Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 3, Anatomy-Astronomy

684 A R T I L
Artillery, lowing passage from Chased, a Hindu bard:—“ Oh! chief
of Gajne, buckle on your armour, and prepare your fire-
machines the meaning of which is explained in a following
stanza, in which the bal’d states “ that the culivers and can¬
nons made a loud report when they were fired off, and the
noise of the ball was heard at the distance of 10 coss, or
nearly 1445 yards,” concludes from it “that the fact of
cannon balls having been propelled by means of gunpowder
in India as early as a.d. 1200, the epoch of the poet, ap¬
pears to be established, although the use of artillery is not
mentioned by any European writer before the fourteenth
century.” There is no reason to believe that this was the
first, or even a very early instance of the use of such pro¬
jectiles in the East; and it must therefore be considered
highly probable that both the knowledge and the use of the
explosive properties of compounds of nitre with charcoal and
sulphur were of remote origin in a country which yields as
a natural product, even to this day, so large a quantity of this
important military mineral. Piobert, Napoleon Buonaparte,
and other writers, have collected much information on the
appearance and progress of artillery in Europe; but it is
satisfactory to quote such examples from the work1 of an
English officer of artillery, so highly distinguished as Colo¬
nel Chesney, who has shed so much lustre on his pro¬
fession by the intrepid zeal and persevering energy of his
Euphrates expedition, and his great literary and scientific
acquirements. “ The Moors, according to Conde, used ar¬
tillery against Zaragossain 1118; and in 1132 a culverin of
4 lb. calibre, named Salamonica, was made. In 1157, when
the Spaniards took Niebla, the Moors defended themselves
by machines which threw darts and stones by means of fire;
and in 1156 Abd’almumen, the Moorish king, captured Mo-
hadia, a fortified city near Bona, from the Sicilians by the
same means. In 1280 artillery was used against Cordova;
and.in 1306 or 1308 Ferdinand IV. took Gibraltar from the
Moors by means of artillery. Ibn Nason ben Bia, of Gre¬
nada, mentions that guns were adopted from the Moors, and
used in Spain in the twelfth century, and that balls of iron
were thrown by means of fire in 1331. These, and other
examples, render it almost certain that the use of gunpowder
became first known in Europe through the Moorish con¬
quests and warfare in Spain, although the true components
of gunpowder were known to Friar Bacon, and were made
generally known throughout Europe byBartholdus Schwartz
in 1320. Edward III. of England used ‘crakeys of war’
during his campaign against the Scots in 1327. In 1339 ten
cannons were prepared for the siege of Cambray by the Che¬
valier Cardaillac. Quesnoy was defended successfully in
1340 by cannon which flung large iron bolts. In 1343 the
Moorish garrison of Algesiras, besieged by Alphonsus XI.
of Castile, used long mortars, or troughs of iron which threw
among their enemies thunderbolts. In 1346, an iron gun,
with a square bore capable of projecting a cubical iron shot
of 11 lb. weight was constructed at Bruges. In 1346 Ed-:
ward III. is said to have used artillery at the battle of
Cressy; but this is very doubtful, as the application of guns
to field operations appears to be of later date, and no notice
of them at the subsequent battle of Poictiers can be traced.
In 1347 Edward did, however, use artillery in the siege of
Calais, as did the Prince of Wales in 1356 in reducing the
Castle of Romozantin. In 1378 Richard II. employed 400
cannons, which fired day and night, in his unsuccessful attack
on St Malo; but it is unnecessary to follow further the pro¬
gress of this most important arm in the attack and defence
of fortified places and positions. The French, in the latter
portion of the fifteenth century replaced the old cumbrous
bombards by brass guns with trunnions, and the heavy stone
shot by metal balls; and as the results of these changes were
LE R Y.
rapid firing and an increased impetus of shot, artillery may Artillery,
then be said to have first become really effective. Though ^ v—» >
portable guns had been occasionally made, from the earlier
half of the fourteenth century, and had been abundantly
applied in the wars of the fifteenth, they do not appear to
have been reduced to a perfect system of field artillery until
the reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII., and in 1500 the
latter monarch was able to move his artillery from Pisa to
Rome, a distance of about 240 miles, in five days, and pos¬
sessed light pieces which were sufficiently manageable to
be taken rapidly from one point to another during a battle.
When he recovered Genoa in 1507, he had 60 guns of large
calibre for an army of about 20,000 men, and overcame the
Venetians on the Adda in 1509 by means of his artillery.
Francis I. adopted a lighter construction for field-guns, and
had them drawn by the best description of horses.” In the
defeat of the Swiss at Marignan in 1515, “the French artil¬
lery played a new and distinguished part, not only by pro¬
tecting the centre of the army from the charges of the Swiss
phalanxes, and causing them excessive loss, but also by rapidly
taking such positions from time to time during the battle as
enabled the guns to play upon the flanks of the attacking
columns.” 1 hese extracts, which have been principally de¬
rived by Colonel Chesney from the celebrated work of the
present French emperor, who, like his illustrious uncle, was
an artillery officer, go far to prove that, though the French
have no right to claim the invention or even the material
improvement of the bastion system in fortification, which
was manifestly the work of Italian engineers, they have great
reason to claim the first establishment of an efficient field
artillery. In 1631 the great Gustavus Adolphus was in¬
debted in great part to his artillery for the victory of Leipzig;
and some of his guns were of the remarkable description
called cannons of boiled leather, which “ consisted of a thin
cylinder of beaten copper screwed into a brass breech, whose
chamber was strengthened by four bands of iron ; the tube
itself being covered with layers of mastic, over which cords
were rolled firmly round its whole length, and equalized by
a layer of plaster, a coating of leather boiled and varnished
completing the piece.” The carriage and the piece were
so light that two men were sufficient to draw and serve the
gun, which, however, could bear only a small charge. In the
battle of Lutzen, when this truly great warrior, for he was
a Christian warrior, closed in death his short but brilliant
career, the Swedish artillery was again remarkable for the
ease with which it was manoeuvred and shifted in position,
whilst the less manageable cannon of the Imperialists were
comparatively immovable. Colonel Chesney observes, in
respect to these two great and glorious battles of the Swedes,
that they prove that the artillery of Gustavus Adolphus,
although still consisting of too many calibres, was admirably
organized, embracing as it did limbers, and carrying can-
nister shot, and other kinds of ammunition, ready for action;
and that this distinguished commander was the first who
fully appreciated the importance of causing the artillery to
act in concentrated masses, Frederick the Great of Prussia
further improved upon the system by introducing pieces of
ordnance sufficiently light to take part in the most rapid
manoeuvres; and since that time it has been admitted by
most military men that guns intended to move with an army
and take part in field operations, should be divided into two
sections, namely: 1st, Guns sufficiently light to move with
cavalry, and hence forming what is called in the British ser¬
vice Horse Artillery or Cavalry Artillery; 2d, Guns of larger
calibre and greater weight than the former, to act with infan¬
try, but still not too heavy to allow of considerable rapidity
in all the changes of position which may be required on the
field of battle. These constitute what are called field batteries.
1 Observations on Fire-Arms, 1852.