434 
MINUTES OF PKOCEEDINGS OF 
the enemy. 1 2 Two Prussian guns were so judiciously posted by M. Decker at 
Eylau, 1809,, that though opposed to the fire of a Prench battery of 12-prs., 
they lost but one horse, while the Prench had five wagons blown up and 
several guns dismounted. 3 
At Quatre Bras, Lieut. Speckman’s division of Major Kuhlman’s troop of 
horse artillery, K.G.L., was so posted as to sweep a road along which a body 
of Prench Cuirassiers were advancing. The flanks of the guns were secure, 
and the hard roadway was well adapted for a fire of case. “ As the Cuirassiers 
approached * * * a remarkably well-directed fire was opened upon 
them ” (by the two guns); “ in an instant the whole mass appeared in irre¬ 
trievable confusion; the road was literally strewed with corses of these 
steel-clad warriors and their gallant steeds; and Kellerman himself was 
dismounted and compelled, like many of his followers, to retire on foot.” 3 _ 
Pire’s two horse artillery guns at Waterloo caused more annoyance, 
and indeed loss, to the British right, than whole batteries less happily 
placed. 4 
The main road at Montebello, 1859, was held by a division of an Austrian 
battery, under the command of Lieut. Prokesch, against the determined 
attacks of the Prench infantry. The ground was favourable, his flanks were 
secure, and the Prench advanced again and again, only to be repulsed. 5 
To such an extent is the physical effect of guns increased by well-chosen 
ground, and to a proportionate extent is the destructive effect of an enemy’s 
fire diminished. A Prussian gun, skilfully run forward to the brink of a 
sunken road, did not lose a man during the battle of Paris, 1814; yet three 
other guns of the same battery, which forfeited the advantages of the position 
by being about forty paces in rear of the first, lost nine men, seven horses, a 
limber, and an ammunition wagon. 6 
At Ligny, a well-posted Prussian battery lost but three men during three 
hours exposure to the Prench fire. 7 
The moral advantages of a good position are incalculable and inexplicable. 
At the affair of Newburn, 1640, a Scotch battery of leather guns, whose 
destructive effect must have been contemptible, caused such consternation in 
the English army by a few rounds from a good and unexpected position—- 
“ some thought it magic, and all were put in such disorder that the whole 
army did run with so much precipitation, that Sir Thomas Pairfax, who had 
a command in it, did not stick to own that Till he crossed the Tees his legs 
trembled under him.” 8 
Sir Ralph Hopton brought up his whole force of artillery—two small minion 
drakes, masked by cavalry—to a “ convenient distance ” from the enemy at 
the battle of Braddock-down, 1643. The position was excellent, and the 
movement so admirably carried out, that “ after two shots from those drakes 
1 “ M^moire sur le (Mn. Senarmont,” par le Gen. Marion, p. 22. 
2 Colonel Jervis, It. A., “ Manual of Field Operations,” p. 114. 
3 Siborne’s “ Hist, of the Waterloo Campaign,” Vol. I. p. 144. 
4 Ibid. Yol. II. p. 88. 
5 “ Study of the Italian Campaign,” by Colonel Miller, E.A., p. 224. 
6 Decker’s “ Artillerie a cheval avec la Cavalerie,” p. 107. 
7 Ibid. 
$ Bishop Burnet’s “Hist. of My Own Timesj” Book L 
