732 
ACHIEVEMENTS OE FIELD ARTILLERY. 
centrated in the controlling grasp of one superior officer are well brought 
out. 
With this example we must close our record of what the German 
guns accomplished in a campaign so decisively victorious that the 
losses of the vanquished amount to figures most astonishing. For, 
leaving out of sight the killed and wounded, Metz and Strasburg’, 
21,508 officers and 702,048 men as prisoners, 107 flags and eagles, 
1915 field, and 5526 fortress guns remained, very tangible trophies of 
success, in the conqueror’s hands. And in the story of how so vast a 
triumph was reaped, what will perhaps equally astonish the sympathetic 
reader is the consciousness of strength which made the German guns, 
in spite of the disadvantages imposed upon them by the Chassepot, 
never hesitate to join issue with their opponents, no matter to what 
arm of the service they belonged, who, it is also to be noted, frankly 
have admitted that this confidence in the power of their weapons sprung 
less from a knowledge of their ballistic superiority, than from a sense 
that careful training in their handling, both technically and tactically, 
had given their fire a precision and focus which those they were 
engaging could not match. 
Is is by no means contended that the tactics employed were always 
justifiable, but, at least, artillery was understood and appreciated by 
those in general command as it had never been since the commence¬ 
ment of the century, while, if the tasks set were often great, the guns 
never failed to art up to what was expected from' them. Whether 
justice has invariably been done to the physical effect they produced is 
a matter into which we will not now enter, although subsequently we 
may perhaps briefly discuss it. 
(To be Continued). 
