ARTILLERY POSITIONS AND SCREENING GUNS. 
89 
Major-General Maurice says, with reference to this battle of 
Spicheren:— 
“It is much more easy to see guns standing out on the sky-line 
than it is to see guns with a dark background.” “ Firing up against the 
sky-line is therefore much more effective than firing down from it.” 
(See p. 12, General Maurice on “ Artillery in 1870-71 ”). 
Example III.—“ Gordon at Khartoum ” :—- 
General Gordon at Khartoum, when the Mahdi’s men were firing at m 
his earthworks every day and constantly picking off his men, conceived 
the idea of making huge canvas screens projecting 10 feet high over 
his parapets. 
The Khalifa’s men promptly raised their muzzles and the bullets 
flew harmlessly over the heads of Gordon’s men. 
Example IY.—General Maurice’s Lecture in Dublin on “Artillery,” 
pp. 18 and 19—“ Battle of Worth ” :— 
“ There is another curious point in the character of the position taken iv—Worth, 
up by the great array of guns at Worth which has reference to the 
question of command on which I have already touched. The point 
like the other I noticed was, as I think, rather exaggerated by some 
officers who soon after the war enlarged on it. Still it is worth stating 
and is an interesting point as far as it goes. The hill on which the 
Germans had to take up their position fronted towards Worth on the 
opposite side of the valley to that from which the heights of the French 
position rose. 
The Germans came over the top of it. They did not fire from any¬ 
thing like the crest of the high ground, but came down the slope and 
come into action behind an underfeature. Now it has been said in 
relation to that, that it was a deliberate choice of ground on the part 
of the Prussians, who calculated that the French shells, when directed 
against that slope, would strike perpendicularly into the bank and so 
not produce nearly the same effect as they would have done if they had 
been directed over the crest of the hill, so that the lie of the ground 
would more nearly correspond to the trajectory of the shot. I think 
it is quite possible that, to a certain extent, the character of their 
position may have tended to save the Prussians from the apparently 
tremendous exposure which they made of themselves in that long array 
opposite to the French. But I am firmly convinced that that was not 
the motive that made the Prussians go there—the motive that took 
them there was that it was the best place from which they coidd see 
the French and hit the French. They trusted entirely to the enormous 
concentration of their artillery and instead of choosing a place where 
they would be least exposed to the French shells they preferred to be 
in a place where, by bringing* an overwhelming fire to bear upon the 
French guns, they could most effectively knock them out of time 
and, by so doing, protect themselves from the French fire. It was a 
question of the great efficiency of their concentration, of the effect 
produced by their concentrated fire and not of the actual local 
advantage of the ground.” 
12 
