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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
still, 1 comparatively retrograded, and at the time I speak of was little short 
of useless. 
So ended the 17th century, during the latter half of which no improve¬ 
ment of importance, except the general use of limbers, was introduced into 
the field artillery. They were limbers destitute of any means of carrying 
either men or ammunition, but I regard their introduction as the third 
epoch in the history of the mobility of the arm. 
Ere long, that spirit of doubt, of enquiry, of reaction, which forms 
the eminent characteristic of the 18th century, and which pervaded alike 
the literary, the scientific, the religious, and the political worlds, 2 began 
to be felt in the military world. A furious battle had been fought in 
England, during the closing years of the previous century, on the relative 
merits of ancient and modem learning; 3 the most liberal of all studies, the 
study of physical science, was advancing, although with tottering and unequal 
steps, and was dissipating the mists in which theology had enveloped 
physics; a bitter and deplorable crusade against Christianity had been begun 
in Erance; and dark clouds were gathering on the political horizon, which 
were to burst in the American War of Liberation, and the Erench Revolution. 
Men began to suspect that the possession of great power did not necessarily 
involve the possession of great wisdom, and they more than suspected that 
they had inherited some bad old customs and some false old beliefs from the 
good old times; for knowledge was diffusing itself through the masses of 
the people, and was undermining the brazen towers of protection and tradition. 
Nothing could escape scrutiny when men were in such a temper, and a thrill 
of liberalism shot through the most conservative of institutions—the army. 
Change was the god of the hour, and it ran riot in the arsenals as it did 
elsewhere. As might be supposed, disorder and confusion were the first 
effects of the new movement ; 4 but there can be no reasonable doubt that had 
it been allowed to act without interference or interruption for a few years, 
order would have succeeded disorder, regularity would have followed con¬ 
fusion, and after the first rude burst of license was over, some system of 
artillery—as light and effective as the state of chemistry and metallurgy 
permitted—would have come into use. But the work of reform was opposed 
by two powerful influences—the system of battalion guns, and the wars of 
position—both of which had now reached a high degree of development. 
The battalion guns, which had been in use in Germany since the Thirty 
Years* "War, 5 6 attracted the notice of the Erench Court, where military 
1 “ L’Infanterie avait fait de grands progres . . . L’Artillerie etait restee stationnaire.”—- 
“ Conference sur l’Artillerie de Campagne.” Paris, 1869, p. 11. 
2 Buckle’s “Hist, of Civilisation,” Yol. III. p. 174, Leipsig Ed. 
3 See Dean Swift’s “Battle of the Books,” and Dr. Bentley’s “Letters on the Epistles of 
Phaleris.” 
4 Taubert, “On Field Artillery,” p. 9. Fave’s “Hist, et Tact, des Trois Armes,” p. 113. 
“ Conference sur l’Art. de Campagne.” Paris, 1869, p. 12. 
6 Gustavus Adolphus is responsible for the battalion gun system. Had the king lived long 
enough to see the pernicious effects of these guns in practice, he would no doubt have abolished 
them; but as a matter of fact he did establish them, and they remained in existence for nearly a 
century and a half after his death, always exerting an influence for evil so strong as to counteract 
almost entirely the effect of the improvements he introduced into the artillery service. As regards 
the leather guns, I cannot agree with the Emperor Napoleon III. (“Etudes, &c., &c.,” Tom. IY. 
p. 83);—“ Ces canons . . , n’ont aucune interet au point de vue dc Phistoire de l’art.” Ap 
