THE SMOOTH-BORE GUN
On the question of the date at which the discovery of gunpowder took
place writers have held the most divergent views. The opinion of the
majority has been that its properties were known in the remote ages
of antiquity, and this opinion has been formed and confirmed by the
accounts given of its origin by most of the medieval writers. The
Chinese claim to have known it long before the Christian era. And from
hints in classical literature, and on the broad ground of probability,
it has been inferred by some authorities that the explosive properties
of gunpowder were known to the ancients. The wonderful property of
saltpetre, they argue, must certainly have been known to the wise
men of old: its extraordinary combustive power when mixed with other
substances. Melted alone over a hot fire saltpetre does not burn; but
if a pinch of some other substance is added, a violent flame results.
In many fortuitous circumstances, they say, saltpetre must have been
found in contact with that other essential ingredient of gunpowder,
charcoal. And such a circumstance has been pictured by one writer as
occurring when camp fires, lit upon soil impregnated with nitre (like
that in parts of India), were rekindled; the charred wood converted
into charcoal forming with the nitre a slightly explosive mixture.
Other investigators maintain that gunpowder, which claims a spurious
antiquity, is really an invention of the Middle Ages. Incendiary
compositions--Greek fire, and other substances based on the properties
of quicklime, naphtha, phosphorus, etc.--were undoubtedly known to
the ancient world. But explosive compositions, based on saltpetre
as the principal ingredient, were certainly not known in all their
fearful power. The silence of history on the subject of the projection
of missiles by explosive material, says a recent authority,[38] is
eloquent; the absence of its terminology from such languages as Chinese
and Arabic, conclusive.
Whichever of the two views may be correct it is certain that a
knowledge of gunpowder was possessed by the great alchemist, Roger
Bacon, who in A.D. 1249 committed to paper an account of its
properties.[39] To Berthold the Black Friar is given the credit for
its application to military ends; whom legend, in an impish mood, has
hoisted with his own discovery.
In a learned work on the early days of artillery an English writer has
described the difficulties encountered in tracing the first stages
of the evolution of guns and gunpowder. Confusion was caused by the
fact that, after gunpowder had been introduced, military engines were
still known by the same generic names as those borne in pre-gunpowder
days. No contemporary pictures of guns could be discovered. The loose
statements of historians, the license of poets, and the anachronisms
of the illuminators of the medieval MSS., all tended to lead the
investigator astray and to make his task more difficult. The statements
of the historians are indeed whole hemispheres and centuries apart;
as for poets, our own Milton assigned the invention of artillery to
the devil himself; and “from the illuminators we should gain such
information as, that Gideon used field pieces on wheeled carriages
with shafts, when he fought against the Midianites, as in a MS. in the
British Museum.”[40]
Of all the clues which throw light on the origin of artillery the most
important yet discovered lies in some MSS. belonging to the city of
Ghent. After a list of municipal officers for the year 1313 occurs the
entry: “Item, in this year the use of bussen was first discovered in
Germany by a monk.” And there is evidence that in the following year
“guns” were manufactured in Ghent and exported to England.[41] The same
century was to witness a wonderful development of the new-found power.
It was but natural that the first application of gunpowder to warlike
purposes should have been, not only to strike terror by violent
explosion and thus obtain an important moral effect, but to project
the missiles already in military use: arrows and ponderous stones. Two
distinct types of artillery were thus foreshadowed. The first took the
form of a dart-throwing pot or vase, a narrow-necked vessel from which,
in imitation of the cross-bow, stout metal-winged arrows were fired;
while, for projecting stones of great size and weight in imitation of
the ancient siege-machines, large clumsy pieces made of several strips
of iron fitted together lengthways and then hooped with iron rings were
eventually developed.
In the first half of the fourteenth century the guns manufactured were
of the former type. In _The Origin of Artillery_ a reproduction is
given of an illuminated MS. belonging to Christ Church, Oxford, dated
1326, showing an arrow-throwing vase: the earliest picture of a gun
which is known. And, from a French document quoted by Brackenbury, it
appears that in 1338 there was in the marine arsenal at Rouen an iron
fire-arm--_pot de fer_--which was provided with bolts (“carreaux,” or
quarrels) made of iron and feathered.
But the unsuitability of the arrow for use in conjunction with
gunpowder as a propellant was, even at this date, realized. There was
obvious difficulty in preventing the powder gases from escaping through
the windage space between the arrow-shafts and the neck of the vase,
even with the aid of leather collars. So the arrow almost immediately
evolved into a stone or metal sphere; the narrow neck of the vase
increased to the full diameter of the vessel. And as early as 1326,
the date of the picture of the arrow-throwing vase, cannon of brass,
with iron balls, were being made at Florence for the defence of the
commune. The use of the new weapons quickly spread. By 1344 the cannon
is mentioned by Petrach as “an infernal instrument of wood, which
some think invented by Archimedes,” yet “only lately so rare as to be
looked on as a great miracle; now, ... it has become as common as any
other kind of weapon.” By 1412, according to unquestionable testimony
supplied by public documents, cannon were employed in English ships:
breech-loading guns with removable chambers.[42]
In 1346 Edward III fought Cressy. Whether or no cannon were used in
this decisive battle has been a matter of considerable controversy.
According to Villani, an old Florentine chronicler who gave an account
of the campaign, they were; but no mention of them was made by
Froissart, who wrote some years later. The silence of Froissart has
been attributed, however, to a desire to avoid offending our court by
implying that the victory was due to other than the prowess of the
Prince of Wales; or tainting our success with any mention of “devilish
machines which were universally regarded as destructive to valour
and honour and the whole institution of chivalry.” Though English
chronicles contain no mention of gunpowder till some years after
Cressy, yet evidence exists that artillery--“gunnis cum sagittis et
pellotis”--was extensively used in this campaign. “But the powder was
of so feeble a nature and the cannon so small, that the effect of a few
of them, fired only a few times, could not have been very noticeable
compared with the flights of arrows.”[43]
Cannon in the first half of the fourteenth century were indeed feeble
weapons compared with the huge mechanical engines of the period;
yet their moral effect was very great and their physical effect by
no means negligible. They were destructive of chivalry, in a quite
literal sense. The value of cavalry as an arm was greatly reduced by
their adoption in the field. They took from the horseman cased in
complete armour all the advantage he possessed over other troops.
Instead of forming the nucleus of the fighting strength of an army,
the armour-clad nobles and their mounted retinues became somewhat of
an encumbrance, and a change in the composition and strength of armies
from this time ensued. Tournaments went out of fashion, chivalry
declined.
