64 
MINUTES OE PROCEEDINGS OE 
its one forward vent, and subjected to no repair or renewal of any description. 
Indeed, so numerous w r ere the alterations in the Prussian gun, that in the 
course of the trials almost every feature of the original combination became 
altered, and from firing a heavy, thickly-leaded, obtuse-headed shot with a 
low charge of comparatively rapid powder, the gun came to fire light thinly- 
leaded sharp-pointed projectiles with high charges of superior powder; the 
breech arrangement and system of venting having meanwhile also undergone 
reconstruction and repair. 
If under these circumstances the Prussian gun had largely surpassed the 
English gun in penetrative effect and other qualities, such a result would 
hardly have afforded justification for any very marked expression of satis¬ 
faction on the part of those who were favourable to the Prussian system. 
If one gun is pitted against another which is bigger and longer and one- 
sixth heavier, which fires charges nearly one-fourth heavier, and projectiles 
generally from one-eighth to one-third heavier, and which, according to the 
estimates of its own maker, has a resulting theoretical superiority of power 
of from 30 to 33 per cent., 1 and if the heavy gun beats the lighter gun, 
does that prove that the system which the heavy gun represents is superior 
to the system which the light gun represents? But if, in the event, the 
heavy gun barely succeeds in holding its own against the lighter gun, what 
shall then be said of attempts to deduce from the trials a conclusion 
favourable to the heavier weapon ? 
And this is exactly what happened. The relations of the two com¬ 
peting guns at Tegel were as we have stated them. The result, broadly 
expressed, was—as will presently appear—that the Krupp gun barely held 
its own—if indeed it did that—against the English gun. And yet, since 
the Tegel trials, pamphlet after pamphlet, article after article have appeared, 
setting forth, on the basis of those trials, the superiority, not merely of a 
particular Krupp gun to a particular English gun, but of the Krupp steel 
breech-loaders generally to the English wrought-iron muzzle-loaders. The 
“ Woolwich” system has been tried at Tegel and found inferior to the 
Prussian system; muzzle-loaders are inferior to breech-loaders; wrought-iron 
is inferior to steel; English projectiles are inferior to Krupp's steel shell; 
English chilled iron is inferior to Gruson's; English powder is inferior to 
[Russian; the English system of venting is inferior to the Prussian system of 
venting. In fact, on the basis of these Tegel trials, the English system of 
heavy rifled ordnance has been subjected, comprehensively and in detail, to 
an amount of destructive foreign criticism which is probably unexampled. 
That it should have suggested itself to so many foreign critics—to Prussians, 
and Austrians, and Russians^—to erect a structure of this character and extent 
upon such a foundation as the Tegel experiments, is remarkable; that it 
should have seemed to them possible or probable that when erected it would 
have any sort of stability, or be otherwise than as a pyramid standing 
upon its point, is almost inconceivable. But the fact remains—the criticism 
1 See Mr. Krupp’s pamphlet, “ Comparative Gunnery Experiments,” Table III., where the 
“energy” or theoretical penetrative power of the two guns is given as 16£ to 16f metre-tons per 
centimetre of the shell’s circumference for the Prussian guns, against 12 , 35 metre-tons for the 
English gun. 
