure of artillery in the attack and defence of fortresses, the reader is referred to FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT. We are concerned here more especially with the progress of field artillery. The part played by this arm began now to vary according to the circum stances of each action, and the "moral" support of guns was cal culated as a factor in the dispositions. In the early Silesian wars, heavy or reserve guns protected the deployment of the army and endeavoured to prepare for the subsequent advance by firing upon the hostile troops ; the, battalion guns remained close to the in fantry, accompanied its movements and assisted in the fire fight. But the infantry or the cavalry forced the decision. Throughout the 18th century, it will be found, when the infantry is equal to its work the guns have only a subordinate part in the fighting of pitched battles. At Kunersdorf (1759) the first dashing charge of the Prussian grenadiers captured 72 guns from the Russian army. Later the total of captured ordnance reached 18o, yet the Russians, then almost wholly in flight, were not cut to pieces, for only a few light guns of the Prussian army could get to the front ; their heavy pieces, though 1 2 horses were harnessed to each, never came into action. This example will serve to illustrate the differ ence between the artillery of 1760 and that of 5o years later. Ac cording to Tempelhof, who was present, Kunersdorf was the finest opportunity for field artillery that he had ever seen. Yet the field artillery of the I 8th century was, if anything, more powerful than that of Napoleon's time ; it was the want of mobility alone which prevented the Prussians from turning to good account an opportunity fully as favourable as that of the German artillery at Sedan. That Frederick made more use of his guns in the later campaigns of the Seven Years' War is accounted for by the fact that his infantry and cavalry were no longer capable of forcing a decision, and also by changes in the general character of the operations. These were fought in and about broken country, and entrenched positions, and the mobility of the other arms sank to that of the artillery. Thus power came to the front again, and the heavier weapons regained their former supremacy. In a bataille rangee in the open field the proportion of guns to man had been, in 1741, 2 per I ,000. At Leuthen (1757) heavy fortress guns were brought to the front for a special purpose. At Kuners dorf the proportion was 4 and 5 per I,000 men, with what degree of effectiveness we have seen. In the later campaigns the Austrian artillery, which was, throughout the Seven Years'. War, the best in Europe, placed its numerous and powerful ordnance (an "am phitheatre of 400 guns," as Frederick said) in long lines of field works. The combination of guns and obstacles was almost in variably too formidable to offer the slightest chance of a success ful assault. It was at this stage that Frederick, in 1759, intro duced horse artillery to keep pace with the movements of cavalry, a proof, if proof were needed, of the inability of the field artillery to manoeuvre. The field howitzer, the weapon par excellence for the attack of field works, has never perhaps been more extensively employed than it was by the Prussians at that time. At Burkers dorf (1762) Frederick placed 45 howitzers in one battery. In those days the mobile artillery was always formed in groups or "batteries" of from 10 to 20 pieces. England was certainly abreast of other countries in the organization of the field artillery arm. About the middle of the 18th century the guns in use con sisted of 24-pounders, I2-pounders, 6-pounders and 3-pounders. The guns were divided into "brigades" of four, five and six guns respectively, and began to be separated into "heavy" and "light" brigades. Each field gun was drawn by four horses, the two leaders being ridden by artillerymen, and had I oo rounds of shot and 3o rounds of grape. The British artillery distinguished itself in the latter part of the Seven Years' War. Foreign critics praised its lightness, its elegance and the good quality of its materials. At Marburg (176o) "the English artillery could not have been better served; it followed the enemy with such vivacity, and maintained its fire so well, that it was impossible for the latter to reform," says Tempelhof, the Prussian artillery officer who records the lost opportunity of Kunersdorf. The merits and the faults of the ar tillery had been made clear, and nowhere was the lesson taken to heart more than in France, where General Gribeauval, a French officer who had served in the war with the Austrian artillery, initiated reforms which in the end led to the artillery triumphs of the Napoleonic era. While Frederick had endeavoured to em ploy, as profitably as possible, the existing heavy equipments, Gribeauval sought improvement in other directions.