Against material, cannon proved even more effective. As the
arrow-throwing gun gradually disappeared, giving place to small
cylindrical cannon firing lead and iron balls, other ordnance, designed
for projecting large stones against the gates and walls of forts and
castles, grew rapidly to an enormous size. Made usually of forged
iron bars welded and strengthened circumferentially by coils of iron
ribbon or rope, and using a weak gunpowder, these giant “bombards”
began to play an important part in land warfare, especially in those
internecine wars which were constantly being waged in Flanders and
in Northern Italy. Two peoples were conspicuous at this period for
their wealth, culture, and energy: the Lombards and the Flemings. The
former, by their contact with the East, had drawn into their hands
most of the commerce of Europe; the latter, welded together in the
Hanseatic League, were in the van of northern civilization. It was in
Italy, probably, that cannon were first employed, and in Italy where
they developed most rapidly. Their use had an immediate effect on land
warfare; the defensive value of masonry was suddenly depreciated, and
town-gate, fort, and campanile, which had for centuries defied the old
mechanical engines, could no longer be considered impregnable.[44]
In the following century the development of the bombard continued. The
Lombards cast them in bronze, adorned them with elaborate mouldings
and furnished their ends with swellings like capstan-heads, of equal
diameter, to facilitate rolling and parbuckling. In the hands of the
Flemish artisans this type reached a remarkable degree of perfection in
a famous bombard called “Dulle Griete,” which was made at Ghent about
A.D. 1430. The bombard of Ghent consists of two parts, a larger part to
form the barrel for the stone sphere of 25 inches diameter, a smaller
part, of much thicker metal, to form the chamber in which the powder
charge is placed. These two parts are screwed together, screw threads
being formed on a boss on the front end of the chamber and in a hole in
the rear end of the barrel. This is thought to be the piece described
by Froissart as “une bombarde merveilleusement grande, laquelle avoit
cinquante trois pouces de bec, et jetoit carreaux merveilleusement
grands et gros et pesants; et quand cette bombarde descliquoit, on
l’ouoit par jour bien de cinq lieues loin, et par nuit de dix; et
menoit si grand’ noise au descliquer, que il sembloit que tous les
diables d’enfer fussent au chemin.”
A fine example of the built-up bombard is “Mons Meg,” the piece which
now lies at Edinburgh Castle, and which was made at Mons about A.D.
1460: formed of longitudinal wrought-iron bars welded and hooped
circumferentially, of 20 inches in the bore, and designed to fire a
stone ball of over three hundred pounds’ weight.
It was in the hands of the Turks, then at the zenith of their power,
that medieval ordnance achieved its greatest development, and it is
thought probable that Flemish pieces served as the model on which the
Ottoman artillery was based. The siege of Constantinople, in the year
1453, was notable for “the reunion which it presented of ancient and
modern artillery--catapults, cannon, bullets, battering rams, gunpowder
and Greek fire.” And it was especially notable from the power of the
modern artillery there assembled, an artillery which represented
a climax of size and military value. Gibbon has given us a vivid
description of the Ottoman ordnance and its capabilities. “Mahomet
studied with peculiar care the recent and tremendous discovery of the
Latins; and his artillery surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the
world. A founder of cannon, a Hungarian, a deserter from the Greek
service, was liberally entertained by the Sultan. On his assurance a
foundry was established at Adrianople; the metal was prepared; and at
the end of three months Urban produced a piece of brass ordnance of
stupendous and almost incredible magnitude; a measure of twelve palms
is assigned to the bore; and the stone bullet weighs above six hundred
pounds. A trial was held, a proclamation having warned the populace.
The explosion was enormous and was heard one hundred furlongs off, and
the ball, by the force of the gunpowder, was hurled above a mile.”
“A stranger as I am to the art of destruction,” continues the
historian--who, we may note in passing, had been through his courses
at Hilsea and was a major in the Hants Militia--“I can discern that
the modern improvements of artillery prefer the number of pieces to
the weight of metal; the quickness of fire to the sound, or even
the consequence, of a single explosion. Yet I dare not reject the
positive and unanimous evidence of contemporary writers; nor can it
seem improbable that the first artists, in their rude and ambitious
efforts, should have transgressed the standard of moderation.... The
great cannon, flanked by two fellows of almost equal size, was set up.
Fourteen batteries thundered at once against the walls, one of which
contained 130 guns! Under a master who counted the minutes, firing
could take place seven times in a day.”
Interesting corroboration of Gibbon’s account has since been
discovered in a MS. by a contemporary Greek writer, found at
Constantinople in the year 1870.[45] According to this chronicler the
cannon are actually cast on the field of action. Mahomet summons the
gunmakers and discourses with them on the kind of ordnance required
to beat down the walls of the city. They reply that larger cannon are
necessary than any they possess; and they suggest melting down the
pieces available to form others of sufficient size and power. The
Sultan commands the thing to be done. Quantities of plastic clay are
kneaded, linen and hemp and threads being mixed with it to stiffen it
for forming gigantic moulds. Furnaces are erected, and charged with
copper and tin. Bellows are worked for three days and three nights, and
then, the metal being ready, the molten mass is poured. Within sight
of the beleaguered city huge cannon are cast which, placed on wooden
sleepers on the ground with their butts supported to prevent recoil
discharge stones weighing nearly 700 pounds against the walls.
But there is no need of documentary evidence to attest the power of
the Ottoman artillery of this period; cannon built on the above model
have guarded the Dardanelles for centuries, and, what is more, have
proved sufficiently effective in modern engagements. In 1807 Sir John
Duckworth’s squadron was struck repeatedly by stones of enormous
weight, discharged from these cannon in an attempt to prevent its
passage. And it is known that some of them were made shortly after
the taking of Constantinople. These cannon, says General Lefroy, were
cast on their faces, “the dead-head being left at the breech-end and
hewn off with axes, probably while the metal was hot.” In one of them
brought home to England “the axe marks are plain; similar marks may be
observed on other early guns which have the breech cut off square.” The
similarity of design between this Turkish gun and the Flemish bombards
is too close to be accidental; their construction is of peculiar
interest and has the main features in common. “The external form of the
gun is a cylinder, the muzzle being as large as the breech; but either
half is relieved by a boldly projecting moulding at each end, which
is divided transversely by sixteen cross-bars into as many recesses:
thus serving to give a purchase to the levers used in screwing the two
parts together.” How the screw threads were cut is not known, but “we
can suppose that moulding pieces were first cut in wood and nicely
fitted and then applied to the clay moulds.” The charge of powder used
with this type of piece was as much as a hundredweight. In spite of the
weakness of the squib-like powder its physical and moral effect was
undoubtedly important. “Thus inconceivable and incredible,” writes the
chronicler of 1467, “is the nature of this machine. The ancient princes
and generals did not possess and had no knowledge of such a thing....
It is a new invention of the Germans or of the Kelts made about one
hundred and fifty years ago, or a little more. It is an ingenious and
happy discovery, especially the powder, which is a composition made
of saltpetre, of sulphur, of charcoals, and of herbs, from the which
composition is generated a dry hot gas....”
[Illustration: TURKISH BRONZE CANNON
From Lloyd and Hadcock’s _Artillery_]
The founding of these enormous cannon on the field of action is in
itself a tribute to the energy and resourcefulness of the nation who
have been described as being, at that time, the finest engineers in the
world. Of the effectiveness of the Ottoman artillery there is evidence
in the results achieved. Constantinople fell to the giant bombards. And
in the early part of the following century Rhodes, the last outpost
of the Knights, fell to the same great power. The invention of the
Christians[46] was, in fact, the weapon which gave supremacy to the
Infidel in the eastern part of Europe.
In the meantime the evolution of artillery was taking a new direction.
