WEAPONS AND GUNPOWDER
Man's weapons of warfare, offensive and defensive, have been many and
curious. David slew Goliath with a stone from a sling. The Scriptures
tell us that Samson, the mighty man of the Bible, killed a thousand
Philistines at one time with the jaw-bone of an ass. The study of the
development of arms makes one of the most significant chapters in the
history of civilization.
The use of stone weapons seems to have been universally characteristic
of the earlier races of mankind, as it still is distinctive of the
ruder races. The weapons made from stone were necessarily few and
simple. The most common was an ax, made from various kinds of stone and
with varying degrees of skill. Spear-points and arrow-heads were made
of flint. These show a comparatively high type of workmanship. The
highest efforts of the ancient stone-workers culminated in a
leaf-shaped dagger or knife of flint, various in form but uniform in
type. These flint daggers differed also in size, but seldom exceeded a
foot in length. They were never ground or polished, but delicately
chipped to a fine, straight edge, and were often beautiful.
[Illustration: STATUES SHOWING KNIGHTS IN ARMOR]
In the Bronze Age several kinds of bronze daggers were made. The
characteristic weapon of this period, however, was the leaf-shaped
bronze sword. "No warlike weapon of any period is more graceful in form
or more beautifully finished." This sword had a very thin edge on both
sides running from hilt to point, and the handle was of bone, horn, or
wood. The thinness of the edge seems to have been produced without the
aid of hammer or file. The weapon was better fitted for stabbing and
thrusting than for cutting with the edge. Bronze spear-points have been
found, but throughout the Bronze Age arrow-heads were made of flint.
There were also shields of bronze, held in the hand by a handle
fastened to the center. The period of transition between the Bronze Age
and the Iron Age is marked by an iron sword, which was similar in form
to the leaf-shaped bronze sword.
Homer, the great Greek bard who is supposed to have lived about a
thousand years before the birth of Christ, in speaking of the wars of
the Greeks, describes their weapons somewhat fully. They used a
double-edged, bronze-bladed sword, the hilt and scabbard of which were
adorned with gold and silver. In the combats of the Homeric age,
however, the spear, lance, or javelin played the principal part; swords
were used only for fighting at close range. Bows and arrows also were
used. The only iron weapon specifically mentioned is the arrow-head.
This was inserted in a split shaft, precisely like the flint
arrow-heads of the early North American Indians and other modern
savages. The defensive armor of the heroic age of Greece was entirely
of bronze. It consisted of a helmet for the head, cuirass for the
chest, greaves for the legs, and a shield. The bronze cuirass was often
ornamented with gold. The shield was round or oval in shape, very
large, and covered with hide. The Greeks of the later or historic age
fought chiefly with long, heavy spears. Later the shield was reduced in
size and the sword increased in length. The light-armed troops were
furnished with a light javelin having a strap or thong fastened to the
middle to assist in hurling. A linen corselet came into use instead of
the heavy metal cuirass. The mounted troops were supplied with a longer
sword, a javelin, and a short dagger.
The military strength of early Egypt lay in her archers, who fought
either on foot or from chariots. The Egyptian bow was a little shorter
than a man's height. The string was of hide or cord; the arrows were of
reed, winged with three feathers and pointed with bronze heads, and
were from two to three feet in length. The Egyptian archers carried a
curved, broad-bladed sword, and a dagger or a battle-axe for combat at
close quarters. Their defensive armor consisted of a quilted head-piece
and coat. They used no shield, as this would have interfered with the
use of the bow. The infantry were classified according to the weapons
with which they fought--as spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, and slingers.
The spears were five or six feet long and had triangular or leaf-shaped
heads of bronze. The spearmen carried shields shaped like a door with a
curved top, having a hole in the upper portion through which they could
look. These shields were about half as high as a man and were covered
with hairy hide, with the hair attached. The early swords of Egypt were
of bronze, straight, double-edged, tapering from hilt to point, and
measuring from two and a half to three feet in length.
The ancient Assyrians fought with swords somewhat like those of Egypt.
