268 
MINUTES OE PROCEEDINGS OE 
The great vices of the artillery of this period were the extreme weight 
and length of the larger pieces, and the enormous recoil and short ranges 
of the smaller ones : and de Valliere’s system (1720), founded on the union 
of field and garrison artillery did not escape these faults. 
Although the germ of mobility in field artillery is traceable to the Swedish 
artillery of the Thirty Years’ War, yet the tactics of this arm, i.e. the art of 
manoeuvring it in the face of the enemy, cannot be said to have had any 
existence till the close of the Seven Years’ War : and even as late as the battle 
of Zorndorff the powers of artillery had been so little developed as to entirely 
justify Pave in his remark on this battle,—“ a cette epoque encore, malgre 
ses accroissements, 1’artillerie etait un auxiliare, et non une arme.” 1 
In 1759 Frederick the Great formed a brigade of horse artillery of ten 
light 6-prs. 2 He was led to take this step by the want of mobility of his 
field artillery, and by a desire to possess a force of guns that could manoeuvre 
with his cavalry,—a matter which had now become of paramount importance 
owing to certain improvements which he had introduced into the manoeuvres 
of his cavalry. 
On his accession to the throne he found the cavalry drilled to fire in line 
at the halt; 3 but recognizing the principle that motion is a necessary 
condition of the action of cavalry as cavalry, 4 he abolished this evolution, 
and to supply his cavalry with a powerful fire, without injuring the special 
action of this arm, he formed horse artillery,—the only step by which such a 
result was attainable. 5 Napoleon supports this theory fully when he says,— 
“La cavalerie ne rend pas de feux, et ne peut sebattre qu’ a l’armeblanche. 
C’est pour subvenir a ce besoin qu’on a cree 1’artillerie a cheval.” 6 In 
other words, Frederick having deprived cavalry of the fire which up to his 
time it had possessed in itself, felt bound to furnish it with a substitute, 
and horse artillery was consequently formed. 
At the battle' of Hettingen, 1743, it is probable that there were three 
companies of Royal Artillery, 7 but of their services little is known. The 
French lost the battle by the Due de Grammont’s advance which masked a 
large portion of the French artillery—a repetition of Tilly’s mistake at 
Leipsic. 
1 “ Hist, et Tact, des Trois Armes,” p. 140 
3 Ibid. p. 144. Giustiuiani, “ Essai sur la Tactique des Trois Armes,” p. 221. Taubert, “ On 
Field Artillery,” p. 11. 
3 Jervis, “Manual of Field Operations,” p. 50. Nolan, “ Cavalry Tactics,” p. 30. 
4 De Ternay, “ Traite de Tactique,” Tom. I. p» 209. Jomini, Precis,” Chap. 7, Art. 45. 
Giustiniani, “ Essai,” p. 183. 
The conduct of Frederick’s cavalry, afterwards so distinguished, was at the beginning of his wars 
quite as bad as might have been expected from a cavalry trained to depend on the carbine instead 
of the sabre. The following is an extract from an order which he was compelled to issue after his 
first battle, Molwitz, 1741, from which indeed he fled himself, and from having taken refuge in a 
mill was said to have “ covered himself with glory and with flour.” 
Par. 13. “ If the cavalry ordered for the attack shall be repulsed, as at Molwitz, the grenadiers 
shall fire on them, even to exterminating them entirely.”—British Military Library, Yol. II. 
5 Monhaupt, “ Tactique de l’Artillerie a cheval,” p. 4. 
6 Montholon, Tom. III. p. 261. 
7 “England’s Artilleryman,” p. 11. 
