wark of the military organization is the
infantry and field artillery. The big guns may level the forts and
reduce them to powder, driving off the opposing forces, but the infantry
must advance and the small arms and rapid-fire guns must keep the
opposing forces from resuming the position which they had abandoned.

The difficulty of handling the big guns has always been a problem,
except in fortifications and at fixed points of defense, and it has only
been within a few years that a solution of the trouble has been found.
The solution lay in the use of tractors, or the tractor principle, which
every person familiar with farming and the "traction engine" can
recognize.

Germany and Austria, as in many other matters, solved the problem by
building mortars for field service which outclassed the heaviest
artillery of the old type, and mounting them on tractors. It would
require a team of probably forty horses to pull one of the German
42-centimeter guns over the rough ground, and then a relay would be
required every few hours. An immense number of horses would be required
and the transportation would be slow, and not certain at best.

Early in the war Austria sent to the front a battery of 80-centimeter
howitzers, and from the famous Krupp gun works there were 21 and
28-centimeter howitzers. Later came the 42-centimeter guns, which are
classed as automobile field artillery. These are the weapons which
leveled the forts at Liege and were used to bombard Fort Maubeuge.

The immense howitzers, with their caterpillar wheels, are taken apart
and transported to the scene of action in sections, or units. An
automobile tractor carries the artillery crew and tools and furnishes
the motive power. The second car carries the platform and turntable on
which the gun is mounted, and the third hauls the barrel, or gun proper.

THE MOVING OF HEAVY WEAPONS.

The weapons can be moved anywhere, though they weigh as much as forty
tons in some cases. Sometimes it is necessary to build special roads
where fields must be crossed, but on the highways there is little
trouble. The big howitzers are built on the principle of the large
caliber guns used on battleships--that is, there is a system of recoil
springs and air cushions to take up the shock when the gun is fired, so
that the terrific energy, when the charge is exploded, shall not be
borne by the breech of the gun. The howitzers can be turned in any
direction, and the gearing attached