istances the aim is usually so inaccurate that a large
portion of the projectiles are lost. In the attack on Spires, a whole
column of artillery expended its fire while at a distance of 900 yards
from the enemy, who, of course, received little or no injury. In firing
from fortifications, the aim is far more accurate, and the artillery may
therefore be employed to advantage as soon as the enemy comes within the
longest range.

II. As an arm of succor, the artillery serves, 1st, to give impulsive
force to the attacking columns; 2d, to assist in arresting, or at least
in retarding, the offensive movements of an enemy; 3d, to protect the
avenues of approach, and to defend obstacles that cover a position; and,
4th, to cover a retrograde movement.

Mounted artillery is, like cavalry, much the most effective in attack;
but batteries of foot are better calculated for defence. The cannoniers
are so armed as to be capable of defending their pieces to the last
extremity; they therefore cannot be easily captured by opposing columns
of infantry. "As to pretending to rush upon the guns," says Napoleon,
"and carry them by the bayonet, or to pick off the gunners by musketry,
these are chimerical ideas. Such things do sometimes happen; but have we
not examples of still more extraordinary captures by a _coup de main?_
As a general rule, there is no infantry, however intrepid it may be,
that can, without artillery, march with impunity the distance of five or
six hundred toises, against two well-placed batteries (16 pieces) of
cannon, served by good gunners; before they could pass over two-thirds
of the way, the men would be killed, wounded, or dispersed. * * * * A
good infantry forms, no doubt, the sinews of an army; but if it were
required to fight for a long time against a very superior artillery, its
good quality would be exhausted, and its efficiency destroyed. In the
first campaigns of the wars of the Revolution, what France had in the
greatest perfection was artillery; we know not a single instance in
which twenty pieces of cannon, judiciously placed, and in battery, were
ever carried by the bayonet. In the affair at Valmy, at the battles of
Jemmapes, Nordlingen, and Fleurus, the French had an artillery superior
to that of the enemy, although they had often only two guns to one
thousand men; but that was because their armies were very numerous. It
may happen that a general, more skilful in manoeuvring, more expert than
his adversar