ACHIEVEMENTS OP FIELD ARTILLERY. 
123 
swoop of a cavalry charge, the crash of shells representing the rush of 
squadrons. 
We are anxious to avoid introducing controversial matters into 
these pages, and we should be insincere did we disguise from our 
readers the fact that the suggestions just referred to touch upon debate- 
able ground. Methods rather than principles have been, however, in 
dispute, and discussion in Germany has revealed something like a 
general acquiescence in the principles advocated. That is the point 
we wish here to accentuate, and it is only the broad tactical question 
we have in mind when we call attention to ideas which help to 
strengthen our contention that the most modern theories go to cor¬ 
roborate the practice of the past. 
For here we may remark that' the teachings of the past should have 
for us more significance than lies in the merely sentimental interest 
they frequently arouse, and that, if we consider them relatively and 
not absolutely, we may still derive benefit from their lessons. 
The old smartness of drill and manoeuvre which, until recent years, 
was invested with preponderating importance in the eyes of the majority 
of officers, had a very practical and useful basis. The cannonade which 
preceded the deployment of the columns, and searched the enemy’s 
position, might be slow. It was never, and was never meant to be, 
decisive. When a decisive effect was called for, those leaders who 
understood how to turn guns to account massed them against the 
intended point of impact in the hostile array, and then a very rapid 
fire of grape was poured in at ranges within, often much within, (300 
yards. To produce a decisive effect it was found that there should be 
no lull in the storm of missiles, no kind of hesitation, no opportunity 
for the other side to recover from its demoralising effect until the 
attacking infantry was upon them with the bayonet. 
The rapidity of fire attained was also very much greater than is usually 
imagined. Decker tells us that each piece has been known to fire as 
many as five rounds per minute, and that an average of 2\> or 15 per 
battery of six guns was very usual. 1 That is how the guns at Wagram 
and , 3 Friedlaud produced their effect. Such a rapid fire was not of 
course of long duration, for its effect at short ranges was annihilating, 
but it was necessary to train a battery to be equal to it when the 
moment should demand, and at the supreme crisis it was essential. 
1 The extreme fate, it should be noted, was attained when guns were firing case, and it was not, 
therefore, necessary to run them up between the rounds. The continental rate of fire was probably 
greater than our own, for, according to my friend Colonel F. A. Whinyates, who has gone closely 
into the matter for me, the old S.B. R.H.A. 8-pr. of the Crimean epoch, which was identical (in 
some cases the very same guns were still in use !) with the weapon of the Peninsular days, would 
not usually fire more than three rounds of case per minute. The continental nations were formerly 
prepared to run more risk to procure celerity of fire than were we, even as now they are more 
prone to bring guns ready loaded into action, and carry fuzed shell in th9 limber, than we are, for 
the cartridge and projectile were attached together, as is the “fixed” ammunition of the quick- 
firing guns of to-day. Decker thus alludes to this practice:—“ In the service of guns in the field 
it would be extremely inconvenient to load the cartridge and projectile separately, although this 
system has been adopted in the English artillery, and has the advantage of allowing powder and 
projectile to be kept apart in the caissons, by which accidents are often obviated. On the other 
hand, this method of loading delays the service of the guns, and in the tumult and heat of action 
there is a risk that the ball may be forgotten altogether.” “ Traite Ulementaire d’Artillerie.” 
p. 132 I believe the Sikhs were accustomed to carry their shot and cartridge in one bag, and 
were thus enabled to fire more quickly than did we in the campaigns of 1815 and subsequently. > 
