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chemical mixture which the monk 1 stumbled upon in the solitude of the 
cloisters, gave the victory to mind over matter in war ; and the introduction 
of artillery gradually revolutionised tactics. The guns could be loaded but 
slowly, it is true, and few of the shots struck the mark; but when the fatal 
ball did enter the ranks of the enemy, death followed in its wake. No 
courage gould avail against it, no armour was proof against it, and it acted 
from distances which the strongest archers were unable to reach. Bat it was 
not the destruction which it actually caused, it was the destruction which 
men felt it might cause, that constituted the chief element of its strength. 
The startling results which it produced so rapidly, so suddenly, so unex¬ 
pectedly, acted upon their imaginations. The deafening noise of the dis¬ 
charge, the blinding smoke which accompanied it, wrought upon their fears. 2 
The bravest blanched when he saw some splendid knight, some stalwart 
man-at-arms, whom it would have required long hours and overwhelming 
numbers to overcome and slaughter with battle-axes and maces, struck down 
as it were by a thunderbolt. If the last shot was destructive, the next shot 
would be equally destructive-—it might be even more destructive. So 
argued the soldiery, and in such a manner did artillery, while in its infancy, 
exert its influence in battle. Beginning from such small beginnings, its 
importance slowly increased, its power gradually grew mightier, until at last 
the whole face of tactics was changed. It became no longer necessary fora 
leader to combine in himself the strength of Polyphemus with the stature 
of Goliath. 3 A decrepid Englishman 4 overran Spain in the 18th century; 
a Frenchman of diminutive figure conquered almost the whole of Europe in 
the 19th century. “At Landon/' says Lord Macaulay, “ two poor sickly 
beings, who, in a rude state of society would have been regarded as too puny 
to bear any part in combats, were the souls of two great armies. In some 
heathen countries they would have been exposed while infants. In Christen¬ 
dom they would, six hundred years earlier, have been sent to some quiet 
cloister. But their lot had fallen on a time when men had discovered that 
the strength of the muscles is far inferior in value to the strength of the 
mind. It is probable that, among the 120,000 soldiers who were marshalled 
round Neerwinden under all the standards of Western Europe, the two 
feeblest in body were the hunchbacked dwarf who urged forward the fiery 
1 Roger Bacon. In ascribing the invention of gunpowder to an Englishman, I follow a French 
officer, Col. Fave. “ Hist, et Tact, des Trois Armes,” p. 8. Lord Byron remarks that although Friar 
Bacon discovered gunpowder, “ he had the humanity not to record his discovery in intelligible 
language.”—Don Juan, Canto 8, st. 33, note. It was known, however, half a century before 
Lord Byron wrote this sentence, that as the precision of fire-arms increases, the destruction of life 
in battle decreases. “ This furious engine,” says Hume, speaking of artillery, “ tho’ it seemed 
contrived for the destruction of mankind and the overthrow of empires, has, in the issue, rendered 
battles less bloody.”—Hist, of England, Vol. II. p. 432 (published in 1754-1762) . 
2 This is no mere fancy of min e. See Petrarch, “ De Remediis Utriusque Fortunse,” in Jervis’ 
“ Manual of Field Operations,” p. 61; Spenser’s “ Faerie Queen,” Bk. I. Canto 8, st. 13; and a 
host of other such passages. As late as 1610, a French military writer says:—“ Quelques-uns sont 
d’opinion que (l’artillerie n’est pas necessaire), d’autant qu’elle espouvante plus qu’elle ne tue.”— 
Arsenal et Magasin d’Artillerie, p. 102. Adam Smith points out with great judgment the dif¬ 
ferences between ancient and modern warfare, in his “ Wealth of Nations,” Book V. ch. 1, p. 315, 
McCulloch’s Ed. 
3 Oxford English Prize Essays, Tol. II. p. 114. 
4 See Macaulay’s Essay on Lord Mahon’s Hist, of the Spanish War of Succession. 
