RUSSIAN FIELD ARTILLERY. 
299 
insensibly more rapid. Considering the time and tbe circumstances, 
this was too heavy an expenditure of ammunition. We were 
completely isolated, and should have been very cautious in expending 
ammunition, as we did not know when or where we could have got 
more. 
The proportion between common shell and shrapnel fired was 1 : 2,* 
and I am of opinion that that should be the regulation allowance for 
batteries, especially now that diaphragm-shrapnel and long burning 
time fuzes are employed; the satisfactory results abovementioned tend 
to corroborate this opinion. 
Whilst the battery was halted, notwithstanding the fatigue I felt, 
I proceeded to inspect the battle field, not out of mere curiosity, but 
to notice the effect of our projectiles. 
The station was reduced to ashes. Thousands of cartridge cases were 
strewed about as if a whole brigade of mitrailleurs had been in action 
there. Our projectiles had transformed the wagons into wrecks, the 
fire had communicated to those nearest to the station, in which there 
must have been great quantities of ammunition, judging from the 
repeated explosions which were still taking place. 
I will not attempt to describe the impression produced upon me by 
the dead and wounded stretched out in this horrible area of death and 
pain; it will ever haunt my memory, f 
The greater number of those killed and wounded by artillery were 
behind the wagons or in the redoubt; they were easily recognisable 
by the nature of their wounds. In the position finally occupied by 
the Turkish artillery there were several dead horses and bullocks, 
and part of an ass. 
Between the wagons and the redoubt there was a fragment of rail a 
foot long; the fracture appeared old, and we could not possibly suppose 
that a shell from one of our guns, even under the most favourable 
circumstances, could break and tear off such a fragment of iron; but 
the general extent of desolation and destruction which surrounded us 
produced such an effect on some infantry soldiers, that they did not 
hesitate to affirm that the fragment of rail had been severed by one 
of our shells, and I did not attempt to disabuse them. It is often 
amusing and, moreover, useful, to overhear the simple and pithy 
descriptions by the soldiers, of the behaviour of the troops that have 
taken part in an action, or their criticisms on the orders of their superiors. 
After awhile all their stories get distorted, but, in the first moments, 
impressed with the recent events, and animated by feeling, there is a 
great attraction in them, and, in the main, there is, underlying all, a 
* The regulated proportion in our service is 3:2 in heavy and 1:1 for light pieces. All 
artilleries are systematically increasing the number of their shrapnel, the value of which is greatly 
due to the perfection attained in the manufacture and employment of these projectiles, and also 
to the adoption of the “ double gallery ” fuzes. 
f With infinite pain, one is reminded, by this sanguinary episode, of the disastrous affair of San 
Pedro Abanto, the 27th March, 1874. Our civil discords produced on that day a most horrible 
hecatomb; hundreds of dead were extended on the road leading from Carreras to the village of 
Murrieta. At midnight a reconnaissance was made, to place an advanced battery over Abanto, 
and the silence of the night, and of death, left in our minds a lasting effect that time can never efface. 
