With the Guns

WITH THE GUNS
F.O.O.
SECOND IMPRESSION
LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH COMPANY
LIMITED
1916
D.C.

ARTILLERY
As these sketches of the changing phases of modern war are largely concerned with the work of the artillery, as, indeed, they are written from the standpoint of that branch of the Service, this would seem to be a favourable place to explain shortly the significance of the arm. My excuse, if any be needed, may be sought in the mind of the average man who, terrified as ever of the contemplation of anything technical, puzzled by the grandiloquence of the self-appointed expert, regards the art of the artilleryman as written in a book sealed to him for ever by its own abstruseness.
Yet the general principles that guide the employment of the man with the gun, as distinguished from the man with the rifle, are very simple. In the first place, whereas the latter is only concerned with the incapacitating of personnel , the former has in addition the task of the destruction of matériel . The old and still popular idea of a battle, wherein each arm engages exclusively the similar arm of the enemy, has, since the middle of the last century, entirely disappeared. In a few words it may be said that the function of the artillery of the attack is to prepare the way for the infantry assault by the demolition of the enemy's defences, so far as that may be possible, and during this actual assault to prevent the enemy's troops from leaving their shelter and offering resistance. The artillery of the defence, on the other hand, must endeavour to check the fire of the hostile guns, either by overwhelming the batteries themselves by a fire so intense that the detachments cannot work the guns, or by the destruction of their observation posts. During the assault, their object must be to cover the space over which the hostile infantry must advance with so continuous a rain of shell that they are unable to reach their objective.