They used also bows, lances, spears, and javelins. Their shields were
round and convex; and their cuirass was a close-fitting garment made of
many layers of flax, plaited together or interwoven, and cemented and
hardened with glue. This linen corselet was found also among the
Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans.
The characteristic weapon of the Romans, the greatest warriors of
ancient times, was what the Romans themselves called the "pilum." This
weapon was a pike having a stout iron head carried on a rod of iron.
The iron rod was about twenty inches long and terminated in a socket
for the insertion of the wooden shaft, which was a little more than
three feet in length. The entire weapon was therefore about five feet
long. The pilum could be hurled as a javelin with great effect.
Piercing the shield of the enemy, the slender iron rod bent under the
weight of the shaft, which trailed along the ground, making the shield
useless for purposes of defense. When used at close quarters, the pilum
had something of the efficiency of the modern bayonet; and when wielded
firmly in both hands, it served to ward off sword-strokes, which fell
harmlessly upon the long and strong iron neck of the weapon. No warrior
of ancient times was more formidable than the Roman with his pilum. The
Romans had also swords of bronze and bronze armor, resembling the armor
and the swords of the Greeks. In the prosperous days of Rome, her
legions, under one of the greatest military commanders of all time,
Julius Caesar, brought nearly all the world of that day to the feet of
their general.
The Franks, a Germanic people who lived early in the Christian era and
who gave their name to France, used the battle-ax as their chief
weapon. It had a broad blade and a short handle and was used as a
missile. It is said that a blow of an ax, when hurled, would pierce an
enemy's shield or kill him, and that the Franks rarely missed their
aim. They wore no armor, not even helmets, though they carried swords,
round shields, and darts with barbed iron heads, which were used for
throwing or thrusting. When this dart became fixed in an adversary's
shield, it was the habit of the Frank to bound forward, place a foot
upon one end of the trailing dart, and, compelling the enemy to lower
his shield, slay him with the battle-ax. The Franks used also a short,
straight, broad-bladed sword, double-edged and obtuse at the point. The
military organization of the later Franks changed from infantry to
cavalry, and this change gave way in time to the era of chivalry. The
superior soldiers of the time of Charlemagne had added to their
equipment the celebrated coat of mail.
[Illustration: A KNIGHT IN ACTION]
Our early Anglo-Saxon fathers fought with swords, spears, axes, and a
heavy, single-edged knife. The sword was especially the weapon of the
horseman, and was not carried by anyone under the rank of thane. The
infantry bore the other weapons. The early Anglo-Saxons do not appear
to have used the bow and arrow, though in later times the long bow was
an important weapon in England. The Anglo-Saxons of olden times were
not strong in cavalry. Saxon warriors carried round or oval shields
made of wood and covered with leather. Suits of metal armor were worn
for defense.
The gallant knights of the Middle Ages fought on horseback, as they
went about protecting the weak, redressing the wrongs of the injured,
and upholding right against might. They were clad in armor of metal,
with swords buckled to their sides. Mail armor of interlinked metallic
rings was used until the beginning of the fourteenth century. From this
time to the beginning of the seventeenth century, armor was made of
solid plates of metal. After 1600, armor was gradually replaced by a
new agent of warfare, against which it was no protection. Likewise the
shield, the dagger, and the bow gave way, though the long bow continued
in use as an English weapon until the close of Queen Elizabeth's reign.
[Illustration: AN ARCHER OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY]
The invention of gunpowder was one of the most far-reaching events of
all history. This terrific substance has not only revolutionized
warfare, but has changed the current of human history itself. It is not
known who invented gunpowder, or when it was first used. It is a
compound of saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur; the proportions in which
these three ingredients are mixed vary in different countries and in
different kinds of powders. It seems likely that powder was invented in
the Far East, perhaps in China. Saltpetre comes, for the most part,
from China and India, on whose vast plains it is found mixed with the
soil. An ordinary wood fire kindled on ground containing saltpetre
would bring the saltpetre into contact with charcoal, and thereby
practically produce powder. It is probable that the discovery of the
explosive occurred in this accidental way. Fireworks were used in China
from a very early date, but it is doubtful if the Chinese, or any other
nation of Asia, used gunpowder as a propelling force. It was left for
the Western nations to develop and give practical value to the
discovery of the Chinese.
