Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2. Edwards Henry Sutherland

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and fifteenth centuries. The chiefs alone among the Franks wore helmets.

      The period of Charlemagne has been much studied, but it is difficult even now to form any idea as to the arms the emperor and his soldiers carried. The sword of Charlemagne in the Museum of Sovereigns and his spear are all, in the way of armoury, that has been preserved. If, however, we compare the sword with that of Childeric, we see many points of difference; the sword of Childeric, almost without a guard, and with a pommel of small dimensions, is very like a Roman sword. The large hemispheric pommel and the broad blade of the Emperor take us back to the mediæval types of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. As regards the successors of Charlemagne, the guards of Charles the Bald wore a uniform which closely resembled that of the Romans, with helmets of barbaric form, of which the base was very nearly square.

      Now for a century and a half there is a break in the history of French weapons until we come to the Bayeux Tapestry, some time after the conquest of England by William the Norman. This celebrated piece of embroidery enlightens us as to the arms, the costume, and the equipment of armies towards the end of the eleventh century: so different from everything of the kind under Charles the Bald. In the space of about two hundred years the arms and the equipment of the soldier had undergone a complete change. A single sword is the only weapon of this epoch that the museum can offer; it is exactly like those of the Bayeux Tapestry, the point being formed not by the gradual tapering of the blade, but suddenly, by a sharpened end.

      The twelfth century is represented by two helmets placed beneath glass at the end of one of the galleries; they were both found in the Somme. In the thirteenth century the man of war was usually armed with a coat of mail, but he wore a sort of hood in mail which he could throw back on his shoulders, of which an interesting specimen is to be seen at the museum.

      The fourteenth century saw a transformation of the coat of mail into a suit of armour of polished steel, which, with some variations, caused by the introduction of portable fire-arms, remained the ordinary armour of the man of war until the time of its final disappearance. Towards 1325 the transformation was complete, as is proved by a great number of monuments of the time, including sculptured figures on tombs, paintings, manuscripts, sepulchral figures engraved on plates of copper, &c. These monuments and documents show that the military costume and equipment of the fourteenth century varied more than is generally imagined. Every man of war armed himself as he thought fit; but there are enough records to give an idea of the type that prevailed and even to guide the archæologist as to the dates of particular changes. What caused the ancient coat of mail to be given up was its weight, and at the same time its incompleteness for defensive purposes. It could stop the thrust of a sword and even of a lance, but in collision the effect of the shock was felt; and in adopting leather jerkins, and afterwards steel plates, the object was to spread the effect of the shock over a greater surface.

      The coat of mail was not abandoned, but it was worn shorter and of lighter make, without its former accessories, and thus greater lightness and greater facilities of movement were gained.

      The warrior towards the end of the thirteenth century was oppressed by his equipment, and did not get off his horse. After the transformation he was able to fight on foot, as he did in all the celebrated battles of the fourteenth century, beginning from Crécy (1346).

      After the adoption of steel armour the coat of mail was still for a time worn underneath; but as the steel armour became more solid the coat of mail was gradually abandoned. The museum contains the complete armour of a man and horse, which dates from the middle of the fifteenth century.

      Towards the end of that century the armour of the man of war had reached perfection. Every kind of shield had now been given up as useless; plate armour furnished every necessary defence, for it was only when the armour was weak that any additional protection was necessary. Thus the Norman coat of mail, as worn by William’s invading army, presented in its species of trellis-work enormous gaps, and for his complete defence the horseman protected himself with a long shield in the form of a heart, which in action covered the whole of his left side – the side he presented to the foe. As the armour becomes more effective the necessity for a shield diminishes, and, after getting smaller and smaller, it at last disappears. The Artillery Museum contains a suit of armour by Turenne, which shows what plate armour had become at the end of the seventeenth century. It was abandoned altogether at the beginning of Louis XIV.’s reign; the last helmets worn in France and England belonging to the time when this head-gear formed part of the armour of Cromwell’s Ironsides.

      Among the innumerable specimens of arms preserved in the Museum of Artillery, portable arms are classed apart from those which strike at a distance, the latter including spears, javelins, bows and arrows, cannon, and every kind of fire-arm. The bow was the arm of the English, the crossbow that of the French. With the former the archer could fire more quickly, and it was easier to preserve the string from getting wet; of which the advantage was experienced on the English side during the battle of Crécy.

      The English retained the use of the bow long after the French had abandoned that of the crossbow; and, according to the director of the Musée d’Artillerie, English bowmen were seen in action as late as 1627, at the siege of Rochelle. Companies of archers disappeared from the French army under Louis XII., about the year 1514. The last time, however, that bows and arrows were seen in European warfare was at the battles of Eylau and Friedland, in 1806, when, according to M. Thiers (“History of the Consulate and Empire”), some of the Tartar troops in the Russian army appeared armed with these antique, and for the most part obsolete, engines of war.

      Musketry of every kind is represented in the Museum of Artillery, from the earliest to the latest patterns, including, in particular, the flint locks used in the wars of the Empire, percussion locks, by which they were replaced, the rifles adopted just before the Crimean war, and the quick-firing muskets of the most recent models, including the chassepot, associated with the war of 1870 and 1871, and the “fusil Gras,” which replaced it. The word artillery was formerly applied to every implement of war, though since the introduction of musketry it has been used only to designate guns of large calibre drawn by horses, as distinguished from portable fire-arms. Nevertheless, the first specimens of artillery, in something like the modern sense of the word, were of small bore, and the projectiles were the balls used in connection with the crossbow. The French employed artillery of this kind as far back as the battle of Crécy (1346). Gradually the bolts of the crossbow were replaced, for artillery fire, by leaden balls, called plummets (“plommées”), of about three pounds’ weight; these were used in cannons of modern shape, and by degrees the size of the balls was increased until soon the artillery of an army was divided into light and heavy.

      The discoveries of the monk Berthold Schwartz belong to the middle of the fourteenth century; and though this learned, but not perhaps beneficent, inventor revolutionised the art of war, he cannot be accused, in pursuing his studies, of having had any deadly purpose in view.

      The earliest fire-arms were loaded at the breech by means of a box which was received in a strong stirrup and fastened with a key; and with the use of breech-loading pieces the history of artillery begins, and up to the present time ends. Soon after the introduction of artillery a rapid augmentation took place in the size of the guns employed, and cannon-balls of stone were used. These were replaced by smaller balls made of cast iron, but even to the present day the weight-carrying power of a gun is estimated on the supposition that the ball is of stone. Stone cannon-balls were used by the Turks long after they had been abandoned in European armies; so also were pieces of immense calibre. In Western Europe cast-iron balls were found to be more effective than the larger balls of stone.

      The Artillery Museum contains specimens of every kind of cannon used, from the original breech-loader to the breech-loader of the present day. No. 1 of the catalogue is a small cannon of the earliest period, made of forged iron and furnished with a breech-loading apparatus; 14 and the numbers following are siege-pieces of various kinds abandoned by the English at Meaux, after the bombardment of 1422. The projectiles for these pieces were of stone. No. 7 comes from the ancient residence, near Verdun, СКАЧАТЬ