The large and relatively feeble ordnance of the Turks was, in the
circumstances, not entirely unsuitable for the purpose for which it
was intended: the smashing of masonry and the breaching of gates and
walls. The maximum of effect was obtained from a missile of enormous
mass projected with a low velocity. Nevertheless its disadvantages were
obvious. Large cannon cast in bronze were necessarily of great expense
and weight, their discharges were few and far between, they wore
rapidly and were thus short-lived, and they possessed the dangerous
property of becoming brittle when heated. An increase in power and a
reduction in weight were required for the achievement of a portable
artillery, and the progress of mechanical science pointed to wrought
iron as the material of which such an artillery might be made.
The extraction of iron in small quantities from ferruginous ore was
a comparatively simple operation, even in primitive times. With the
aid of bellows and a plentiful supply of wood charcoal the smith was
able to make his furnace yield small masses of metallic iron of the
purest quality. This iron, wrought on an anvil, could be drawn out
into plate or bar as desired, the resulting metal being, by reason of
the purity of the charcoal used in its extraction, of great toughness,
homogeneity, and strength. In Spain and Italy were mines which had
long been famed for their iron. In England the Roman had made good use
of the metal found in the Sussex mines, and all through the middle
ages the wealds of Kent and Sussex were the centres of the English
iron trade. In the fourteenth century improved methods came into use;
the adoption of water-power for driving the bellows, for crushing the
charcoal, and for operating the tilt-hammers, had its effect on the
development of the iron-smelting industry; higher temperatures obtained
and larger masses of ore could now be treated; the iron, produced in
larger quantities by improved methods, was perhaps purer and stronger
than before.
In wrought iron, then, a material was available which almost alone
was suitable for the manufacture of the more portable sorts of gun.
By its use guns could be made strong enough, without being of an
excessive weight, to withstand the increasing stresses thrown on them,
first, by the use of iron bullets instead of stone, and secondly, by
the discovery of an improved gunpowder. Artillery underwent a dual
development. On the one hand, for use with the weak cannon powder,
was the large stone-throwing ordnance, made of cast bronze or of
hooped bars of iron; on the other, for use with iron shot and a
stronger propellant, were various denominations of small portable and
semi-portable wrought-iron guns. These two distinct types developed
side by side until the middle of the sixteenth century.
The use of iron and lead balls, the superiority of which over balls of
stone had doubtless been manifested in former centuries in connection
with the projection of Greek fire, was practised by the Florentines
soon after the invention of guns themselves. The discovery of “corned”
gunpowder took place a century later.
In its original form gunpowder possessed many disadvantages as a
propellant. Ground into a fine powder, and composed in the first
instance of almost equal proportions of saltpetre, sulphur, and
charcoal, it was peculiarly liable to accidental explosion, so that
frequently the charcoal was kept separate from the other ingredients
and mixed just prior to use. If kept mixed it easily disintegrated,
in the shaking of transport, into three strata, the charcoal coming
to the top and the sulphur sinking to the bottom. It was intensely
hygroscopic, and quickly fouled the barrels of the pieces in which it
was used. But, most important of all, the efficiency of its combustion
depended to an inconvenient degree upon the density with which, after
being ladled into the gun, it was rammed home. The greatest care had
to be exercised in ramming. If pressed into too dense a mass the
powder largely lost its explosive character; the flame which ignited
the portion nearest the vent could not spread through the mass with
sufficient speed; it quietly petered out. If rammed too loosely, on the
other hand, the explosive effect was also lost. A great gain ensued
therefore when, in place of the fine or “serpentine” powder, corned
powder came to be used, about the middle of the fifteenth century. In
this form the powder was damped and worked into grains, crushed to the
requisite size and sieved for uniformity. These grains were finally
glazed to prevent deterioration from the effects of damp; and the
resulting powder proved stronger and more efficient in every way than
the same mixture in its more primitive form.
Some time was to elapse before guns could be cast of sufficient
strength to withstand the force of corned powder. “Chemistry had outrun
metallurgy.” The larger species of ordnance were restricted to the
use of serpentine powder until the middle of the sixteenth century.
Nevertheless, cast ordnance as well as the lighter forged iron guns
were developed continuously for service in the field. Named after
birds and reptiles and clumsily cast of such shapes and weights as
pleased the founders’ fancy, they were of use chiefly in demolishing
by attrition the gates and walls of forts and cities. From the battle
of Cressy onward, first in huge carts and then on their own wheeled
carriages, they rumble across the pages of European history.
§
At sea the evolution of ordnance had to conform, of course, to the
progress of naval architecture and the changing nature of the warfare.
In the Mediterranean, where the oar-propelled galley remained for
centuries the typical fighting ship, the bombard was planted in the
bows, shackled to a deck-carriage upon the centre line, to give ahead
fire and to supplement the effects of a powerful ram. As the galley
developed, the main central gun became flanked by other bow-chasers;
while on the beams and poop light wrought-iron breech-loading swivel
guns formed a secondary armament whose double function was to repel
boarders and to overawe its own slave-crew. In the Atlantic, where
the typical fighting vessel was the lofty sailing ship, the same
two different types of armament had vogue. But in this case their
distribution was different; the sailing ship, with no recourse to oars
for manœuvring, could not always ensure an end-on attack or defence,
and had to arm herself against an enemy from any quarter. Her freedom
from oars, her height, and the invention of the porthole, enabled
the early “great ship” to mount a sufficiently distributed all-round
armament. While her sides were pierced for ponderous bombards, her
poop and forecastle bristled with the same light secondary armament
as figured in the Mediterranean galley. This artillery was almost
entirely for defence. Before Elizabethan days (as we have already
noted) sea battles were nothing more than hand-to-hand fights; the
attacking vessel was laid alongside its enemy, sails were furled, and
boarding took place. If, after being swept by spherical shot from
the bombards and showers of stones and dice from the mortars and
periers, the boarders could carry the waist of the defending ship,
they still had to capture the barricaded forecastle and poop, from
whose rails a multitude of the smaller ordnance--port-pieces, fowlers,
serpentines--were trained upon them and behind whose bulkheads crossbow
and harquebuss were plied against them in concealment.
The sixteenth century witnessed the greatest strides in the evolution
of sea ordnance. In the Mediterranean the decisive effect of gunfire,
proved in the sea fight off Prevesa in the year 1538, was confirmed
by the victory of the Christians over the Turks at Lepanto in 1571.
In the Atlantic England began her long preparation for securing a sea
supremacy and, under the masterful eye of King Henry VIII, adapted
more and more powerful guns for service in the royal ships. Of the
professional interest which the King took in the development of
ordnance there is ample evidence. At the royal word French and Flemish
gunfounders were induced to come to England to teach the technique of
their craft, and to this puissant prince the Italian savant, Tartaglia,
dedicated his classic treatise on the Art of Shooting. England now
learnt to found, not only bronze, but _cast-iron_ cannon. “Although,”
says Grose, “artillery was used from the time of King Edward III and
purchased from abroad by all our successive Kings, it seems extremely
strange, that none of our workmen attempted to cast them, till the
reign of King Henry VIII, when in 1521, according to Stowe, or 1535
(Camden says), great brass ordnance, as canons and culverins, were
first cast in England by one John Owen, they formerly having been
made in other countries.” And from Stowe’s Chronicle he quotes the
following: “The King minding wars with France, made great preparations
and provision, as well of munitions and artillery as also of brass
ordnance; amongst which at that time one Peter Bawd, a Frenchman born,
a gun-founder or maker of great ordnance, and one other alien, called
Peter Van Collen, a gunsmith, both the King’s feedmen, conferred
together, devised and caused to be made, certain mortar pieces, being
at the mouth from 11 inches, unto 19 inches wide; for the use whereof,
the said Peter and Peter caused to be made certain hollow shot of
cast yron, stuffed with fire-works, or wild-fire; whereof the bigger
sort for the same had screws of yron to receive a match to carry fire
kindled, that the fire-work might be set on fire to break in small
pieces the same hollow shot, whereof the smallest piece hitting any
man, would kill or spoil him. And after the King’s return from Bullen,
the said Peter Bawd by himself in the first year of Edward VI did also
make certain ordnance of cast yron of diverse sorts and forms, as
fawconets, falcons, minions, sakers and other pieces.”[47] The casting
of iron guns in Germany has been traced back as far as the fourteenth
century.
