196 
AMMUNITION COLUMNS. 
Most of the great continental Powers maintain in peace at their 
mountain artillery depots a nucleus capable of ready expansion in war 
to a serviceable mountain ammunition column. The details for the 
tables of these columns have not been determined moreover without 
experience in the field of their necessity. Thus Russia in the Balkans 
and Western and Central Asia; France in the Pyreneean Campaign at 
the commencement of the century, also more recently in Algeria, Tonkin 
and Madagascar; Spain in her numerous Carlist wars, in Morocco 
and in her Colonial Islands; Austria in the campaigns of the Tyrol and 
Bosnia; Italy in the Alps and recently in Erithrea; and the Dutch in 
the East Indies have all learnt useful lessons which they have not 
hesitated to profit by. 
As regards ourselves, beyond a 50°/ o of reserve artillery ammuni¬ 
tion laid down to be carried with the ammunition lines of the Mountain 
Batteries, with, in addition some crude provision in India in the form 
of field parks improvised hastily on the outbreak of war, no tables 
exist as guidance for the formation of artillery and infantry pack 
ammunition columns on a satisfactory basis of organisation that 1 am 
aware of. 
A consideration of the arrangements made in this respect by the 
Powers referred to may, perhaps, be interesting and useful to officers 
of the British Mountain Artillery. 
AUSTRIA. 
Ammunition parks and columns are known under the general 
designation of Reserve Artillery establishments. A mountain division 
ammunition park is attached to each infantry division equipped for 
mountain warfare and is so organised that it can, if necessary, be 
divided into three sections, one for each of three mountain brigades of 
which a mountain division usually consists. 
The personnel of a Mountain ammunition park is made up of detach¬ 
ments from Mountain batteries and technical (siege) artillery. Its 
exact strength is not laid down, but depends on the special circum¬ 
stances of each case; such, for instance, as to whether the transport 
is by pack animals or by wagons, and in the latter case, whether the 
wagons are supplied by the train or are requisitioned country wagons. 
The ammunition carried is 100 rounds per mountain gun and thirty 
rounds per rifle, besides explosives for engineer purposes. 
The artillery of a Mountain brigade consists of one Mountain 
battery and of a Mountain division of three Mountain batteries (one 
per brigade) and two to three Field batteries (reserve artillery of the 
division). Army ammunition field depots are organized according to 
special instructions, which are issued to meet the requirements of the 
particular theatre of operations. In addition to the necessary reserve 
they are required to keep up for field and horse artillery guns, 150 
rounds have to be kept up for each mountain gun on the establish¬ 
ment. 
