THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
461 
field from garrison artillery, and the organisation of the former into brigades 
of ten guns each, instead of the old system of massing the guns in three or 
four huge unmanageable trains. 1 2 
Throughout these discussions may be clearly, perceived the tendency of 
the king towards mobility, and the counter-tendency of his officers towards 
efficacy of fire. His thoughts were continually directed towards the care of 
the teams, 3 and so convinced was he of the value of light guns, that he caused 
a number of 1-prs. to be constructed for the Tree-Battalions. 3 Had Frederick 
been one of those men whom Mediocrity loves to call her own, or had his 
naturally powerful mind been narrowed by prejudice and dulled by routine, 
his influence on the fortunes of the artillery at this critical period of its history 
would have been as pernicious as it was great. But his exalted position 
enabled him to soar above the mists of ignorance and custom, and his eagle 
glance penetrated through the paltry intrigues and petty factions of men 
in office and men seeking office. Beset by the arguments of his officers, 
and moved, perhaps, to a certain extent by the results of experiments, the 
king at length gave way before public opinion, and during the second year 
of the Seven Years'’ War he ordered a large number of field guns, and among 
them the obnoxious 6-pr., to be constructed—writing, however, to General 
von Linger at the same time, “Ihr wisst, dass Ich vom 6-pfiinder nichts 
halte. - ” 4 
Although doubtless they little dreamed that their movements were 
determined by forces which had come into operation before they were born, 
yet Frederick and his officers were but the agents of those large general 
influences which, as I have pointed out in a previous paper, brought about a 
return to heavy calibres towards the year 1759, and which directed the course 
of field artillery, not in Prussia only, but in every country of Europe. 
Frederick was the representative of the spirit of reaction; his officers were 
the representatives of the spirit of statu quo ; and it is to the conflict between 
the two, carried on by free discussion and honest experiment, that we owe 
the invention of horse artillery. The end which the king proposed to gain 
was good, but the means by which he sought to reach it were bad, and in as 
far as related to the 6-prs., the movement of the party represented by 
Prince Leopold was undoubtedly in the right direction. The king gave way 
before their calm and reasonable arguments, but he gave way exclaiming, 
“ Ihr wisst, dass Ich vom 6-pfiinder nichts halte.” He was persuaded by 
the beneficial opposition of his artillery officers of the badness of the means 
by which he sought to reach the desired end; but he remained convinced 
beyond persuasion of the supreme goodness of that end, and he was thus led 
to apply his splendid intellect to the task of devising some new and better 
1 Von Troschke, p. 24. 
2 Ibid, p* 20; Frederick's “ Secret Instructions;'’ 
8 Ibid. p. 28. 
4 Ibid. p. 29. I cannot admit the comparison which Gen. von Troschke draws between the 
suppression of the French 4-prs. and 8-prs. by Napoleon in his Italian campaigns, and the suppres- 
sion of the 6-prs; by Frederick ; because if Napoleon’s account of the matter be accepted, there is 
no analogy between the two cases: Napoleon says:—“L’Empereur a supprime les pieces de 4 et 
de 8; il y a substitue les pieces de 6; 1’experience lui avait d&nontre que les generaux d’infanterie 
faisaient usage indistinctement de pieces du calibre de 4 ou de 8, sans avoir egard a l’effet qu’ils 
voulaient produire.”-—>“ Correspondance de Napoleon I.” Tom. XXXI. p. 326. 