According to another account the first English cast-iron guns were
made at Buxted, in Sussex, by one Ralph Hogge in 1543. Peter Bawd,
the French founder, was an assistant who had come to this country to
teach him the method. But it seems that his connection with Hogge was
not of long duration; for, “John Johnson, covenant servant to the said
P. Bawd, succeeded and exceeded his master in this his art of casting
ordnance, making them cleaner and to better proportion. And his son,
Thomas Johnson, a special workman, in and before the year 1595 made
42 cast pieces of great ordnance of iron, for the Earl of Cumberland,
weighing 6000 pounds, or three tons a-piece.”[48]
The advance made in the power of King Henry’s sea ordnance is
unmistakably shown from trustworthy documents. There is a continuous
progress during the reign, and ships which were rebuilt subsequently
carried an armament entirely different from that which they
originally had. The _Sovereign_, for instance, built about the
year 1488, originally carried one hundred and eighty guns, mostly
small serpentines. As rebuilt in A.D. 1509 she carried an armament
which included four curtalls, three demi-curtalls, three culverins,
two falcons, and eleven heavy iron guns. From an inventory of the
armament of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_, of 1514, it appears[49] that
that historic ship was then armed with a miscellaneous collection of
pieces, comprising 122 iron serpentines, 12 “grete yron gonnes of oone
makyng and bygnes,” 12 ditto “that come owt of fflaunders,” all with
separate chambers; 2 “grete Spanish peces of yron of oone sorte,”
with chambers; 18 “stone gonnes apon Trotill wheles,” with chambers;
“ffawcons of Brasse apon Trotill wheles”; one “grete bumberde of Brasse
apon iiij trotill wheles”; two “grete culverynes of Brasse apon unshodd
wheles”; as well as a “grete curtalle of Brasse upon iiij wheles,” a
sling, vice pieces, and serpentines of brass on wheels shod with iron.
Rebuilt at a later date the _Henry_ carried a different armament,
which included brass cannons, demi-cannons, culverins, demi-culverins,
sakers, and cannon-periers.
The transition of armament is plainly marked for us in the case of
the _Mary Rose_, rebuilt in 1536, which nine years later came to an
untimely end off Brading. At the time of her oversetting she carried,
in fact, both types of ordnance. In the Rotunda at Woolwich are to be
seen some of the guns recovered from her wreck: a built-up wrought-iron
breech-loading stone-throwing gun on its baulk-of-timber carriage,
identical in character with a serpentine illustrated in Napoleon III’s
_Études sur l’Artillerie_ as having been taken by the Swiss from
Charles the Bold in A.D. 1476; and a bronze cannon royal (with John
Owen’s name on it), demi-cannon, culverin, and culverin-bastard, all
of them finished specimens of the founder’s art, and of an offensive,
instead of a merely defensive, value. “The system,” says Mr. Oppenheim
of this growth of artillery armament, “was extended as the reign
progressed, and in 1546 we find comparatively small ships like the
_Grand Mistress_ carrying two demi-cannon and five culverins, the
_Swallow_ one demi-cannon and two demi-culverins, out of a total of
eight heavy guns; the _Anne Galant_ four culverins, one curtall, and
two demi-culverins,” etc. etc.
What were the dimensions of the various pieces? It is difficult to
give an exact answer. Owing to the continuous development of ordnance
throughout the century the pieces increased in size while they retained
their class-names, and there is a wide variation between the table of
ordnance of Tartaglia, for instance, compiled in 1537, and those drawn
up by English authors at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Briefly, we may note that pieces could be grouped in four classes:
viz. cannons, culverins, periers, and mortars. The cannons were large
in calibre and of medium length; the culverins were of great length,
to give them high ranging power; the periers, or stone-throwers,
were a sort of howitzer; and the mortars, named probably from the
apothecary’s utensil to which they bore a resemblance, were squat
pieces used for projecting stones or iron balls at a high elevation.
The old stone-throwing serpentine was a gun weighing about 260 pounds,
which fired a stone “as big as a swan’s egg.” The curtall, or curtlow
was (according to Mr. Oppenheim) a heavy gun of some 3000 pounds,
hitherto only used as a siege-piece on land; “courtaulx” are mentioned
by Napoleon III as having been, in A.D. 1498, fifty-pounders weighing
5500 livres. The slings were large breech-loaders, probably of the
perier class.
With the adoption of a more powerful armament not only did the old
pieces disappear, but a simplification of calibres ensued. France led
the way in the standardizing of calibres; about the year 1550 the
French king Henri II introduced his six “calibres of France.” In the
English navy at this period several types were discarded, and a limit
was set to the size of the largest ship gun. “The report drawn up
in 1559 tells us that there were 264 brass and 48 iron guns, all of
calibres down to falconets, on board the ships, and 48 brass and 8 iron
in store.... The heaviest piece used on shipboard was the culverin of
4500 lbs.; throwing a 17⅓ lb. ball with an extreme range of 2500 paces;
the next the demi-cannon weighing 4000 lbs. with a 30⅓ lb. ball and
range of 1700 paces; then the demi-culverin of 3400 lbs., a 9⅓ lb. ball
and 2500 paces; and the cannon petroe, or perier, of 3000 lbs., 24¼-lb.
ball and 1600 paces. There were also sakers, minions, and falconets,
but culverins and demi-culverins were the most useful and became the
favourite ship guns. A contemporary wrote, ‘the founders never cast
them so exactly but that they differ two or three cwt. in a piece,’ and
in a paper of 1564 the average weights of culverins, demi-culverins,
and cannon periers are respectively 3300 lbs., 2500 lbs., and 2000
lbs.”[50]
So far, cast iron had not come into general use. The large iron guns
were built up like the early Flemish bombards; the demi-cannons and
culverins were all of brass. At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign
there seems to have been an attempt to replace the expensive brass by
the cheaper cast iron, but later there was a reversion to brass, and
it was not until the following century that cast iron was generally
recognized as a material for heavy ordnance, and then only for the
heaviest types. Some technical considerations may help to indicate the
chief factors which determined the material and the dimensions of the
Elizabethan ordnance.
Writing in 1628, Robert Norton, in his book _The Gunner_, refers as
follows to the early Tudor ordnance. “Gun-founders about 100 or 150
years past,” he says, “did use to cast ordnance more poor, weak, and
much slenderer fortified than now, both here and in foreign parts:
also the rather because saltpetre being either ill or not refined,
their sulphur unclarified, their coals not of good wood, or else ill
burnt, making therewith also their powder evilly receipted, slenderly
wrought, and altogether uncorned, made it prove to be but weak (in
respect of the corned powder used now-a-days), wherefore they also
made their ordnance then accordingly (that is much weaker than now).
