Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/821

ARTILLERY 785 lery soon extended throughout Europe, the French having cannon at the siege of Puy Guil- laume in 1338, and the English three small guns at the battle ot'Crecyin 1346. Cannon FIG. 1. Karly Knglish C'aiinon, time of Battle of Crecy. are not referred to in the Hindoo books before the beginning of the 13th century; but during the next hundred years their use became gene- ral throughout India, and upon the landing of the Portuguese in 1498 they found the natives their equals in the construction and use of fire- arms. The European as well as the Asiatic can- non of the 14th century were made of longitudi- nal bars of iron bound together by hoops, being shaped externally and internally like an apoth- ecary's mortar; they were called bombards, Fui. "L Bombard. vases, or mortars, were very heavy, and pro- jected stone balls at high angles, doing but lit- tle execution ; when put in position they were Fi(i. 3. Mortar. fired from a timber stock or framework, gun carriages being unknown. These unwieldy ma- chines, some of which were breech-loaders, were used not only in siege operations, but in the field and even on shipboard. To give a more accurate direction to the projectile, the bore was afterward made cylindrical and terminated in a very narrow and deep cham- ber, the object being to increase the effect of the powder by retarding the escape of the gas before it acted upon the ball. During the first half of the 15th century bombards were improved upon and made very large ; in France one weighed 10,000 Ibs. with a 400-lb. projec- tile, a second 36,000 Ibs. with a projectile of 900 51 voi,. i. 51 Ibs. ; they were generally made of several pieces screwed together, and could not be moved unless taken apart. Mortars only differed from bombards in length, but were very rare. The other cannon of the day were veuglaires, breech-loaders of less size and power than bom- bards; crapeaudeaux, still smaller, weighing from 100 to 150 Ibs. ; and culverins, the small- est of all, unchambered- and using projectiles of lead. To facilitate pointing and firing, two or more of the smaller guns were occasionally mounted on a two-wheeled wagon, the whole being called a ribaudequin, or organ gun, the earliest form of the modern mitrailleuse. Artil- lery was very much used during the French war of independence against the English. At the defence of Orleans in 1428 Joan of Arc herself pointed the guns ; and as the struggle went on the brothers Jean and Gaspard Bureau became very successful in the conduct of siege opera- tions, being the first to make regular approaches and place guns in breaching batteries under cover of casks tilled with earth, instead of merely hiding them behind wooden screens. The marked progress made by artillery had the effect of everywhere increasing the power of the crown at the expense of the feudal nobility, whose castles were no longer able to defy the sovereign. The French were far in advance of their contemporaries, Charles VII. being able to retake in one year all the strong places held by the English. On the other hand, as late as 1453 Constantinople had to be taken by assault, the guns of Mohammed II. being pow- erless to breach the walls ; while the Greek cannon, firing 150-lb. stone balls, did less dam- age to the Turks than to their own defences. In the middle of the 15th century bombards were universally made of separate pieces of forged iron or bronze, and the great number of attempts at a suitable carriage for the smaller guns showed the importance attached to such a mechanism ; culverins were frequently imbedded in stocks which could be raised or lowered to change the inclination, a few having small side projections, the forerunners of trun- nions, to prevent lateral rotation. We have now come to one of the most important eras in the history of artillery, the striking improvements made by the French in the reign of Louis XL, 1461-'83. Having invented trunnions of suffi- cient strength to stand the recoil, they had an axis about which the gun could turn with ease and be elevated or depressed at will ; this great difficulty overcome, they readily devised a car- riage at once suited for the transportation and service of the piece, while their progress in metallurgy enabled them to substitute cast-iron for stone balls. The iron projectiles, by their greater density, increasing the tension of the gas so as to endanger the guns in use, they were forced to do away with them and introduce brass pieces of smaller calibre and increased thickness of metal, called cannons, culverins or serpentines, and falcons. The last were the smallest, and fired leaden projectiles instead of