450 
ACHIEVEMENTS OP FIELD ARTILLERY. 
Consequent on the increased mobility of which guns gradually became 
possessed, a new method of handling them was rendered possible, and 
accordingly we find that even as far back as the time of Grustavus 
Adolphus that great leader saw the advantages to be derived from con¬ 
centrating guns against particular points of the enemy’s line, and that 
he formed great batteries in the very way which our latest tactics advo¬ 
cate. Such a method of employing guns, although in our century it was 
for a time lost sight of, and has been latterly again revived, is, like many 
other modern innovations, no new thing. The advantages to be derived 
from concentrating the fire of many guns on a single point, and the heavy 
losses that may be inflicted by the arm most capable of destructive 
effect on the particular part of the enemy’s position which is chosen for 
a target, are sufficiently obvious, and were not likely to have been lost 
sight of by men who made a study of war. Such a method of employ¬ 
ing artillery is in fact only another recognition of the great truth, 
which underlies all the principles of tactics, namely, the bringing of 
superior forces to bear on inferior forces of the enemy at the right 
moment and in the right place. 
“Fire is everything, all the rest is nothing,” was a saying of 
Napoleon’s, and the application of overwhelming fire effect was, and 
is so even more in the present day, the equivalent of the shock of 
numbers. It follows necessarily from this that all leaders who 
have displayed a genius for war, whatever their original prejudices 
may have been, have come in time to appreciate the valuable 
results to be derived from artillery fire, and, if the achievements 
of the arm in the last century have not always been as great as 
might have been expected, the result was due, either (usually at the 
commencement of wars) to the arm not being properly understood, or 
to the meagre technical knowledge of the time, which was not yet equal 
to endowing the guns, either with an adequate mobility, or the 
destructive effect which an improved construction of ammunition and 
projectiles has since placed at their disposal. The guns of Frederick’s 
time had neither sufficient range nor accuracy to enable them to fire 
over the heads of the infantry on their side, and they had, therefore, 
to be posted in such positions in the line of battle as would place them 
as little as possible in the way of its advance. Convenient room could 
often only be found at intervals along the front of battle, and the short 
range of the guns prevented a due co-operation between these batteries. 
At the commencement of his career as a General, too, the King was 
prejudiced against artillery, and chafed at their slowness and lack of 
manoeuvring power, which interfered with the symmetry and precision 
of his peculiar tactics. He regarded his highly disciplined battalions 
and squadrons, which responded to his will more readily, with greater 
favour, and it was only when he shook himself loose from old traditions 
and formulas that he discovered the value of a weapon he had to a great 
extent before despised. 
At Rossbach he forgot for a moment his preconceived notions con¬ 
cerning an arm which he had much neglected, and allowed it to be 
handled independently and collectively in a more liberal manner than 
had been the custom. Just as on the same day he cast aside the forms 
previously observed, and abolished time-honoured privileges when he 