For the powder now being double or treble more than it was in force of
rarification and quickness, requireth likewise to encrease the metal
twice or thrice more than before for each piece.” And, in fact, the
weight of cannon increased in the period mentioned from eighty to two
hundred times, the weight of culverins from a hundred to three hundred
times, the weight of their shot. The slender large-bore built-up guns
of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ could only be used with a weak slow-burning
powder. At the same time this slow-burning powder required, for its
complete combustion, a great length of gun. These guns, such of them as
were breech-loaders, must have suffered from the leakage of gas at the
joints of their primitive chambers; in the case of the smaller pieces a
serious inefficiency was the excessive windage allowed between shot and
gun. Until the end of the sixteenth century the windage bore no direct
relation to the diameter of the shot or bore of the gun: it was a fixed
amount, one quarter of an inch. The effect, therefore, of the leakage
of powder gases past the shot, the loss in efficiency of discharge, was
greatest in the smallest guns.
The lines along which improvement lay were those which were taken.
First, an elimination of the smallest guns. Second, a return to muzzle
loading. Third, a strengthening of the powder by corning. Fourth, a
further fortifying and a general augmenting of the weight of the cast
pieces, which had the double effect of giving the necessary strength
to meet the stronger powders coming into use,[51] and of giving the
extra mass required to minimize the violence of their recoil. Cast
iron could not yet compete with well-found brass for the guns required.
Demi-cannon proved too unwieldy, and as Elizabeth’s reign progressed,
gave place more and more to the long-ranging culverins, demi-culverins,
and sakers, “which strained a ship less, were served more quickly
and by fewer men, and permitted a heavier broadside in the same deck
space.”[52] As powder grew stronger the conditions improved; smaller
charges were necessary, windage had less effect, and, owing to the
quicker combustion, it was possible to shorten the pieces without
detracting seriously from their ranging power; and this was done in
the Queen’s Navy, the guns being thereby made lighter and more easily
manipulated, while at the same time their projecting muzzles were less
liable to entangle and interfere with the tackles of the sails.[53]
The substitution of the powerful, safe, and easily manipulated
demi-cannon and the long-ranging culverin and demi-culverin in place
of the old chambered ordnance of the first half of the century made
possible a new form of naval warfare. The cannon at last became,
in the hands of the Elizabethan seaman, the chief instrument of
battle. Off-fighting was now feasible: a mode of action which largely
neutralized the effects of an enemy’s superiority in size of ship or
number of men, and which gave full scope and advantage to superior
seamanship. Though no high standard of gunnery efficiency was then
possible, yet it was the great superiority of the English gunfire,
principally from the demi-culverins, the sakers, and the minions,
over that of Spain, which conduced more than any other factor to the
dispersal and subsequent flight of the Invincible Armada. The gun was
the weapon on which the English seaman had learnt to rely. It was the
gun, plied with rapidity just out of pistol-shot of his lofty ships,
which in the year 1588 harassed and put to confusion the Spaniard, the
haughty fighter who still maintained a quixotic contempt for the use of
cannon and esteemed artillery “an ignoble arm.”[54] What a volume of
fire was poured against him may be seen from a letter written by the
admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham: “All the world,” he writes, “never
saw such a force as theirs was; and some Spaniards that we have taken,
that were in the fight at Lepanto, do say that the worst of our four
fights that we have had with them did exceed far the fight they had
there; and they say that at some of our fights we had twenty times as
much great shot plied as they had there.”
By this time the founding of guns in cast iron had made progress. Cast
iron was cheap, and of a greater hardness and endurance than bronze,
but more like to crack and fly and endanger the crew, and requiring an
enormous expenditure of wood-charcoal for its production. The use of
mineral coal for iron smelting was not discovered until the following
century, and even then, because of the opposition of the vested
interests, it was long before it displaced the use of timber. In the
Tudor times the iron and brass foundries were nearly all in the wooded
south of England. The rivers of Sussex and Kent had for centuries
been dammed to form hammer-ponds, and the sound of the tilt-hammers
was heard throughout these counties. To such an extent were the
forests depleted of wood to form fuel for the Wealden foundries, that
serious inroads were made on the available supplies of shipbuilding
timber; legislation was required in Elizabeth’s reign to prevent the
charcoal-burner from robbing the shipwright of his raw material.
Gun-founding, even in bronze, was still a somewhat primitive art.
But, once taught, the English founders soon excelled their teachers;
and Norton’s eulogy, and the records of foreign efforts to obtain
possession of English pieces, bear witness to the superiority of our
workmen. The products of the most famous founders of that time in
Europe were very imperfect. “Some of their pieces (and not a few)
are bored awry, their soul not lying in the midst of the body of
metal; some are crooked in their chase, others of unequal bores, some
too light towards the breech turn their mouths downwards in their
discharge, and so endanger their own vawmures and defences; others
are too heavy also in their breach, by placing the trunnions too much
afterwards, that coynes can hardly be drawn.... Some are come forth
of the furnace spongey, or full of honeycombs and flaws, by reason
that the metal runneth not fine, or that the moulds are not thoroughly
dryed, or well nealed.... Yet thus much I dare say to the due
commendations of our English gunfounders, that the ordnance which they
of late years have cast, as well for neatness, as also for reasonable
bestowing and disposing of the metal, they have far excelled all the
former and foreign aforementioned founders.” Norton, a land gunner, was
here referring to brass ordnance, alone used on shore.
Perhaps the most interesting witness to the success of the English
gunfounders is Sir Walter Raleigh, who in his _Discourses_ rebuked the
detestable covetousness of those licensed to sell ordnance abroad. So
great was the number of pieces exported, that all other nations were
equipped with good English artillery for ships and forts and coast
defence. “Without which,” he remarks, “the Spanish King durst not have
dismounted so many pieces of brass in Naples and elsewhere, therewith
to arm his great fleet in ’88. But it was directly proved in the lower
house of parliament of Queen Elizabeth, that there were landed in
Naples above 140 culverins English.... It is lamentable that so many
have been transported into Spain.”
In 1589 Lord Buckhurst wrote to the justices of Lewes Rape, complaining
of their neglect in permitting the surreptitious export of ordnance.
“Their lordships do see the little regard the owners of furnaces and
the makers of these pieces have of their bonds, and how it importeth
the state that the enemy of her Majesty should not be furnished out of
the land with ordnance to annoy us.”
It is not improbable, in short, that some of the Armada’s cannon had
been moulded and poured on English soil.
The imperfection of the sixteenth-century foundry products may
be gauged from Bourne’s evidence that the use of cartridges was
inconvenient because, on account of honeycombs and flaws, “you shall
scant get the cartridge home unto the bottom of the piece.” On the
other hand loading by ladle was still considered dangerous. In his
_Art of Gunnery_, of 1627, Thos. Smith, soldier, of Berwick-on-Tweed,
warns the gunner always to stand to one side of the mouth of the piece
when thrusting home the ladle; otherwise, the charge being ignited by
smouldering débris in the cavities of the metal, it takes fire and
kills the loader--“as happened in Anno 1573 at the siege of Edinborough
Castle, to two experienced gunners.”[55] At about the same date
as Smith’s book was written, Sir H. Manwayring, in _The Sea-Man’s
Dictionary_, described the “arming” of cross-bar shot: i.e. the binding
them with oakum, yarn, or cloth, to prevent their ends from catching
hold in any flaws during their passage through the gun, which might
break it.
