THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
107 
an army is nourished and supported. Nor is it a small thing that the 
combatant officers of the army of all classes should understand the 
process of administration, and be able to appreciate the difficulties of 
supply. The harmonious working of all branches and departments 
of the army can only be attained by mutual knowledge and mutual 
dependence; by a strong check being put on the tendency to regard 
one’s own branch as the only part of the great machinery to be taken 
care of. Unless this check be applied, not by outside regulations, but 
in our own ideas and habit of thought, then this inevitable result follows 
—the machine is thrown out of gear, because we are trying to work 
one part at the expense of the remainder, and we realise what is meant 
by disastrous administration, by the “ organisation of defeat.” 
In treating this large subject it may be as well to lay down the order 
generally in which it may be dealt with, and it will be convenient to 
detail the order in this place, viz. 
1. The definition of an arsenal. 
2. The circumstances under which an arsenal may be established. 
3. The considerations which govern the position of an arsenal. 
4. The general principles of the organisation of an arsenal. 
5. The details of the organisation of an arsenal, divided under three 
heads, viz. 
A. Storekeeping. 
B. Construction. 
C. Administration. 
1. The Definition of an Arsenal. 
An arsenal is an establishment for the construction, repair, receipt, 
storage, and issue of warlike stores. 
Arsenals may be divided into two classes— 
First-class arsenals, 
Second-class u 
In first-class arsenals, every want of an army and the military service * 
in respect to munitions of war must be provided for. An army requires 
guns of many kinds, and all the innumerable appliances connected with 
keeping these weapons in order, their service, and repairing them when 
damaged. It requires wood and iron carriages for the guns, hundreds 
of stores connected with guns, their carriages, and their service, as well 
as transport carriages of all kinds. It requires projectiles—shot, shell, 
incendiary and miscellaneous, including rockets; varieties of charges 
for firing the guns, or for bursting the projectile; the means of igniting 
these charges—as tubes, portfires, &c.; the means of igniting the 
bursting charges—as all the varieties of fuzes. An army must be 
* And in certain cases, of the naval service also. 