Our first knowledge of powder as an agency of war dates from about the
year 700 A.D., when it was used by the Byzantine emperors in defending
Constantinople against the Saracens. It was employed there, however,
not as a propelling force, but in the form of rockets or a fiery liquid
called Greek fire. Its first real use in Europe as a power for
propulsion was in Spain, where the Moors and the Christians both used
some kind of artillery as early as the twelfth century after Christ.
Gunpowder was first introduced into England by Roger Bacon, a British
scientist, who was born early in the thirteenth century. He probably
did not discover its properties independently, but by reading ancient
manuscripts. Owing to the crude and uncertain methods of making
gunpowder, it did not attain much value until Berthold Schwarz, a
German monk, at about 1320 A.D. introduced an improved method of
manufacture. The improved powder thus made was first used in England by
King Edward III in his war against the Scotch in 1327. It was perhaps
used on the continent of Europe earlier than this, but the occasions
are uncertain. The tubes from which the missiles were propelled were
called "crakeys of war."
Spenser called cannon "those devilish iron engines." They were probably
used for the first time in field warfare by the English in the battle
at Crecy, a small town in France, where on August 26, 1346, the English
defeated the French. The artillery seemed to have been used in this
battle merely to frighten the horses of the enemy, and the cannon were
laughed at as ingenious toys.
From the Battle of Crecy onward, the use of gunpowder spread rapidly
throughout Europe, the Russians being the last to adopt it. Saltpetre,
at first used in its natural state, began to be produced artificially,
and then the manufacture of powder extended among the nations. During
the French Revolution, according to Carlyle, the revolutionists were
driven to such extremities for want of powder that they scraped old
cellars seeking material for its manufacture. Many recent improvements
have been made in the production of gunpowder, the most important
resulting in the smokeless powder.
Before the introduction of cannon using gunpowder as a propelling
force, various machines were used in warfare for hurling missiles.
Large stones and heavy darts or arrows were thrown by means of tightly
twisted ropes, like the action of a bow, or through the aid of a lever
and sling. Various names were applied to these weapons, the chief of
which were the ballista and the catapult. The ballista hurled stones by
means of a twisted cord or a lever; the catapult by darts or arrows
could throw a projectile half a mile. Both machines were used by the
Romans with great effect, in both defensive and offensive warfare.
In destroying the wall of a besieged town, the Romans used a
battering-ram. It consisted of a beam of wood with a mass of bronze or
iron on the end resembling a ram's head. In its earliest form, the
battering-ram was beaten against the wall by the soldiers; later it was
suspended in a frame and made to swing with ropes. Another kind moved
on rollers, the swinging movement being given to it also by means of
ropes. The beam of the ram was from sixty to one hundred and twenty
feet long, the head sometimes weighed more than a ton, and as many as a
hundred men were necessary to swing it. For the protection of the
soldiers using it, a wooden roof covered it, and the whole was mounted
on wheels. Scarcely any wall could resist the continued blows of the
battering-ram. The Romans were the most effective in the use of this
engine, though they borrowed it from the Greeks.
The first cannon were clumsy and comparatively inefficient. They were
made of wooden bars held together with iron hoops, and they shot balls
of stone. Cannon of bronze were next made, and in the latter part of
the fifteenth century iron cannon came into use. The next improvement
was the production of cannon of steel, and for some years past the best
artillery has been made of this material. After stone balls ceased to
be used, round balls of iron were utilized. These in time gave way to
cylindrical projectiles of steel. Originally cannon were loaded at the
muzzle, but in recent years breech-loading devices have been developed,
so that now all of the best modern guns are loaded from the rear.
Within the last twenty-five years, rapid-fire guns have been developed.