§
Under the Stuart kings a continuous development of ship armament took
place.
This development was not always in the right direction. The Commission
of Reform of the year 1618 recorded, as we have already seen, the
importance of artillery in naval warfare, but owing to the absence
of all system it was long before the principle found effective
application. Owing to divided authority, or to a lack of unity in the
conception of the fighting ship, a tendency to excess in the number and
weight of guns continued to be noticeable, an excess which was to react
unfavourably on the performances of our ships both in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries.
Progress was made in the classification of pieces and in the reduction
of the number of different types carried; a change was also made in
the forms of the guns, in order to enhance the fighting value of the
gun armament in certain circumstances. The great guns were made still
shorter than before; the quicker-burning powders now in use allowed
this to be done. By which expedient the ratio between gun-weight
and weight-of-metal-thrown was reduced; more guns could be carried
for a given weight of metal; they could be more easily manipulated;
and if they were of small ranging power they yet possessed a power
of penetration sufficient for close-quarter fighting. Moreover, the
reduction in length enabled an increase in calibre to be made; and this
was one of the factors which led to the reintroduction of larger types
than had formerly been considered suitable: the cannon-serpentine, the
cannon, and even the cannon-royal, with its sixty-six pound shot and
its eight thousand pounds of metal.[56]
In the Dutch Wars the preponderance in the size and weight of the
unit shot lay with the English ships, and was in itself undoubtedly
a great advantage in their favour; though complaints were made of
the great weight and clumsiness of the pieces, “which caused much of
the straining and rolling at sea.” Writing of naval ordnance in the
year 1690, Sir Cloudesley Shovell recorded that, “our lower-deck guns
are too big and the tackles ill fitted with blocks, which makes them
work heavy; the Dutch who have light guns have lignum vitæ sheaves.
The Dutch guns are seldom larger than twenty-four pounders.” By this
time, it will be noted, the more scientific nomenclature had come into
vogue; the cannon-petro was now known as the 24-pounder, and the heavy
lower-deck guns referred to were the old bastard-cannons, known since
the reorganization of the Commonwealth navy as 42-pounders.
The founding of guns continued to be, throughout the seventeenth
century, an affair of private enterprise. Proof was carried out under
the supervision of the Board of Ordnance.
In 1619 a decree was issued that gun-founding was to be confined
to Kent and Sussex, that guns were to be landed at or shipped from
the Tower Wharf only, and that East Smithfield was to be the one
market-place for their sale or purchase. Guns could be proved only
in Ratcliff fields, and all pieces were to have on them at least two
letters of the founder’s name, with the year and the weight of the gun.
Exportation was illegal; nevertheless the illicit traffic went on just
as in Elizabeth’s time. The royal forts themselves were turned into
marts for these and other unlawful transactions, and Upnor Castle is
described as having been “a staple of stolen goods, a den of thieves, a
vent for the transport of ordnance.”[57]
In later years proof took place at other government grounds, all
within the London area. In Moorfields, according to Stowe, was the
Artillery Yard, “whereunto the gunners of the Tower do weekly repair;
and there, levelling certain brass pieces of great artillery against
a butt of earth made for that purpose, they discharge them for their
exercise.”[58] Spitalfields also had its artillery butts. “Where
Liverpool-street Station now stands the Tower gunners of Elizabeth’s
day had their yard, and there discharged great pieces of artillery for
exercise, while throughout the seventeenth century guns were both cast
and tested in the vicinity, as Gun-street, Fort-street, and Artillery
Lane hard by serve to remind us. Finsbury Field, levelled for an
archery ground in 1498, passed from the London archers to the London
gunners, and, as the Honourable Artillery Company’s Ground, survives to
carry on the long traditions of the spot.”[59]
Under the Commonwealth progress was made in the quality of gunpowder,
and improved methods were introduced of testing it for strength
and uniformity. This advance had its effect on the guns. Failures
were frequent, and, in spite of improved founding, pieces had to be
made heavier than before; cast iron in particular was found unequal
to withstanding the stresses caused by the improved powders, and
this metal came into such disfavour that a whole century elapsed
before it was again accepted as suitable by both naval and military
artillerists. Founding in bronze had undergone improvement. Malthus, an
Englishman who had risen in the French service to be Director of their
Artillery,[60] mentions in his _Pratique de la Guerre_, as evidence of
this improvement, the fact that in breaking up old pieces lumps of free
tin and copper were frequently discovered, whereas in the case of new
guns the metal was invariably found well-mixed.
Somewhere between the years 1665 and 1680--presumably later than
1667--the proof of ordnance was transferred from Moorfields to the
naval depôt at Woolwich, and the nerves of the metropolis were no
longer shaken by the roar of pieces loaded with powder charges equal,
for proof, to one-and-a-half times the weight of the shots themselves.
A proof-master and “his Majesty’s founder of brass and iron ordnance”
were instituted to supervise and advise the various contractors. The
State did not at first take over the work of casting its own guns. But
in 1716 an event occurred which brought about the formation of the
Royal Gun Factory, and the manufacture of both land and sea ordnance
by the state. A disastrous accident occurred in the City of London. It
happened that, after the peace of Utrecht in 1713, the guns captured by
Marlborough from the French had been exhibited outside the Moorfields
foundry. Three years later they were still there, and, the national
ordnance being much depleted by the late wars, it was resolved to
recast these pieces and so utilise their metal. On the appointed date a
large concourse of the public attended to witness the operation. Late
at night the metal was poured. A big explosion ensued, owing to the use
of damp moulds, and a number of people were killed and injured.
To avoid a recurrence of such an accident it was decided that the
government should possess a brass foundry of their own. The services of
an able foreigner, Andrew Schalk of Douai, were sought, and the Royal
Foundry at Woolwich was established with Schalk as master founder. The
change was a complete success, and Schalk held the position for the
next sixty years. Some of his guns, cast in the year 1742, were raised
from the “Royal George” in 1840.[61]
By the middle of the eighteenth century the processes of gunnery had
been placed for the first time on a scientific foundation; by whom, and
in what manner, we shall describe in a later chapter.
The design of guns had by this time become subject to more scientific
consideration than had hitherto been bestowed, and their manufacture
had been improved by the Swiss invention of the boring machine, which
enabled them to be cast solid instead of being cast hollow on a core.
Iron guns came more and more into favour as the century progressed,
especially for naval use. The cost of iron was only one-eighth that of
brass. The art of casting iron in homogeneous masses had by this time
made progress, and though hitherto it had been the custom to make iron
ordnance of great thickness and weight, repeated trial proved that they
could be made lighter, if required, without undue loss of strength, and
that in action they outlasted brass ordnance, which cracked, bent at
the muzzle, and wore out at the vent. A well-made iron gun was almost
indestructible. At the siege of Belleisle, in the Seven Years’ War, the
brass guns soon wore out, and had to be replaced by iron ship guns;
and it was long, indeed, before a suitable brass was discovered, which
would withstand the repeated fire of large charges without losing its
tin-element and degenerating into a spongy and craterous material.
