MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
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practically in 1793, and officially in 1796. 1 It was gradually done away with, 
all over Europe, during the early years of the present century. 
The disuse of battalion guns is generally ascribed by military writers to the 
Erench Revolution and the creation of the divisional system; 3 but be it 
remembered that the divisional system was a direct consequence of the Erench 
Revolution and of the new conditions under which the raw soldiers of the 
Republic were obliged to fight, and that the Revolution itself was the direct 
result of the glorious renaissance of the arts and sciences, of learning and 
thought, of which I have spoken sufficiently. 3 
To the honor of the Royal Artillery be it said, that the first officer who 
raised his voice against this pernicious system of dissipating the force of the 
field artillery, belonged to the Regiment. 4 In an almost forgotten MS., in 
the library of the Royal Artillery Institution, may be found Major S. P. Adye's 
protest against the use of battalion guns, dated 1788. Major Adye saw 
clearly the important influence which the nature of the ground exerts 
on the fire of field artillery, and by two simple sketches he shows the 
difference between how guns ought to be placed, and how they then were. 
Eig. 1 shows the mode in which Major Adye proposed that a brigade (battery) 
of guns, attached to a brigade of infantry, should be posted—a disposition 
which was afterwards adopted substantially by all the great tacticians of 
the day. 5 
Fig. l. 
1 Lieut.-Col. Owen’s “ Modern Artillery,” p. 303. The office is generally three years behind the 
parade-ground. 
The temporary re-introduction of battalion guns by Napoleon into the French service, in 1805, 
is said to have been occasioned by the necessity of fortifying the courage of his young soldiers. 
See C. von Decker’s “ Geschichte des Geschiitzwesens, &c.” p. 13, note. I have neither the desire 
nor the means of verifying this explanation. 
2 I mean the organisation of a division of the three arms as a tactical unit. 
3 See the 14th chapter of Buckle’s “ History of Civilisation.” 
4 Many writers before Adye’s time—for instance, Dupuget, in his i: Essai sur l’usage de 
l’Artillerie,” Amsterdam, 1771, p. 7—had objected to the system of battalion guns; but in general 
they only cast a passing glance at the subject, while Adye went to the bottom of it. 
5 I unfortunately only took a very rough copy of Major Adye’s sketches when I saw them, 
eight years ago ; but I think I have fairly reproduced their salient points. 