9. Gribeauval's Reforms.—At the commencement of the 18th century, French artillery had made but little progress. The carriages and wagons were driven by wagoners on foot, and on the field of battle the guns were dragged about by ropes, or re mained stationary. Towards the middle of the century some im provements were made. Field guns and carriages were lightened, and the guns separated into brigades. Siege carriages were intro duced. From 1765 onwards, however, Gribeauval strove to build up a complete system both of personnel and materiel for field, siege, garrison and coast artillery. Alive to the vital importance of mobility for field artillery, he dismissed to other branches all pieces of greater calibre than i 2-pounders, and reduced the weight of those retained. His reforms were resisted, and for a time successfully; but in 1776 he became first inspector-general of artillery, and was able to put his ideas into force. The field ar tillery of the new system included 4-pounder regimental guns, and for the reserve 8- and I 2-pounders, with 6-inch howitzers. For siege and garrison service Gribeauval adopted the 16-pounder and I2-pounder guns, 8-inch howitzer and 10-inch mortar, 12-, 10- and 8-inch mortars being introduced in 1785.
The carriages were constructed on a uniform model and tech nically improved. The horses were harnessed in pairs, instead of in file as formerly, but the manner in which the teams were driven remained much the same. The prolong (a sort of tow-rope) was introduced, to unite the trail of the gun and the limber in slow retiring movements. The great step made was in a uniform con struction being adopted for all materiel, and in making the parts interchangeable so far as possible. In 1765 the personnel of the French artillery was reorganized. The corps or reserve artillery was organized in divisions of eight guns. The battery or division was thus made a unit, with guns, munitions and gunners complete, the horses and drivers being added at a later date. Horse artillery was introduced into the French army in 1791. The last step was made in 1800, when the establishment of a driver corps of soldiers put an end to the old system of horsing by contract.
Io. British Artillery, 1793-1815.—Meanwhile the numbers of the English artillery had increased to nearly 4,00o men. For some five centuries the word "artillery" in England meant en tirely garrison artillery ; the field artillery only existed in time of war. When war broke out, a train of artillery was organized, consisting of a certain number of field (or siege) guns, manned by garrison gunners; and when peace was proclaimed the train was disbanded, the materiel being returned into store, and the gunners reverting to some fort or stronghold. In 1793 the British artillery was anything but efficient. Guns were still dispersed among the infantry, mobility had declined again since the Seven Years' War, and the American war had been fought out by the other arms. The drivers were mere carters on foot with long whips, and the whole field equipment was scarcely able to break from a foot-pace. Prior to the Peninsular War, however, the ex ertions of an able officer, Major Spearman, had done much to bring about improvement. Horse artillery had been introduced in 1793, and the driver corps established in 1794. Battalion guns were abolished in 1802, and field "brigades of six guns" were formed, horse artillery batteries being styled "troops." Military drivers were introduced and the horses teamed in pairs. The drivers were mounted on the near horses, the gunners either rode the off horses or were carried on the limbers and wagons. The equipment was lightened, and a new system of manoeuvres intro duced. A troop of horse artillery and a field brigade each had five guns and one howitzer. The "driver corps," raised in 1794, was divided into troops; the addition of one of which to a company of foot artillery converted it into a field brigade.
I I. French Revolutionary Wars.—The development of mus ketry in the i6th century had taken the work of preparing an assault out of the hands of the gunners. Per contra, the decadence of infantry fire-power in the latter part of the Seven Years' War had reinstated the artillery arm. A similar decadence of the in fantry arm was destined to produce, in 1807, artillery predomi nance, but this time with an important difference, viz. mobility, and when mobility is thus achieved we have the first modern field artillery. The new tactics of the French in the Revolutionary wars, forced upon them by circumstances, involved an almost complete abandonment of the fire-tactics of Frederick's day, and the need for artillery was, from the first fight at Valmy onwards, so obvious that its moral support was demanded even in the out post line of the new French armies. The cardinal principle of massing batteries was not, indeed, forgotten, notwithstanding the weakness of raw levies. But though, as we have seen, the materiel had already been greatly improved, and the artillery was less af fected by the Revolution than other arms of the service, circum stances were against it, and we rarely find examples of artillery work in the Revolutionary wars which show any great improve ment upon older methods. The field guns were, however, at last organized in batteries each complete in itself, as mentioned above.
