506 
WITH THE GREEKS. 
Greek position and dominating it, must Lave been firing down on the 
enemy from a height of over 1200 feet and at a range of fully four miles. 
Down below, on the great green expanse of level ground, every hostile 
gun could be discerned and every movement noted. Shell bursts were 
easily detected by the observers, and ranging was thus carried out 
under quite abnormally favourable conditions. Moreover, the Greek 
artillery was posted on ground which must, in some cases, have made 
it very difficult for the Turks to see the batteries or to get their range 
rapidly. None of the batteries moved during the battle as far as I 
could see. 
The Ottoman army had altogether about fifteen batteries in action 
and ten or twelve of these formed one long line facing the centre and 
right centre of the Greek position. Although the limbers and horses 
were easily discernible through binoculars, I could make out no horse 
artillery, of which, however, two or three batteries were probably pre¬ 
sent. There seemed to be no proper concentration of fire, although 
the guns were massed, and the batteries appeared to move short dis¬ 
tances from time to time rather aimlessly. At the commencement of 
the cannonade the hostile artillery was for the most part about 3500 
yards away from our front line, but it gradually approached to an 
average distance of perhaps 2000 yards. I saw no battery attempt 
to come to close range in support of the infantry attack upon the 
centre. 
The most noticeable point about the artillery in this action was the 
very insufficient use made of shrapnel and the very inaccurate burst¬ 
ing of this class of projectile when it was used. Both sides appeared 
to consider common the proper projectile to fire at artillery and to reserve 
their shrapnel for the infantry of the enemy. The Greek 25 prs. had 
no shrapnel in their equipment. Except in the case of the two most 
advanced batteries, which were right in the centre and which suffered 
loss both from musketry and from shell fire, I did not see a single 
shrapnel burst anywhere near Greek artillery. On the other hand, 
plenty of common shell 1 fell about our batteries but did practically no 
damage; one of them struck a limber which blew up with a loud 
report, but all the others seemed harmless. It was surprising to see 
shells—probably all 12 prs. from the Turkish Krupps—burst right in 
a crowd of men and horses and do no injury. 
Although the Turks made no serious attempt to concentrate the fire 
of their mass of guns on any particular point within the Greek lines 
their fire was evidently well under control. For, while their batteries 
were being annoyed by fairly well directed shells from the commanding 
guns on our side, they confined themselves almost entirely for fully two 
hours to bombarding the shelter trenches which the infantry later on 
attacked. These shelter trenches were well constructed and the Greek 
infantry and the Garibaldians occupying them did not suffer heavy loss 
from the enemy's artillery, but the moral effect of the frequent burst¬ 
ing of shells among the rocks and bushes and sometimes actually on 
1 It is possible that some of the shells which burst on impact were shrapnel which had failed to 
burst in flight.— C.E.C, 
