The result of all these improvements is that the best quick-firing guns (among which the French gun is still reckoned) are capable of firing twenty-five rounds a minute. The German field-gun is hardly capable of twenty rounds a minute, being an inferior weapon converted from the old breech-loader.
But these high rates of fire are used only on emergency, as a gun firing twenty-five rounds a minute would exhaust the whole of the ammunition carried with it in the battery in three minutes.
One of the first consequences of the introduction of the shielded gun was the reappearance of the old common shell in an improved form. The common shell is almost as old as Agincourt, and consisted simply of a hollow shell filled with powder, which exploded on striking the object. When shrapnel came into use most nations abandoned the common shell. But shrapnel proved almost ineffective against the shielded gun, and the gunners were indifferent to the bullets pattering on the steel shield in front of them. The answer to this was the high-explosive shell, a steel case filled with high explosive, such as melinite, which is the same as lyddite, shimose, or picric acid. This, when detonated upon striking a gun, can be relied upon to disable it and to kill the gunners behind it.
AWFUL DESTRUCTIVENESS OF MODERN GUNS
Of late years a shell which combines the action of the shrapnel and the high-explosive shell has been introduced. This is the “Universal” shell (see [Fig. 3]) invented by Major van Essen, of the Dutch Artillery. It is a shrapnel with a detachable head filled with high explosive. When burst during flight it acts like an ordinary shrapnel, and the bullets fly forward and sweep the ground in front of it; at the same time the head, with its explosive burster, flies forward and acts as a small but efficient high-explosive shell. These projectiles have been introduced for howitzers and for anti-aircraft guns, and some of the nations with new equipments, such as the Balkan States, have them for their field-guns. Their introduction has, however, been delayed in Western Europe, as they are less efficient as such than the ordinary shrapnel, which is considered the principal field artillery projectile.
CHAPTER XXXI
WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER BY POISONOUS GASES
[CANADIAN VICTIMS] — [TRENCH GAS AT YPRES] — [AWFUL FORM OF SCIENTIFIC TORTURE] — [REPORT OF MEDICAL EXPERT] — [KIND OF GAS EMPLOYED] — [ALLIES FORCED TO USE SIMILAR METHODS.]
Killing by noxious gases may be, as the Germans claim, no more barbarous than slaughter by shrapnel, but it has been denounced in America as a violation of all written and unwritten codes and as a backward step toward savagery. Certainly the descriptions of responsible persons who have witnessed the pernicious work of the gas only deepens the horror with which all peace-loving citizens look upon “civilized” warfare.