These have a mechanism by which the breech is opened and closed again
by a single motion of a lever. The loading with projectile and powder
is also done with one motion. The rapidity of firing varies from two
hundred shots per minute in the smallest guns to one shot in two
minutes in the largest. The largest British cannon are nearly eighteen
inches in calibre (diameter of bore), weigh a hundred tons, are
thirty-five feet long, shoot a shell weighing nearly a ton, consume at
each charge 450 pounds of powder, and have the power of penetrating
solid iron armor plate to the depth of almost two feet, at a distance
of one thousand yards. At least a year and a quarter is required for
making one of the great, heavy guns, and often a longer time. The cost
of constructing one of the largest English cannon is about $117,000,
and it costs about $175 to fire the gun once. Some of the most powerful
cannon may be relied upon to hit an object ten feet high at a distance
of about nine thousand yards. In battle, however, owing to conditions
of atmosphere and the limitations of human vision, fire would rarely be
opened at a greater distance than three thousand yards, or not quite
two miles.
Guns discharged by machinery have been introduced within the last
half-century. The fire from machine guns is practically continuous.
Several kinds have been invented and improved by various persons. One
of the best types of this kind of ordnance is the Gatling gun, invented
in 1860 by Dr. R. J. Gatling, of Indianapolis. It consists of a number
of parallel barrels, usually ten, grouped around and fastened to a
central shaft. Each barrel has its own mechanism for firing. As the
barrels revolve, loaded cartridges are fed into them by machinery and
the empty cartridges are ejected. By means of an automatic mechanism,
the bullets may be scattered over such an arc in front as may be
desired, or concentrated upon a narrower range. The Gatling gun can
fire at the rate of 1200 shots per minute; it literally hails bullets.
The greatest name connected with the manufacture of modern cannon is
that of Herr Alfred Krupp, of Germany, who was born at Essen in 1812 in
humble circumstances. He erected the first Bessemer steel works in
Germany in the city of his birth, and was the pioneer in the
introduction of steel for the manufacture of heavy guns. He believed in
the utility of steel when the great governments of the earth had no
faith in it. The works at Essen cover in all about one thousand acres,
and in them twenty thousand persons find employment. To Krupp Germany
owed much, and was not negligent in paying him honor. His factory
supplied artillery to nearly all the nations of Europe. He died in
July, 1887, and was succeeded in the management of the works by his son
Alfred, who also died recently. The plant still continues in operation.
[Illustration: MUSKETEER AND PIKEMAN OF THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY]
The first portable or hand gun consisted of a simple iron or brass tube
fastened to a straight stock of wood. Horsemen used the first guns, and
fired them by placing the end of the stock against the breast and
letting the barrel rest on a fork fastened to the saddle. The gun was
discharged by applying a lighted match to a touch-hole in the top of
the barrel. One kind of powder was used for priming; another for
firing. Before the invention of cartridges, the powder and bullets were
loaded separately at the muzzle, with some kind of packing between. The
colonial rifles in America were loaded in this way. In a fight at close
quarters, after a gun had been once discharged, the soldier had to
fight with his sword. About the middle of the seventeenth century, the
bayonet was invented, taking its name from the town of Bayonne, in
France, where the inventor lived.
The lighted match which soldiers originally carried for igniting their
guns gave way to the flint and steel; and in 1807 a Scotch clergyman
named Forsyth obtained a patent which led to the invention of the
percussion cap. This improvement revolutionized the mechanism of
firearms. Many improvements have been made recently in arms, so that
cartridges containing cap, powder, and projectile are fed automatically
into guns so delicately constructed that they have great carrying
power, precision, and rapidity.
From the dawn of human existence man has sought by some method or other
to overcome natural barriers of water. The idea of the ship is as old
almost as the race itself. The most primitive form of vessel was the
raft. In prehistoric ages men made vessels by hollowing out the trunks
of trees, either with fire or with such crude tools as they possessed.
The Latin poet Virgil mentions "hollowed alders" used for boats, and
indeed canoes were made from hollowed tree trunks as long ago as the
Stone Age. The next step forward in the art of shipbuilding was the
bark canoe. In countries where bark is scarce, small vessels were made
of skins, felt, or canvas covered with pitch. In process of time, boats
were made by fastening timbers together, and in this method the basic
principle of modern shipbuilding was reached.
It is the relation of ships to purposes of war that interests us here.
