FIELD ARTILLERY PROGRESS. 
405 
am far from saying that in practice every artilleryman can be made a 
master of his art. When the utmost has been done, enormous deduc¬ 
tions must be made from such an utopian view; but I do say that we ought 
to set such an ideal before ourselves, and the higher we aim the 
greater measure of success shall we attain. 
The introduction of rifled guns has done something to increase the 
relative effect of artillery ; but, standing alone, the improvements in 
small-arms have again redressed the balance. The latest example on 
a large scale is, of course, the war of 1870-1 ; and although the 
German artillery—being then entirely armed with rifled guns, and 
having improved in certain points of tactics brought to light in 1866— 
undoubtedly made a better figure in the French war, it will not, I 
think, strike dispassionate observers that the relative superiority of 
artillery was much greater than in the beginning of the century. 
Nor is this to be wondered at. If we turn to our experiments on 
Dartmoor and elsewhere, it is brought home to us in an extraordinary 
degree how little is the effect of common shell upon troops in the open; 
and we cannot fail to see that the effect of rifled guns in war has been 
obscured altogether by the want of a proper projectile. 
If, again, we look at our own records of experimental practice, we 
shall see equally clearly that shrapnel, or kindred projectiles, are surely 
filling the void. To go no further than the experiments on Dartmoor 
last summer, nobody can have witnessed them without a conviction 
that the use of shrapnel from rifled guns will revolutionise the applica¬ 
tion of artillery, and must exercise as great an effect upon the tactics of 
the future as the introduction of breech-loading small-arms. 
It is unnecessary to enlarge upon this. It must be plain to every 
artilleryman, and to every soldier who has given any attention to the 
subject, that the effect of artillery has hitherto been child’s play to 
what it is capable of becoming, and will surely become in the next war. 
For this, however, the soundest and most untiring practical instruc¬ 
tion in all that goes to make up the art of shooting is needed. 
Without it all other excellence is worthless; the artillery that has it 
not is but a broken reed, the sport of its better taught and more far- 
seeing opponents. How nearly do we approach such an ideal as I 
have sketched ? 
In matters of discipline, drill, movement, appearance under arms, by 
common consent we stand high ; the persistent efforts to improve them 
have borne fruit, and if there are still imperfections, they are mainly 
such as must be expected in any human machine. There are of course 
blots even in the matters we most pride ourselves upon—notably, the 
neglect of horses by a large number of men when compulsion is 
removed. It has often been said that the Englishman, with all his 
love of horses, is the worst horsemaster in Europe; and I am sure 
general experience will bear me out in saying that only constant, close 
supervision makes many men take any care of their horses. This may 
work in peace, whilst the supervision can be given, but it does not 
improve the idle and ignorant; and when the pressure is taken off—as 
it must be in the field—there is no good motive to work upon. If we 
persist in tying gunners and drivers always to N.C. officers, we take 
