76 
SHORT NOTES ON PROFESSIONAL SUBJECTS. 
The Austrian battery organization was the same as that of the Piedmontese; 
one battery accompanied each infantry brigade of five battalions; two such brigades 
and four squadrons composed a division, two such divisions with reserve cavalry 
composed a corps d'armee , to which forty reserve guns were attached, total amount¬ 
ing to near 1000 guns. 
In the combats of Montebello and Palestro (19th and 30th May, 1859) artillery 
did not take a very prominent part, but on the former occasion an instance 
occurred of an Austrian battery protecting its guns by a thin breastwork, an 
arrangement not difficult to carry out by sinking a trench in front of a gun, using 
the earth as an epaulment and digging small ditches on each side of the gun into 
which gunners can if necessary quickly jump; such an arrangement has special 
advantages behind the edge of a hill, as the gun can in this manner be brought 
nearer the ridge. 
On the 30th May the village of Yinzaglio sustained a cannonade from the 
Sardinian artillery without suffering much damage; a result which accords with 
the opinion that villages can be held against modern artillery unless set on fire by 
shells. 
Magenta was fought, June 4, and up to, and including this action we find no 
overwhelming superiority consequent on and attesting the power of rifled artillery; 
this may have been partly due to unsuitableness of ground, and also to a failure in 
the action of fuzes. 
But on June 24th was fought the great battle of Solferino, 300,000 men were 
engaged in the strife, and three crowned heads were present on the field; nor were 
the military features of the ground unworthy of the hosts who then went forth to 
the battle. There was alike cover for skirmishers and room for large deployments, 
communications were preserved by good roads, and gentle undulations afforded 
favourable sites for artillery. 
Two noteworthy examples of the use of the arm occurred during the day. The 
Austrian gunners opened a fire upon a French deployment destined against 
Solferino and Cavriana; to this the French directly reply, and bring up a mass of 
cavalry and horse artillery, the latter supporting the cannonade of the twenty-four 
guns originally in action; a complete success is gained crowned by the action of 
the cavalry. 
In this instance the enemy’s artillery sought to oppose the progress of the 
French attack. The supporting guns were consequently employed in silencing the 
enemy’s artillery. Here also we can observe the utility of the combination of 
cavalry and artillery which we are taught to expect more frequently on modern 
battle fields. 
On the allied right lay the plain of Medole, very favourable to the combat of 
cavalry and artillery. At this point the Austrians sought to penetrate into an 
interval which had been left between the French divisions, but here, though the 
conflict raged for six hours, the combined fire of forty-two guns nullified the 
project; the incontestable superiority of the French rifled gun was thus shown on 
the first occasion which really afforded a means of comparison. 
The immense powerof these artillery masses can hardly be over-estimated; instances 
of such employment of the arm must occur to every one acquainted with the 
conflicts of modern warfare. In June 1862 at Malvern Hill the army of M c Clellan 
is said to have been saved from utter destruction by a mass of sixty guns, which 
being posted favourably in his centre, poured dismay and death into the columns 
of the Confederacy; and in reviewing the arrangements preceding the battle of 
Fredvicksburg we observe that 250 guns, the bulk of the Southern artillery, were 
concentrated in enormous batteries on the right centre, and left of the line.* 
* Yon Eorcke’s Memoirs of Confederate War, Vol. I. p. 71, Vol. II. p. 97. 
