THE HOYAL AivTJLLLEEY INSTITUTION. 
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having seen previous battles) he brought up his mitrailleuses. Any 
one who has seen that battle-field, who has seen the way in which the 
graves are at this point piled almost one upon another, will see how 
awful the slaughter must have been; and it was due, practically, entirely 
to these mitrailleuses.” 
“ There is,” he also says, “ another peculiar case, and that is on the 
western side of the battle-field of Sedan. On the heights, close to 
Floeing, there was placed a battery of mitrailleuses. There is, opposite 
to that, a round hill with wood on the top; and out of this wood and 
from behind this hill came the Prussian columns. As they came out 
they were swept down by these mitrailleuses, and they did not succeed. 
They could not make any progress, but were obliged to go back 
again, and go round on the reverse slope of the hill, checked by the 
mitrailleuse.” 
Another example is given by him of the remarkable work sometimes 
done by the mitrailleuses, in the defence of a railway bridge at 
Bazeilles :—“ The Bavarian columns came down and endeavoured to 
cross that railway bridge, preceded, of course, by their skirmishers. 
Two mitrailleuses only, I believe, were placed behind a garden wall, 
and they simply swept the bridge, so that the Bavarians could not 
pass it.” 
Mr. Winn thus describes the effects of mitrailleur fire at Gravelotte, 
upon a body of German cavalry :—“ It was about 3 o'clock that Mal- 
maison was taken by our (the German) troops, and it was on some 
Uhlans who tried to cut off the retreat of some Voltigeurs that the 
mitrailleur so terribly vindicated its character for destruction. A 
squadron rode forward with its usual pride and confidence; we heard 
the growl of this truly infernal machine; we saw an unwonted con¬ 
fusion in the Lancers' ranks; they wheeled and retired, leaving behind 
them 32 horses and as many men. They had unwittingly crossed the 
fatal line of fire, and had they remained to rescue their comrades, 
three minutes would have sufficed to put them in the same helpless 
condition. We had gone forward to the extreme point of the glen, 
and with our glasses could plainly see the gunners as they placed the 
fatal plate in the hydra-mouthed cannon.” 
Colonel Fielding again instances the effects produced at the second 
battle of Beaugency on a Prussian column of infantry, where clear 
gaps were cut through one of its angles. The same effect, he thinks, 
could not have been produced by infantry, as the time necessarily spent 
in deployment would have given warning to the approaching column. 
He considers “ the proper use of mitrailleurs to be as representing a 
certain number of infantry, for which there is not room on the ground, 
suddenly placed forward at the proper moment, at a decisive point, to 
bring a crushing fire on the enemy.” 
Captain Knollys, B.A., writing of the battle of Sedan, narrates the 
effect produced by six mitrailleurs, which were entrenched, and played 
with deadly effect on the Prussians, who attempted to cross a valley 
intervening between them and some rising ground about 900 yds. 
distant. “ The numerous Prussian graves on the slope of the Mamelon 
attest the severe loss they suffered,” he says, and afterwards adds—• 
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