Muller, in his _Treatise of Artillery_, of 1768, described how he had
seen cast iron at the Carron works so tough that “it would flatten
and tear like brass”; and advocated iron guns of a new and light
construction to replace Schalk’s brass guns forming the armament of the
_Royal George_, and give a saving in weight of over a hundred and sixty
tons.
[Illustration: FRENCH TWENTY-FOUR-POUNDER WITH SPHERICAL CHAMBER
From St. Remy’s _Mémoires_]
In respect of design, the newly acquired knowledge of the true
principles governing internal ballistics began gradually, in the
latter part of the century, to show its effect. Hitherto, ever since
gunpowder had been in military use, pieces had been cast in masses
of varying size and shape and ornamented to please the fancy of the
founder. Cannon had been made with double or triple reinforces of
metal, so that their exterior surface was stepped longitudinally from
muzzle to breech. Experience probably pointed out on many occasions
the bad design of a piece whose sections showed sudden alterations in
shape; but it was not till after the middle of the eighteenth century
that this consideration was discussed by a professional. “Since powder
acts uniformly and not by starts it is hard to judge from whence this
ridiculous custom has arisen.... There should be no breakings in the
metal.” The piece, continues Muller, should be of cylindrical bore, and
its outer contour should be a curve slightly concave, corresponding
presumably to the curve of the powder pressure. But as this curve would
be difficult to find, he recommends a sloping straight line from breech
to muzzle as sufficiently exact for practical purposes.
Innumerable experiments were made in the first half of this century
with a view to improving the efficiency of combustion in guns, and
much argument centred round such subjects as the shape of the chamber
and the position of the vent. In France pieces were adopted having
spherical chambers: it being proved that, with the charge concentrated
in a spherical cavity, as much power could be obtained as from a larger
and heavier flush-chambered gun. But such pieces were dangerous. Not
only was their recoil so violent as to break their carriages, but
many good gunners lost their arms while charging chambers in which
smouldering debris lay hidden. The spherical chamber was abandoned.[62]
It may be said that the design and manufacture of guns has now entered
the scientific stage. Art there still is, but it lies below the
surface. The old “vain ornaments” preserved by tradition are thrown
away: the scrolls, mouldings, and excrescences which broke the surface
of the metal; the ogees, fillets, and astragals which ran riot over the
products of some foundries; the muzzle swells which by their weight
caused the chase to droop; the grotesque cascabels. All mouldings, said
Muller, should be as plain and simple as possible; the trunnions should
be on the axis of the piece; the windage of all types of guns should be
smaller, and there should be more moderation in the charges used.
In time all these improvements came. The smooth-bore gun, strengthened
and simplified, preserved its establishment in the navy far into the
nineteenth century, as will later appear. For the present we must
confine ourselves to noting that, in the final stages of its evolution
it received improvement in form from two distinguished artillerists
whose influence was progressive in the whole realm of gunnery: Generals
Congreve[63] and Blomefield.[64] There is yet another eminent officer
of this period to whom the navy owes a debt incalculable: Who can
assess the value of the work done by General Sir Howard Douglas in his
classic treatise on Naval Gunnery?
To the foregoing survey of the evolution of heavy ordnance we now
append a few notes on the evolution of the material of purely land
artillery: from which it will be seen that, while the intensive
competition of great armies resulted in much of this latter evolution
originating among the continental powers, the share of this country in
initiating improvement was, in the latter years, by no means negligible.
§
It will be noted by the student of European history as significant,
that superiority of artillery material has almost invariably marched
with national power. Thus in the past the evolution of artillery has
been the monopoly of no one nation; it has been progressed by each in
turn; each in turn has attained superiority, and each has contributed
something of importance to it, in the day of its greatness.
Two ancient and preventable practices seem to have operated in chief
measure to retard the progressive development of a mobile land
artillery: first, the custom of setting the trunnions of a gun at
an appreciable distance below the horizontal plane of the gun-axis;
second, the custom of making small pieces relatively longer than those
of larger calibre.
[Illustration: From Binning’s _A Light to the Art of Gunnery_, A.D.
1689]
The first guns had no trunnions. To obtain the requisite angle of
elevation the piece was laid in a dug-out trunk or carriage and this
carriage was set on trestles; in which manner, it appears, the English
at the siege of Orleans in A.D. 1428 “threw into the town from their
bombards large numbers of stones which, flying over the walls, smashed
in the roofs of houses.”[65] During the fifteenth century trunnions
came into use, and the carriages were mounted on wheels. In his
_Introduction of Artillery into Switzerland_ a French writer, Colonel
Massé, has given an account of the early evolution of an artillery
of position, as used by the Swiss and their enemies in the fifteenth
century. The huge siege bombards, possessed by most of the great
cities at the end of the fourteenth century, were too cumbrous for
transport. Built up of welded and coiled iron, and therefore without
trunnions, they were replaced, toward A.D. 1443, by lighter pieces
on wheeled carriages. And before the Burgundian War “coulevrines de
campagne” were being cast in Switzerland, of bronze, with trunnions
to give each piece an elevation independently of its carriage. Relics
are still preserved which show the gun-trunnion in its early stages,
as embodied in the Burgundian artillery of Charles the Bold. The
first method of obtaining elevation for the gun was by hinges or
trunnions on the front of the carriage or trunk, in combination with
a curved rack erected on the trail for supporting the rear end. Then
the trunk disappeared; the trunnions were cast on the gun, whose
cascabel was supported by a cross-pin between the flanks of the trail;
and then the cross-pin was made removable, and a series of holes was
provided for its reception, to give the elevation desired. At first
these trunnions were cast level with the gun axis; in Napoleon III’s
treatise on artillery is a picture of a trunnion gun taken by the
Swiss from Charles the Bold in 1476, and another of a cannon of Louis
XI, cast in 1478, and in both cases the trunnions are level with the
gun axis. But pieces cast later almost invariably had their trunnions
set on a level with the bottom of the bore; partly, perhaps, for the
insignificant reason given by Norton--that “lying somewhat under the
concave cylinder of the bore they will the better support the great
weight”--but primarily to ensure a downward pressure on the quoin or
trail when discharge took place. The effect of this trivial alteration
was enormous. The impulse of the recoil was given a moment about the
trunnion axis which, as the force of powders increased, produced an
increasingly great downward pressure on the trail. Carriages, though
made of massive scantlings, frequently broke; nor was it till the
latter half of the eighteenth century that the cause was removed, the
trunnions being raised nearer the axes of the guns and the carriages
being thereby relieved of the excessive cross-strains which they had
borne for nearly three hundred years. Muller, in his Artillery, refers
to the “absurd method” of placing the trunnions so low and, in the year
1768, points out the advantages to be gained by raising them. “Writers
do not appear to have had any idea,” says Favé, “of the effect which
the position of the trunnions had on the stressing of the carriage.”
Scharnhorst the Prussian gives as an important advantage to be gained
by raising the trunnions, the larger wheels which could be employed
without adding to the height of the gun above the ground.
Progress was also checked by the great length given to the smaller
varieties of cannon. With the fine powder of the Middle Ages a great
length of barrel was necessary to ensure complete combustion, and such
primitive observations as were made all seemed to prove that, the
longer the barrel the greater the range. But with the introduction of
corned powder a reduction in length should have been possible. No such
change was made. Tradition had consecrated long guns, and official
standardization of types afterwards helped to oppose any innovation in
this respect until the eighteenth century, with few exceptions.
