THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
419 
COMPOUND GUNS, MANY-BARRELLED RIFLE BATTERIES, 
MACHINE GUNS, OR MITRAILLEURS. 
BY 
CAPTAIN J. F. OWEN, E.A., 
CAPTAIN INSTHUCTOK, EOYAIi GUN FACTOEIES. 
PAET I. 
“ Because you have to fight with machines instead of lances, there may be a necessity for more 
ghastly danger, but there is none for less worthiness of character than in olden time. You may be 
true knights yet.”— Buskin. _ 
These weapons of war Lave attracted considerable attention of late 
years, and have been adopted, on a small scale, as a part of their 
armament by most European powers, while by the French they were 
used in large numbers during the Franco-German War of 1870. 
In the year 1869, as the subject was becoming one of importance, 
our Government purchased mitrailleurs, both on the Montigny and 
Gatling principles, and appointed a Special Committee to experiment 
and report upon the same.* 
The two reports of this Committee, dated Nov. 1870 and Nov. 1871 
respectively, together with the memoranda attached to them, entered 
very fully into the question of the use and employment of machine 
guns; while in Jan. 1872, Colonel Fletcher, of the Scots Fusilier 
Guards (one of the Special Committee) gave a very interesting lecturef 
on the subject, principally based on these reports. This lecture was 
followed by an animated discussion, in which the advantages and defects 
inherent to mitrailleurs, as illustrated during the Franco-German War, 
were clearly pointed out. 
As the sources of information alluded to above may not be attainable 
by many artillery officers-—especially those quartered abroad—while 
almost all read the papers of our It.A. Institution, I hope that the fol¬ 
lowing brief account of machine guns, past and present, their uses and 
employment, will not be without interest to my brother gunners. J 
* Major Fosbery, V.C., Bengal Staff Corps, was urgent in bringing these weapons—the use of 
which he strongly advocated—to the notice of our Government. (Vide “Journal U.S.I.,” 
No. LVI., for a paper of his on the subject). 
f At the United Service Institution, London. (Vide Journal of that Institution, No. LXVI.) 
J After a part of this paper had been written, an opportunity was given me of reading the 
report of a Swedo-Norwegian Commission on the subject of mitrailleurs. This report, which has 
been translated by Captain King-Harman, It.A., is of the most interesting nature, and will, I 
understand, be published as a translation to accompany “ Proceedings, H.A. Institution.” As the 
report contains a clear and succinct account of the mitrailleurs used by different nations, its pub¬ 
lication may almost seem to render this paper superfluous. I have, however, thought it best to 
complete it, and to include in it much information obtained from the report in question, as also 
from a subsequent paper in the “Revue d’Artillerie” for February, 1874. 
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