CARTRIDGES AS USED IN THE GREAT WAR.
(From left to right: German, French, Belgian, and British.)
Of the weapons with which we shall deal in these pages, probably firearms are the most interesting. Such implements have been in use among armies for many centuries, but as cannon and other large pieces possess little interest for the collector, on account of their size, it will be convenient to omit the earliest firearms and speak first of hand culverins.
This weapon consisted of a small tube of 1/2 to 3/4 in. internal diameter, fixed to a straight piece of wood or welded to an iron handle. At the close of the fifteenth century it was extensively employed. In 1471 culverins were in the army of Edward IV, after his landing at Ravenspur, Yorkshire. The smallest hand patterns, weighing 15 lb., were used on horseback, whilst heavier weapons of sixty odd pounds' weight were manipulated by foot soldiers and fired from trestles or tripods.[12]
[12] See article on "Firearms" in Chambers's Encyclopædia.
The culverin may be seen in a variety of makes; some possess a touch-hole and flash-pan at the side, whilst the earlier kinds have no flash-pan at all. In some the barrel is circular, whilst in others it is hexagonal or octagonal. Of course, specimens are only to be found in museums, and are seldom obtainable for private collections.
Early in the sixteenth century the culverin gave place to the serpentin, which, in turn, was slightly modified and became the famous match-lock. To fire the culverin, the attendant had to stand with a lighted match over the touch-hole, but in the serpentin the igniter was gripped by a lever which descended into the flash-pan. The match-lock had the flash-pan covered by a lid, which gave a certain amount of protection to the sparking action in wet or windy weather.
The next innovation was the wheel-lock, a weapon which possessed a metal disc provided with a serrated edge. By winding up the disc and using the trigger to release it, it was possible to make the serrated wheel fly round at a considerable rate. As the rough teeth revolved, they scraped against a piece of flint and so produced sparks, which flew into the flash-pan and caused ignition of the powder charge. The system was certainly an ingenious one, but the cost of making these elaborate pieces of mechanism militated against the general use of the wheel-lock for army purposes.