To Charles V of Spain belongs the credit for the first systematic
classification of guns. In his hands artillery had, for the first time,
become an efficient instrument of battle in land campaigns, and all
Europe saw that, in his batteries of bronze trunnion-guns, on wheeled
carriages, firing cast-iron balls against foe or crumbling masonry, a
new power had arisen.[66] The emperor, experiencing the inconvenience
of a multiplicity of types and calibres, sought to simplify his
material. Accordingly, in the year 1544 or shortly before, he approved
seven models to which all pieces in use throughout the vast possessions
of the Spanish monarchy were thenceforth to conform. These seven types
comprised a cannon (a 40-pounder), a cannon-moyen (24-pounder), two
12-pounder culverins, two 6-pounder culverins, and a 3-pounder falcon.
The French soon improved on Charles’ example. The oldest patterns
of their cannon, according to a table given by St. Remy in his
_Mémoires_, were of a uniform length of ten feet. In A.D. 1550 Henri II
issued an edict restricting the number of different calibres to six,
named as follows:--
Canon, a 33-pounder, 10½ feet long, weighing 5200 livres, drawn by
21 horses.
Grande coulevrine, a 15-pounder, 11 feet long, weighing 4000
livres, drawn by 17 horses.
Coulevrine bâtarde, a 7-pounder, 9 feet long, weighing 2500 livres,
drawn by 11 horses.
Coulevrine moyenne, a 2-pounder, 8½ feet long, weighing 1200
livres, drawn by 4 horses.
Faucon, a 1-pounder, 7½ feet long, weighing 700 livres, drawn by 3
horses.
Fauconneau, a ¾-pounder, 7 feet long, weighing 410 livres, drawn by
2 horses.
These dimensions are only a rough approximation. In the year 1584 two
other types, found useful by the Spaniards in the Low Countries, were
included--a 12- and a 24-pounder.
The relatively greater lengths of the small pieces will be noted. As
it was with the French, so it was with other nations, and the list of
Italian ordnance given in Tartaglia’s _Art of Shooting_ shows a general
resemblance to that of Henri II. The desire for a maximum of ranging
power, and the necessity of making the smaller pieces long enough to
enter the embrasures of fortifications, and strong enough to fire
many more rounds than those of the largest size, tended to cause an
augmentation in their size and weight; difficulties of transport had an
effect in imposing a limit of weight on the largest guns which in the
case of the smaller pieces did not operate to the same degree.
Nevertheless, the French possessed, from 1550 onwards, an organized
artillery suitable for transport on campaigns. The six calibres were
mounted on wheeled carriages, horse-drawn, from which they could be
fired; they were moved, muzzles foremost, with their ponderous trails
dragging on the ground in rear.
At that point French artillery remained, or with little advance beyond
it, until the middle of the eighteenth century. In the Germanic states,
on the other hand, important progress was made: by the end of the
sixteenth century shorter pieces, shell-fire from mortars, and the use
of elevated fire for varying ranges, had been adopted. But the chief
centre of artillery progress at the end of the sixteenth century was
the Low Countries, then in the thick of their warfare with Spain. “In
their glorious struggle for independence their artillery contrived to
avail itself of the latest and best theory and practice, to employ
cannons and carriages of simplicity and uniformity; and it has endowed
the art of war with two inventions of the first order--the hand-grenade
and the bomb.”[67]
In the first half of the seventeenth century the genius of Gustavus
Adolphus gave a new value to land ordnance. He made it mobile. He
divided his artillery into two categories, Siege and Field, and for the
latter devised the famous light “leather guns” which, operating in mass
on certain points, had an important effect on the issue of battles.
But after his death at Lützen in 1632 the effort to attain mobility
relaxed; an increase in the strength of powders at this time rendered
the possibility still more remote; and it was not until the following
century that the Prussians, under Frederick the Great, evolved a
satisfactory light artillery. Both in Prussia and in Austria great
efforts were made, in the middle of the eighteenth century, to evolve
a mobile and efficient ordnance. The Seven Years’ War found the former
state experimenting with pieces varying in weight between eighty and a
hundred and fifty times the weight of their ball; and in 1762 a certain
French observer, who was destined to become famous as one of the great
artillery reformers of all time, wrote letters from Vienna describing
the fine qualities of the Austrian service: with its pieces all sixteen
calibres in length, all 115 times their balls in weight, all bored to
their true nominal dimensions, and firing accurately spherical balls
of correct size, with a small windage and a powder-charge of less than
one-third the weight of the shot.
In the years immediately following the close of the Seven Years’
War the lessons learned at Vienna were translated into practice in
France. By 1765 Gribeauval had begun his reorganization of the French
material. In order to obtain mobility he made new models of 12, 8, and
4-pounders, very plain, unchambered pieces, each eighteen calibres
in length, 150 times its own shot in weight, and firing well-fitting
balls with unprecedented precision, with powder-charges of one-third
the weight of the balls. Limbers, in the form of small-trucked bogies,
had been in occasional use ever since the sixteenth century. Gribeauval
introduced large-wheeled limbers, and dragged his 12-pounders by six,
his 8- and 4-pounders by four horses. From the number of horses, as
compared with that of the edict of Henri II, one can measure the
progress made in two centuries. The whole of Gribeauval’s material
was designed to afford rapid transport and rapid and accurate fire;
interchangeability of wheels and other parts formed a novel and
important element of the standardization which he accomplished. Iron
axle-trees, cartridges (used with effect by Gustavus in the preceding
century), elevating screws, tangent scales, and other improvements were
adopted under his authority. But, “Gribeauval could not force on France
the two great inventions of the century--the limber-box and the Horse
Artillery.”[68]
The horse, or flying, artillery, designed to be attached to, and
supported by, cavalry, as field or foot artillery was attached to
infantry, was a Prussian invention. It was adopted by France after the
outbreak of the Revolution, and almost simultaneously it appeared in
the British army.[69]
By the end of the century all the great Powers had adopted Gribeauval’s
system in most of its important parts: notably in the grouping of
artillery into the three categories--siege, field, and coast defence.
Progress continued. In the opening years of the next century a
new competitor among the Powers began to attract attention by its
proficiency. “In the first campaigns of the Revolution the English
artillery showed itself less advanced than that of several other
powers. But so well did it succeed in ameliorating its condition that
when it reappeared on the Continent to take an active part in the
Peninsular War it was seen to be itself worthy in its turn to serve as
a model.”
This is the tribute paid by Colonel Favé.
It is evident from his further remarks that the English artillery
surprised its adversaries, not only by its superior mobility, but
by the effectiveness of its innovations, two of which, especially,
proved to be inventions of the first order--Shrapnel’s projectiles and
Congreve’s war-rockets. France recognized the high efficiency of its
opponent artillery, and some years later adopted a material embodying
some of its most important features. Experiments were made, and
comparative trials carried out, with modified English and modified
Gribeauval equipments. The former were preferred, and a new series of
designs was introduced and approved: this becoming known as “the system
of 1827.”
Three years later war experience led to investigations in France
which caused a revolution in artillery material. In a few years’ time
smooth-bore cannon were being converted to rifles, for use both on land
and sea.