secret of success in armed strife on sea or land, there is not one of us in ten thousand, probably, who is inclined to rear up and dispute him. Even the man who has never laid finger to trigger has a sneaking notion that since battles hang on the ability to kill or maim, and since killing in war, for the most part, is done by the burning of powder in various quantities and various ways, the side who can set off its powder to the greatest advantage is the side that is going to win. Eye, reach, and hitting power may be set down as a fairly accurate dynamic analysis of this matter of superiority of fire. "Volume, accuracy, and range of fire" is another and more technical way of putting it. Strategy, bayonet action, cavalry charges, all the tricks, deceptions, and heroic incidents of a campaign, go into this matter of burning powder. For it is true, of course, that all battles are not won by actual superiority of fire. Many of them are won by the power of one side or another to exert, instantly, at some point in the struggle, an overwhelming superiority of fire. Something like forty-five years ago, a German fighting force captured the French Emperor, Napoleon III, Marshal MacMahon, and all of the French regular army except what had been bottled up at Metz, and other forts on the frontier. All this happened by reason of the fact that the Germans had worked themselves into a position where they could, if they wanted to, pour a fire into the French ranks that would mean slaughter and practical annihilation. In securing this advantage, the artillery had been the most powerful factor. The German artillery had been rushed to the front, supported by a very small escort of cavalry and infantry, and by being at the right place at the right time had been able to exert a fire which drove the French back in their efforts to escape to the East. Rapidly other German forces pressed in. German batteries secured hills bordering the valley of the Meuse in sufficient strength to repulse every attempt of the French army to break through. The long-range shelling of the forces massed in Sedan was so murderous in its effect that to escape the slaughter the French were forced to an unconditional surrender. It was in 1870 that the tremendous importance of the field gun in modern warfare began to be demonstrated. Up to that time artillery had been looked upon as an awkward and cumbersome weapon. It had been the custom to place the artillery well in the rear of marching columns and to protect it with large bodies of infantry and cavalry. This whole theory was upset by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War. They risked surprise and capture of artillery for the advantage of exerting a powerful artillery fire before the enemy could bring his field guns from the rear to the front. In the present struggle in Europe, in every individual battle, the artillery is in action from the very start, and the advantage to one side or the other is almost always determined by the outcome of preliminary artillery duels. The musket has not gone out. The rifle is |