ACHIEVEMENTS OE FIELD ARTILLERY. 
115 
courage on tlie other side, and will not fail to remember a battle on 
which all arms may justly look back with satisfaction, but of which our 
Field Artillery has especially reason to be proud. 
On the subsequent more celebrated march no wheeled artillery 
accompanied the column, but for an excellent reason. 1 The co-operation 
of guns of powerful calibre from Kandahar could be reckoned upon in 
the decisive battle which, if it were fought at all, would take place in 
the neighbourhood of that fortress, and where mobility was a chief 
consideration, and bad roads militated against the use of wheels, the 
services of Field Artillery proper were rightly dispensed with. The 
value of the arm was scarcely likely to be overlooked in a force led by 
an artilleryman, who, moreover, was assisted by the same Chief of the 
Staff as had just accompanied Sir Donald Stewart, and whose high 
appreciation of the services of guns has just been quoted. But on 
that celebrated march, though no predominant share of the fighting 
fell to guns, yet was the Royal .Artillery well represented by its Moun¬ 
tain Batteries, and the fact that the leader, who carried through one of 
the most successful of our military enterprises, and his principal Staff 
officer both belonged to their arm will ever invest the march to 
Kandahar and the subsequent battle with a special interest for artil¬ 
lerymen. 
The Campaign in Egypt of 1882. 
During the campaign of 1882 in Egypt, although as many as seven 
Field and two Horse Batteries, and one Mountain Battery were brought 
into action at Tel-el-Kebir (the largest number that had figured on our 
battle-fields since Gujrat, with the exception of the Alma, when we had 
about the same number), the brilliant and decisive nature of our assault 
rendered the force more or less independent of guns, and called for, 
and gave no opportunity, for heroic efforts on their part. The great 
triumph of the campaign was effected by means of a night march and 
a surprise, and under such circumstances the principal role fell naturally 
to infantry, and was amply filled by them. 
At Tel-el-Kebir 42 field guns were formed up in line within musketry 
range of the intrenchments between our 1st and 2nd Divisions, and 
owing to the nature of the operations no attempt to prepare the way 
for the infantry assault in the orthodox, manner was attempted. The 
1 Extract from lecture delivered by Lieut.-Colonel E. F. Chapman at the Royal United Service 
Institution on 9th March, 1881:—It is beyond question, that whenever Afghans have been 
possessed of wheeled artillery during military operations, they have been so hampered by their 
guns as to be easily vulnerable, and in mountain warfare generally, a commander will gain less by 
the possession of guns, other than mountain guns, than he will lose by having his march restricted 
to regular roads. The important part, however, played during the battle of Ahmed Khel, in April 
last, by a battery of Horse Artillery, a light Field Battery, and a heavy Field Battery, when scores 
of fanatics were killed by case shot fired from the 9-prs., and when well-directed shell from the 
40-prs. checked a turning movement undertaken by the enemy’s horsemen, should not be forgotten. 
We may well be proud of the work our gunners did on that day, and acknowledge that the 1300 
rifles which formed the fighting line of infantry could scarcely have withstood the charge of 3000 
fanatic swordsmen, if they had not been supported by Field Artillery. The movement of Sir 
Donald Stewart’s force, when he marched from Kandahar to Kabul, was, however, regulated by 
the pace of the heavy guns which accompanied it. Its first objective was Ghazni itself, and the 
possession of wheeled artillery was essential to its purpose. It would have been impossible for 
40,000 of the enemy to have collected, and to have delivered an attack, such as was made at Ahmed 
Khel, against troops moving as rapidly as did those under Sir Frederick Roberts’s command, the 
essential qualities of the force he led to Kandahar being mobility and striking power.” 
