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MINUTES OE PROCEEDINGS OF 
was looked on as indecent, and Napoleon himself was considered a barbarian, 
unworthy of the name of soldier. “ In my youth,” exclaimed a correct old 
Germau, “ we used to march and countermarch all summer without gaining 
or losing a square league, and then we went into winter quarters. But now 
comes an ignorant, hot-headed young man, who flies from Boulogne to Ulm, 
and from IJlm to the middle of Moravia, and fights battles in December. 
The whole system of his tactics is monstrously incorrect.” * 1 2 The evolutions 
of an army were necessarily dilatory and protracted under this extravagant 
and pedantic system, and its spirit was eminently prejudicial to the progress 
of field artillery, for it produced a tendency to increase efficacy of fire to 
the detriment of mobility; and, if my reasoning be correct, the movement 
in favour of large calibres which took place in Prussia about 1759/ far 
from being exceptional and abnormal, as it is generally regarded, was a 
natural consequence of the prevailing system of tactics. 
But potent as were the two influences which I just described in coun¬ 
teracting the effect of the spirit of reform, they were unable to extin¬ 
guish it altogether. They might crush it, but they could not kill it; and 
the successive efforts to create an artillery that could move as well as fire, 
which T shall now briefly describe, are a sufficient proof of its vitality 
during the first half of the 18th century. 
The first unmistakeable symptoms of reaction were the establishment of 
organised bodies of gunners in Prance, Germany, and England, 3 towards the 
close of the 17th century, and the general tendency to diminish the weight 
of guns, observable during the early years of the 18th. 4 This latter move¬ 
ment was in the right direction, but it was imperfect, and necessarily involved 
failure; for it was founded on the false assumption that mobility was attain¬ 
able by merely lightening the guns, without any corresponding improvement 
in the carriages and the mode of draft. So long was the mistaken notion 
received in England that the guns were of all importance and the carriages 
were of none, that the Carriage Department was not founded until 1806, 5 
although the Royal Arsenal was established in Woolwich Warren in 1716. 
While the century was yet young, the Chevalier Polard proposed a gun of 
his own invention, which, if it was not the very first, was one of the first 
attempts to construct an artillery that could move. “ Le Chevalier de 
Polard,” says Pere Daniel, 6 “officier de beaucoup d'esprit et de capacite . 
. . . a entrepris de trouver le secret qu'on cherche depuis longtemps, de 
diminuer la longeur des canons, et par consequent leur poids immense, aussi- 
bien que celui de leurs affuts, sans prejudice de leur portee et de leur effefc.” 
The Chevalier’s gun was a 24-pr. (length, 2 ft. 4ins.; weight, 15‘lcwt.; 
charge, 6 lbs.), and compared with the ordinary 24-pr. of that time (length, 
lift.; weight, 45*5 cwt.; charge, 12lbs.), it was no doubt “infiniment 
and leaving, by this delay, all the brunt of the action upon the 76th Regiment, and about two 
battalions of Sepoys.”—Cob Hamilton Smith’s “ Sketch of the Science and Art of War,” in the 
“ Aide-Memoire to the Military Sciences,” Vol. I. p. 27. 
1 “Lord Macaulay’s Essays; Lord Byron,” Yol. I. p. 330; 
2 Taubert, “ On Field Artillery,” p. 9. 
3 Fare, “Hist, et Tact, des Trois Armes,” pp. 105, 114. “Die Beziehungen Friedrich des 
Grossen zu seiner Artillerie.” Yon Troschke, p. 6. 
4 Taubert, “ On Field Artillery,” p. 7; 
5 MS. Notes on the History of the Royal Carriage Department, by an Officer of the Royal 
Artillery. 
6 “Hist, de la Milice Francaise;” Paris, 1724, Tom. I. pp; 327, 330. 
