TELE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
291 
ness of the carriages, and in everything connected with the means of draught; 1 2 
and Marshal Marmont, after inspecting Webber Smith's troop, shortly before 
Waterloo, said “ the equipment in every respect was very far superior to any¬ 
thing he had ever seen." 3 In 1815, after the occupation of Paris by the Allies, 
Capt. Parrizot, of the Prench artillery, in a memoir on the English artillery, 
said it was superior to all others in the following respects :—1st, interchange- 
ability of materiel ; 2nd, ease of limbering-up and unlimbering; 3rd, construc¬ 
tion of the wheels; 4th, the transport of the gunners; and 5th, the system of 
draught. 3 Einally, the French Government appointed a committee of artillery 
officers to report on the various allied artilleries that took part in the grand 
review of the 23rd Oct. 1818. 4 After noticing the peculiarities of the 
different artilleries—the English guns with 8 horses; the Russian wagons 
with 3 horses abreast; the Danish heavy field-pieces with 12 gunners to each 
gun; and the Saxon batteries with a gunner on the off-leaders of the gun and 
wagon, 2 gunners on the trail seat, and 2 on the wagon limber—the com¬ 
mittee unhesitatingly gave the palm to the English batteries. They were 
particularly delighted with the manoeuvres of one field battery over very 
difficult ground, and they generously confessed that no French battery could 
have cleared the ground like the English. “ Ey mounting the gunners on 
the gun-limber and wagon," said the committee, “ by ridding the gunners 
of their cumbrous and useless carbines, and by attaching the knapsacks to 
the carriages,.the English have made the field batteries a 
new arm." 5 During the whole time our army occupied France, the artillery 
excited the liveliest interest and admiration of the French officers, and they 
did not hesitate to say that our field batteries were the most mobile in Europe, 
whatever the ground and whatever the pace. 6 
Such was the splendid position of the English artillery in 1815—»a position 
it was not long to hold. 
The exhaustion consequent upon 23 years of war, imposed upon Europe a 
policy of peace and retrenchment, and a diminution in the budget naturally 
involved a diminution in the number, though not necessarily in the efficiency, 
of the artillery. Almost universally, however, the decrease in numbers was 
accompanied by a decrease of efficiency. Armies had long occupied the most 
prominent position in public estimation, and now, by a natural reaction, they 
were thrown into the shade and unduly neglected. 
In England matters were worse than elsewhere. On the close of the war, 
we rushed to the demolition of our military establishments as if Satan had 
been bound for 1000 years, and there was to be no more war. An era of 
eternal peace had dawned upon the world, and happy England would float 
dreamily down a river of commercial and political prosperity that was to flow 
on for ever and for ever. She would no longer waste her wealth upon a 
brutal and licentious soldiery; she would set an example to the nations of the 
* “Ttist, de la Ghiei're de la Peninsule,” Tom. II. p. 296. 
2 Sir A. Frazer’s “ Letters, &c.” p. 502. Marmont was an artillery officer. 
8 Fave’s “ Le Passe et 1’Avenir de l’Art.” Tom. Y. p. 72. 
4 Ibid. p. 76. 
5 “Ces dispositions font de l’artillerie a pied une arme nouvelle.”—Ibid. p. 78. 
8 “Nos officiers signalerent particulierement ses pieces, &c. &c., comme posscdant des qualites 
remarkables et comme etant superieures a toutes les autres par leur mobilite dans tous les terrains 
et a toutes les allures.”—Ibid. p. 81. 
35 