Tactics.—During the war the French artillery steadily improved in manoeuvring power. But many years elapsed before perfection was attained. Meanwhile, the infantry, handled without regard to losses in every fight, had in consequence deteriorated. The final production of the field ar tillery battle, usually dated as from the battle of Friedland (June 14, 1807) , therefore saved the situation for the French. Hence forward Napoleon's battles depend for their success on an "ar tillery preparation," the like of which had never been seen. Na poleon's own maxim illustrates the typical tactics of 1807-1815. "When once the melee has begun," he says, "the man who is clever enough to bring up an unexpected force of artillery, without the enemy knowing it, is sure to carry the day." The guns no longer "prepared" the infantry advance by slowly disintegrating the hostile forces. Still less was it their business merely to cover a deployment. On the contrary, they now went in to the closest ranges and, by actually annihilating a portion of the enemy's line with case-shot fire, "covered" the assault so effectively that col umns of cavalry and infantry reached the gap thus created with out striking a blow. It is unnecessary to give examples. Every one of Napoleon's later battles illustrates the principle.
Henceforward, therefore, the his tory of artillery becomes the history of its technical effectiveness, particularly in relation to infantry fire, and of improvements or modifications in the method of putting well-recognized principles into action. Infantry fire, however, being more variable in its effectiveness than that of artillery, the period 1815-187o saw many changes in the relations of the two arms. In the time of Napoleon, infantry fire never equalled that of the Seven Years' War, and after the period of the great wars the musket was less and less effectively used. Economy was, however, practised to excess in every army of Europe during the period 1815-185o, and even if there had been great battles at this time, the artillery, which was maintained on a minimum strength of guns, men and horses, would not have repeated the exploits of Senarmont and Drouot in the Napoleonic wars. The principle was well under stood, but under such conditions the practice was impossible. It was at this stage that the general introduction of the rifled musket put an end, once for all, to the artillery tactics, of the smooth bore days. Infantry, armed with a far-ranging rifle, as in the American Civil War, kept the guns beyond case-shot range, com pelling them to use only round shot or common shell. In that war, therefore, attacking infantry met, on reaching close quarters, not regiments already broken by a feu d'en f er, but the full force of the defenders' artillery and infantry, both arms fresh and un shaken, and the full volume of their case-shot and musketry. At Fredericksburg the Federal infantry attacked, unsupported by a single field piece ; at Gettysburg the Federal artillery general Hunt was able to reserve his ammunition to meet Lee's assault, although the infantry of his own side was meanwhile subjected to the fire of 137 Confederate guns. Thus, in both these cases the assault became one of infantry against unshaken infantry and artillery. On many occasions, indeed, the batteries on either side went into close ranges, as the traditions of the old United States army dictated, but their losses were then totally out of proportion to their effectiveness. Indeed, the increased range at which bat tles were now fought, and the ineffectiveness of the projectiles necessarily used by the artillery at these ranges, so far neutralized even rifled guns that artillery generals could speak of "idle can nonades" as the "besetting sin" of some commanders.
In the next great war, that of 1866 (Bohemia), guns were present on both sides in great numbers, the average for both sides being three guns per I,000 men. Artillery, however, played but a small part in the Prussian attacks, this being due to the inadequate training then afforded, and also to the mixture of rifled guns and smooth-bores in their armament. In Prussia, however, the exertions of Gen. von Hindersin, the improvement of the materiel, and above all the better tactical training of the batteries, were rewarded four years later by success on the battlefield almost as decisive as Napoleons. In 187o the French artillery was invariably defeated by that of the Germans, who were then free to turn their attention to the hostile infantry. At first, indeed, the German infantry was too impatient to wait until the victorious artillery had prepared the way for them by disintegrating the opposing line of riflemen. Thus the attack of the Prussian Guards at St. Privat (August 18, 18 7 o) melted away before the unbroken fire power of the French, as had that of the Federals at Fredericksburg and that of the Con federates at Gettysburg. But such experiences taught the German infantry commanders the necessity of patience, and at Sedan the French army was enveloped by the fire of nearly 600 guns, which did their work so thoroughly that the Germans annihilated the Imperial army at the cost of only 5% of casualties. (C. F. A.) 15. Results of the Franco-German War.—The tactical les sons of the war, so far as field artillery was concerned, may be briefly summarized as (a) employment of great masses of guns; (b) forward position of guns in the order of march, in order to bring them into action as quickly as possible; (c) the so-called "artillery duel," in which the assailant subdues the enemy's ar tillery fire; and (d) when this is achieved, and not before, the thorough preparation of all infantry attacks by artillery bom bardment. The corollary was that "sufficient time should be given to the artillery, and on no account should the infantry be ordered to advance until the fire of the guns has produced the desired effect." The fundamental defect of this procedure lay in the in ordinate expenditure of ammunition and time necessary for the gradual disintegration of the enemy's power of resistance by a thorough and lengthy "artillery preparation." And although technical progress brought great improvements in the rate of fire and in the effect of the ammunition, they were offset by the coun ter-development of field entrenchments.