When the curtain rose for the drama of civilization in Egypt five
thousand years ago, men were fighting at sea. The oldest ships of which
we have knowledge were Egyptian. The vessels of war were then propelled
by oarsmen, who were protected from the missiles of the enemy by
planks. On the Egyptian war-galleys there was often a projecting bow to
which was attached a metal head for ramming the vessels of the enemy.
Our knowledge of Greek fighting ships--thanks to Greek literature--is
fairly full. In the time of Homer, about ten centuries before Christ,
Greek men-of-war carried crews of from fifty to one hundred and twenty
men, nearly all of whom took part in the labor of rowing. A military
boat called the "bireme" came into use in Greece about six or seven
centuries before Christ. The word means a vessel with two rows or banks
of oarsmen on each side, one row above the other. This disposition of
rowers was evidently for the purpose of securing the largest possible
number in the least possible space. It is probable that the Greeks did
not originate the bireme, but borrowed the idea from the Phoenicians
or possibly from Egypt. When Athens was at the zenith of her glory, the
principal war vessel was the "trireme," a ship with three rows of
oarsmen to the side, each rising above another. Larger ships were
subsequently constructed with four, five, and even sixteen banks of
rowers to a side, tier above tier.
The Romans, although they were so powerful in land warfare, were not
strong in naval achievement until after the First Punic War. In this
war they learned the art of naval construction from their enemies, the
Carthaginians. A Carthaginian "quinquereme," or boat with five banks of
oars, drifted to the Roman coast. The Romans copied it, set up frames
on dry land in which crews were taught to row, and in sixty days from
the time the trees were felled they had built and manned a fleet. Later
the Romans used grappling hooks with which they bound together their
own and an opposing ship. They then boarded the enemy's vessel and
carried on the fight at close quarters. These tactics gave the Romans
command of the sea, and their war galley came to be the supreme object
of terror in the naval history of Roman days.
Sails and wind superseded rowers as the motive force of ships. Then
came steam. But after gunpowder and steam had worked a revolution in
the modes of naval combat, vessels of war continued to be made of wood.
The first fight between iron ships in the history of the world was
fought on the ninth of March, 1862, in Hampton Roads, near Norfolk,
Virginia, during the Civil War in America. The battle was the combat
between the _Merrimac_ and the _Monitor_. This engagement marked the
end of wooden navies. Thenceforth the nations of earth were to make
their warships of iron and steel.
Among the largest battleships built for the United States navy are the
_Delaware_ and the _North Dakota_. Each of these battleships is five
hundred and ten feet long, a little more than eighty-five feet wide,
sinks to the depth of nearly twenty-seven feet in the water, and
travels at the rate of twenty-one knots per hour. Each vessel weighs
twenty thousand tons, and is armed with ten great guns a foot in
diameter at the mouth. The _North Dakota_ required 4688 tons of steel
armor at a cost of more than four hundred dollars per ton. Each of its
great twelve-inch guns cost nearly $110,000, weighs fifty-two tons,
and hurls a projectile weighing 850 pounds a distance of twelve miles.
Three hundred and eighty-five pounds of powder are consumed at a
single discharge. At a distance of more than a mile and a half the
projectiles of the _North Dakota_ will penetrate steel armor to a
depth of nearly twenty inches. When these projectiles leave the guns,
they fly through the air at the rate of 2,800 feet in a second. When
one hundred shots have been fired from one of these guns, it is worn
so that it will be useless until repaired. The cost of a single
discharge from one of these guns is about $350.
Sub-marine navigation has always been attended by the most woeful
catastrophes, but in spite of numerous accidents the development of the
submarine boat has progressed uninterruptedly. Each new model presents
new preventive devices. Flasks of oxylithic powder are carried for
purifying the air in the water-tight compartments in which the crews
live while the boat is below the surface of the water. There is also a
special apparatus for signalling other vessels or the shore, in case of
danger. In 1904 three vessels, designated X, Y, and Z, were completed,
which could achieve submersion in the short space of two minutes. The
boats were armed with six torpedoes each. France owns the largest fleet
of under-water warships in the world. England stands next, and the
United States government is third.