666 
ACHIEVEMENTS OF FIELD ARTILLERY. 
action, and by 4 o’clock the effect of the concentrated fire delivered by 
tbis mass of guns was so great that battery after battery on the heights 
opposite were silenced, and all efforts of the enemy to bring fresh guns 
into action were frustrated. 
As soon as the hostile artillery was silenced, the guns set themselves 
to drive the enemy out of Champenois, and the batteries which had 
retired to refit now came into line again and co-operated. 1 
The artillery claim that Champenois was evacuated owing to the 
concentrated fire these guns were able to pour upon it, and certainly 
the effect of their shells was so great that the enemy were foiled in all 
their efforts to place fresh guns in position against them. The French 
account given by General Frossard says :—The artillery of Mon- 
taudon’s, Grenier’s and de Cissey’s divisions, fired on by numerous 
batteries, suffered severely.” 
Their fire had, in fact, enabled the 9th Corps to press forward 
like a wedge towards the enemy’s main position, and to establish itself 
there so securely as to defy his efforts to dislodge it. 
About 5 o’clock, after the farm of Champenois was taken, fatigue 
overpowered both combatants at this part of the field; further advance 
on the German side was hopeless ; the musketry ceased entirely ; and 
by degrees the guns, too, became almost all silent. 
It had not been intended that the 1st Army should assault the 
French position in earnest until the 2nd Army stood close to the 
enemy ; but when the brisk firing was heard from Verneville, the 
artillery, both of the 7th and 8th Corps, was sent forward to prepare 
the way for the infantry. The movements of the batteries of both 
corps are so closely connected that they may be dealt with in the same 
account. Sixteen batteries were sent at first into action, very soon 
their number was increased to 20, and ultimately as many as 168 guns 
were unlimbered, and cannonaded the enemy’s position from Moscou 
Farm to the Quarries south of Point du Jour. They were placed on the 
ridge east of Gravelotte, astride the high road. 
The effect of the German artillery was proved by the gradual dis¬ 
appearance of the French batteries opposed to them, and the explosion 
of several of their limbers and ammunition wagons. Indeed, the French 
have admitted that the fire of this great mass of artillery was over¬ 
whelming, and that it silenced their guns and set Moscou and Point du 
Jour in flames. The conformation of the ground here interfered, 
however, to some extent with the co-operation which the guns could 
lend to their comrades of the infantry. The deep ravine in front of 
them rendered difficult the advance of the batteries, and consequently 
the infantry could not? be so completely supported when they crossed 
this hollow and advanced to the attack beyond as they might otherwise 
have been. Moreover, the French riflemen were mostly under cover, 
and the task of dislodging them from the buildings they occupied was 
no easy one, when the advance of the infantry masked the fire of the 
guns. 
1 One was lucky enough to find ten cast horses in an adjacent farm, which were at once made use 
of, 