In 1891, a work by Gen. Wille of the German army (The Field Gun of the Future) and in 1892 another by Colonel Langlois of the French service (Field Artillery with the other Arms) foreshadowed many revolutionary changes in materiel and tactics. The new ideas spread rapidly, and the quick-firing gun came by degrees to be used in every army. The underlying principle was the mechanical absorption of the recoil, by means of brakes, buffers or recuperators. The absorp tion of recoil of itself permits of a higher rate of fire, as the gun does not require to be run up and relaid after every shot. For merly such an advantage was illusory (since aim could not be taken through the thick bank of smoke produced by rapid fire), but the introduction of smokeless powder removed this objec tion. Artillerists, no longer handicapped, at once turned their attention to the increase of the rate of fire. At the same time a shield was applied to the gun, for the protection of the detach ment. This advantage is solely the result of the non-recoiling carriage. The gunners had formerly to stand clear of the recoil ing gun, and a shield was therefore of but slight value.
The power of modern artillery owes even more to the improvement of the projectile than to that of the gun. The French were the first to realize the new significance of the time-fuze and the shrapnel shell. These had been in ex istence for many years ; to the British army are due both the in vention and the development of the shrapnel, which made its first appearance in European warfare at Vimeiro in 1808, and exercised a greater influence on the battles of the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns than was generally recognized by conserva tive military thought. But, up to the introduction of rifled pieces, the Napoleonic case-shot attack was universally and justly consid ered the best method of fighting, and in the transition stage of the materiel many soldiers continued to put faith in the old method,—hence the Prussian artillery in 1866 had many smooth bore batteries in the field,—and between 1860 and 1870 gunners, now convinced of the superiority of the new equipments, un doubtedly sought to turn to account the minute accuracy of the rifled weapons in unnecessarily fine shooting. Thus, in 1870 the French time-fuze was only graduated for two ranges, and the Germans used percussion fuzes only.
The experience of this war, with its relatively open fighting, gave a great impetus to the use of time shrapnel, and created a somewhat excessive faith in the pos sibility of what Langlois summarized as "transferring to 3,000 yd. the point-blank and case-shot fire of the smooth-bore." It was claimed that the Napoleonic method of annihilating by a rain of bullets had been revived, with the distinction that the shell, and not the gun, fired the bullets close up to the enemy. Pieter's Hill furnished a notable example of this "covering," as distinct from "preparation" of an assault by artillery fire. Amongst other results of this war was the re-introduction of heavy ordnance into field armies. The field howitzer re-appeared some time before the outbreak of that war, and the British how itzers had illustrated their shell-power in the Sudan campaign of 1898. (X.) 19. The Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905.—Owing to the short duration of this war, the full solution of some important problems which emerged was postponed until the World War. In 1870 there had been a marked lack of co-ordination of the action of artillery with that of other arms. Profiting from ob servation of this mistake the Japanese developed centralization of control to some extent and artillery units, outside the divi sional organization, were placed at the disposal of General and Army Headquarters. The battle of the Sha-ho furnishes an example of the successful concentration of the fire of dispersed batteries. The necessity for concealment of batteries in action began to be more fully realized and the impracticability of close support by guns pushed forward into the infantry firing line under the enemy's small-arm fire was demonstrated on many occasions. There were some interesting examples of the employment of me dium and heavy artillery in the field; at the battle of Liao-yang the Japanese employed 56 heavy guns and mortars out of a total of 470 guns. It might well have been deduced from the operations of 1904-1905 that the quantities of ammunition required in a future war would be vastly greater than ever before. At Lamun tun, during the battle of the Sha-ho, for instance, 48 Russian guns fired 8,000 rounds in 4o minutes and at Ta-Shih-Chi a battery fired 500 rounds per gun.
