THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
441 
but from the wounded knight, or disabled burgess, who haply fell into 
their clutches, they could and would extract a heavy ransom. As a matter 
of course, therefore, they were violently opposed to the use of an arm which 
was no respecter of persons, and struck down the rich and the poor alike. To 
such a preposterous extent was this system carried, that at the battle of 
Zagonara, 1423, three men only were killed, and these three by suffocation 
in the mud into which, wearied by the exertion of fighting and the weight of 
their armour, they had fallen. At the battle of Molinella, 1467, no one was 
killed; and in an action between the Neapolitan and Papal troops in 1486, 
which lasted all day, no one was killed, and it is not recorded that any one 
was wounded. 1 2 
The simple character of battles, and the almost total absence of 
manoeuvres, in the sense in which we now use the word, tended to seriously 
retard the mobility of field artillery, during the three first centuries of its 
existence. In these times, as a general rule, the hostile forces were drawn 
out exactly opposite each other; each army having its infantry in the centre, 
its cavalry on the flanks, and the guns distributed along the front, or on the 
flanks of the cavalry. A cannonade opened the action; the cavalry presently 
charged; the infantry whose cavalry were beaten in this charge retreated, 
pursued by the enemy ; 3 and the guns, as a matter of course, fell into the 
hands of the victors. 3 The want of discipline and the want of drill rendered 
the manoeuvring of these raw levies, except in the simplest way and under 
the most exceptional circumstances, impossible; and ordinary men could not 
be expected to detect the importance of mobility from the experience of 
battles in which mobility was scarcely necessary. 
The very want of mobility, which was the effect of these causes, reacted and 
raised a prejudice against the use of the arm in the field. As late as the end 
of the 15th century, the presence of artillery with an army “ was not very 
frequent; a circumstance which will surprise us less when we consider its 
unscientific construction, the slowness with which it could be loaded, its 
stone balls of uncertain aim and imperfect force, and especially the difficulty 
of removing it from place to place during an action.” 4 Generals were not 
likely to encumber their armies with a large number of guns which, once 
placed, were immovable during the whole course of a battle. 5 
The experience in the field, therefore, which was needful to bring vividly 
before men's minds the importance of mobility, was in reality but small during 
the first three centuries of the existence of field artillery, and there was little 
or no means of recording such experience, and handing it down from one 
generation of artillerymen to another. The valuable lessons that each suc¬ 
cessive leader of artillery learned on the field of battle, perished with him; 
1 Hallam’s “ Middle Ages,” Vol. I. p. 477. 
2 Fave, “ Hist, et Tact, des Trois Amies,” p. 400. 
3 This was the fate of the artillery until Marlborough’s time. “ Jusqu’ alors toute Tartillerie d’une 
armee battue tombait ordinairement aupouvoir des vainqueurs; mais dans cette bataille (Malplaquet, 
1709), quoique Tartillerie des Francais eut continuee a jouer jusqu’ a l’assaut des retranchemens, 
les vainqueurs ne prirent que huit a dix pieces.”—Grewenitz, “ Traite de l’Org. et de la Tact, de 
1’ArtiUerie,” p. 61. 
4 Hallam’s “ Middle Ages,” Vol. I. p. 480. 
5 Giustiniani’s “ Essai sur la Tactique,” p. 216, 
[vol. VI.] 
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