greatly strengthened by intrenchments and by artificial inundations produced by dams. Besides providing against an attack on the encampment, the Allies placed Brussels in readiness for a siege. This failure of the design upon the capital was the concluding act of the WAR IN FLANDERS. For many months past negotiations had been going on, and they were shortly conducted to a satisfactory issue. De Villeroi and De Boufflers retired to between St. QuintinLenneck and Halle; and after this no movements were made except those necessitated by reasons of immediate supply. The British regiments taking part in the campaign of 1697 were as follows: Brigade. With the main Army. HORSE. Generals: Earl of Auverquerque. Earl of Athlone. Lieut.-Generals: Duke of Ormond. Earl of Rivers. Earl of Rochford. Major-Generals: Earl of Teviot. Leveson. Lumley. Earl of Albemarle. Regiment. Life Guards, 1st Troop... Squads. I I I 2 2 (Carabineers) 3 3 22w3 NI 3 3 2 2 Wyndham 3rd 5th 7th (including 4 squads. of the 7th Drs. with the Elector's army) Foot, 27 battalions at 550 3,300 3,300 = 14,850 21,450 27 On the 11th of September peace was signed at RYSWICK, and for four years the British Army remained inactive. CHAPTER XXI. ARMS AND ACCOUTREMENTS, DURING THE PERIOD FROM 1660 TO 1700. 1660 to 1700. The Sword. The Hanger.-The Pike.-The Matchlock.-The Match.-Bandaleers. -The Ball-bag.-The Priming-flask.-Wadding.-The Rest.-The Firelock or Fusil.---The Fusil-Musquet.—The Sling.—The Carbine.-Rifled arms.-Repeating - Arms.-Mitrailleuses.-Breech - loading arms.-The Pistol.—Cartridges.— The Cartridge-box.-The Gibecière.-The Bayonet.-The Swedish Feather.The feathered Rest.-The Plug-Bayonet.-The Ring-Bayonet.-The Chevauxde-frise. The Socket Bayonet.-The Sword - Bayonet.-The Granade. -The Granade-Pouch.-The Match - box.-Hatchets.-Belts.-Pouch - belts. -Swordbelts.-The Carbine-belt.-The Half-pike.-The Partisan.-The Halberd.-The Pole-axe. —The Spontoon.—Defensive Armour.-Head-Pieces.—The Cuirass.— The Gorget.-Mode of supply.-Prices. [For Illustrations, see Note on p. xiii.] THE latter half of the seventeenth century was the era of the rise of military science, as a science, in all its branches. In nothing, however, except perhaps engineering, was there, during this half-century, so marked a change as in the armament of the soldier; for this period witnessed the abolition of the clumsy rest; the substitution of the firelock for the tedious matchlock; the use of cartridges in place of the noisy and dangerous bandaleers; the introduction of granades; and above all the invention of the socket-bayonet. It is purposed in this chapter to trace these improvements through their several gradations, and to enter, as briefly as may be, into a particular account of each weapon and its appurtenances.627 The SWORD claims precedence of mention by right of seniority, for it is beyond dispute the oldest as well as the most universal of weapons (excepting, perhaps, the spear). From the day that the angel stood sentry to bar the entrance to Eden up to the present moment, we read of the use of the sword in 627 In giving a description of the different arms and accoutrements I shall avoid, as far as possible, the repetition of whatever may be more advantageously stated in the Notes to the illustrations. all times and by all peoples. Even the veriest savages, cut off from all other nations, have been found possessed of swords of wood, fish-bone, cactus-leaves, or other primitive material. It would seem almost superfluous to describe a weapon so familiar to all, were it not that, as all antiquarian students well know, it is impossible to foresee the future value of a contemporary description of the commonest artificial object. A sword consists of three parts; the blade, the grasp, and the guard (III. XC). The top of the blade is continued in the same piece so as to offer a sort of spike whereon to pass the grasp, and the guard is so attached that the grasp keeps firm the lower part of it, while the top of the guard in turn confines the grasp at the pommel. The whole of the hilt is secured by a nut screwed on to the point of the spike that