Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of"

Frederick the Great's first wars, artillery had thus been divided into (a) those guns moving with an army in the field, and (b) those which were either wholly stationary or were called upon only when a siege was expected. The _personnel_ was gradually becoming more efficient and more amenable to discipline; the transport arrangements, however, remained in a backward state. Siege and fortress artillery was now organized and employed in accordance with the system of the "formal attack" as finally developed by Vauban. For details of this, as involving the tactical procedure of artillery in the attack and defence of fortresses, the reader is referred to FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT. We are concerned here more especially with the progress of field artillery. The part played by this arm began now to vary according to the circumstances of each action, and the "moral" support of guns was calculated as a factor in the dispositions. In the early Silesian wars, heavy or reserve guns protected the deployment of the army and endeavoured to prepare for the subsequent advance by firing upon the hostile troops; the battalion guns remained close to the infantry, accompanied its movements and assisted in the fire fight. Their support was not without value, and the heavy guns often provoked the enemy into a premature advance, as at Mollwitz. But the infantry or the cavalry forced the decision. It has been mentioned that with the final disappearance of the pike, about 1700, infantry fire-power ruled the battlefield. Throughout the 18th century, it will be found, when the infantry is equal to its work the guns have only a subordinate part in the fighting of pitched battles. At Kunersdorf (1759) the first dashing charge of the Prussian grenadiers captured 72 guns from the Russian army. Later the total of captured ordnance reached 180, yet the Russians, then almost wholly in flight, were not cut to pieces, for only a few light guns of the Prussian army could get to the front; their heavy pieces, though twelve horses were harnessed to each, never came into action. This example will serve to illustrate the difference between the artillery of 1760 and that of fifty years later. According to Tempelhof, who was present, Kunersdorf was the finest opportunity for field artillery that he had ever seen. Yet the field artillery of the 18th century was, if anything, more powerful than that of Napoleon's time; it was the want of mobility alone which prevented the Prussians from turning to good account an opportunity fully as favourable as that of the German artillery at Sedan. That Frederick made more use of his guns in the later campaigns of the Seven Years' War is accounted for by the fact that his infantry and cavalry were no longer capable of forcing a decision, and also by changes in the general character of the operations. These were fought in and about broken country and entrenched positions, and the mobility of the other arms sank to that of the artillery. Thus power came to the front again, and the heavier weapons regained their former supremacy. In a _bataille rangee_ in the open field the proportion of guns to men had been, in 1741, 2 per 1000. At Leuthen (1757) heavy fortress guns were brought to the front for a special purpose. At Kunersdorf the proportion was 4 and 5 per 1000 men, with what degree of effectiveness we have seen. In the later campaigns the Austrian artillery, which was, throughout the Seven Years' War, the best in Europe, placed its numerous and powerful ordnance (an "amphitheatre of 400 guns," as Frederick said) in long lines of field works. The combination of guns and obstacles was almost invariably too formidable to offer the slightest chance of a successful assault. It was at this stage that Frederick, in 1759, introduced horse artillery to keep pace with the movements of cavalry, a proof, if proof were needed, of the inability of the field artillery to manoeuvre. The field howitzer, the weapon _par excellence_ for the attack of field works, has never perhaps been more extensively employed than it was by the Prussians at that time. At Burkersdorf (1762) Frederick placed 45 howitzers in one battery. In those days the mobile artillery was always formed in groups or "batteries" of from 10 to 20 pieces. England too was certainly abreast of other countries in the organization of the field artillery arm. About the middle of the 18th century the guns in use consisted of 24-pounders, 12-pounders, 6-pounders and 3-pounders. The guns were divided into "brigades" of four, five and six guns respectively, and began to be separated into "heavy" and "light" brigades. Each field gun was drawn by four horses, the two leaders being ridden by artillerymen, and had 100 rounds of shot and 30 rounds of grape. The British artillery distinguished itself in the latter part of the Seven Years' War. Foreign critics praised its lightness, its elegance and the good quality of its materials. At Marburg (1760) "the English artillery could not have been better served; it followed the enemy with such vivacity, and maintained its fire so well, that it was impossible for the latter to re-form," says Tempelhof, the Prussian artillery officer who records the lost opportunity of Kunersdorf. The merits and the faults of the artillery had been made clear, and nowhere was the lesson taken to heart more than in France, where General Gribeauval, a French officer who had served in the war with the Austrian artillery, initiated reforms which in the end led to the artillery triumphs of the Napoleonic era. While Frederick had endeavoured to employ, as profitably as possible, the existing heavy equipments, Gribeauval sought improvement in other directions.