CHAPTER XVIII
THE EVOLUTION OF ARTILLERY AND ENGINEERS
The early history of the Engineers and the Artillery in England may be traced in the continued existence, from the Conqueror to Henry VIII., of a high official called in Latin documents the King’s Ingeniator, because he had charge of Engines of War (Latin ingenium). About 1300 the Ingeniator (or Engyneor, as he was called in English, from the Old French Engineur) became styled Attilator (probably a slovenly rendering of Artillator), from the fact that, having charge of the engines of war, he naturally took over the latest form of them, the new invention of artillery. This word is derived from the French artillerie, which meant the art of the artilleur, or articulier, from articularius, or the man who handled articula, the articles or the “things,” as the newly invented guns began by being styled, that word being a diminutive of art-em, art.
The Artillery
The word artillery meant in the sixteenth century the guns used by the artilleur, but did not denote the Arm of the Service till the end of the next century, before which time Artillery had hardly an independent existence, but formed merely a portion of the train, or mass of vehicles which followed an army.
GUNS
Cannon were at first used in fortresses during the fifteenth century, soon after the invention of gunpowder. They were soon mounted on wheels, and then provided with trunnions and a trail. They seem to have been first brought into the field by the Hussites in Bohemia, and then in the French invasion of Italy in 1496. The French added the limber to carry the trail on the march, and thus finally gave guns the form they still have. In the mid-sixteenth century the armies of three great monarchs, the Emperor Charles V., Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII. of England, possessed a train of cannon for the field.
At this epoch there were many descriptions of mobile guns of various calibres: the heavy, 42- and 24-pounders, for siege purposes chiefly, were drawn by several yoke of oxen; the lighter ones, for use in the field, fired 2, 4, or 6 pound shot, and were drawn by horses in single file. The drivers, till the end of the eighteenth century, walked on foot beside their horses, carrying carters’ whips, and were civilians, hired with their teams from the country. To keep them from running away, the train of guns and wagons carrying ammunition were under an escort of Infantry, who were only much later used for protection of the guns.
The working of the gun, and its technical mysteries, were in the hands of the Master Gunner, with his Gunner and two assistants for each gun. In England these gentry were apart from the army, and solely controlled by the Master-General of the Ordnance, as the Artillery and the nearly related Engineers remained down to our own time.