springs from the blade. For the first few years of the period to which this volume is devoted, the simple cross-hilt was as much in vogue as the guarded hilt which has just been described, but its manufacture was similar (Ills. XCI, XCII). The blade of the sword in the seventeenth century was invariably straight, except in the case of Hussars, and (during a portion of the time) of Granadeers who wore hangers. The swords still carried by the Life-Guards are straight-bladed and resemble in this and other respects the sword of the times of James and William.628 The HANGER was a slightly curved sword, and shorter than the ordinary weapon (Ill. XCIII). The long, straight, and not very broad sword used by the infantry in Charles's reign was termed a "Tuck.”629 630 SWORD-SCABBARDS were of black leather,6 as well in the cavalry as in the infantry, the mountings being of steel (Ill. XCIV). The PIKE is also a weapon of great antiquity: it was the favourite arm of the Greeks and Macedonians, and the Roman infantry was likewise largely armed with it. It was a defensive rather than an offensive weapon, and was in the form of a spear (Ills. XCV, XCVI, XCVII); the head being flat and pointed, and mounted on a stout staff from thirteen to eighteen feet long 628 There were several sorts of swords in vogue at this period besides the regular regimental swords: Mallet. In Grose's Treatise on Ancient Armour is much curious information on the subject of swords. 629 Albemarle. 630 Originals and paintings. shod with a pointed iron foot. Simple as the description of it may read, the pike was no despicable defence in the hands of resolute men; and it is not surprising that the tradition of. its efficient handling by the English infantry in 1689 and 1690 should have caused an attempted revival of it by the Irish malcontents of the present century. The pike was the connecting link between the days of the bow-and-arrow and the days of fire-arms. The fire-arm in general use at the time of the first establishment of our army was the MATCHLOCK (Ills. XCVIII, XCIX). This was a musquet fired by means of a piece of slow-match. "632 The word Musquet 631 is from the Spanish "Mosquete,' which it is not difficult to derive from "moscas" or "mosquas the sparks from a light. 634 Attached to the lock 633 of this musquet was a pan, also a cock the hammer of which was somewhat in the form of a bird's, serpent's, or dog's head: this head was split, and a screw compressed or eased the slit (Ills. C, CI). The piece being loaded 685 first with powder and then with ball, some powder was poured into the pan; the pan was then shut to keep this "priming" (as the powder thus used was termed) from dropping out, and to keep it dry. When the soldier wished to fire, he fastened his burning match into the slit of the cock, opened the pan, looked to his priming, presented, and pulled the trigger; the match falling upon the powder in the pan fired it (Ills. CII, CIII). Between the pan and the breech of the barrel communication was established by means of a small hole; when the piece was being loaded the grains of powder were naturally rammed and shaken down close to this hole, and when priming the soldier took care to perfect the communication of the powder in the pan with that in the barrel: thus the explosion in the pan caused the ignition of the charge. Slow-match was manufactured by boiling in vinegar 636 or 631 Although the term musquet attached itself later to the flint-lock, the word was for a long time used to signify the match-lock in contradistinction to the flint-lock, which latter was termed a fusil or fire-lock; Saint-Remy; Defoe; and many other writers; and Royal Warrants, 1660/1680. 632 Harl. MS. 4,685. The word is written "Mosquetteers" (temp. Eliz.). 633 The earlier specimens of matchlock have the pan separate from the lock. 634 Hence doubtless the French word for the cock of a gun is "chien," the Spanish "serpentin," and our own "cock." 635 For the method of loading see Chap. XXV on Exercises. 636 Davies, 1619, says boiled in "ashes-lye and powder." Williamson, Military Arrangement 1784. James's Dictionary 1803. |