From Breechloaders to Monster Guns: Sir William Armstrong and the Invention of Modern Artillery, 1854–1880

Abstract

From Breechloaders to Monster Guns: Sir William Armstrong and the Invention of Modern Artillery, 1854 — 1880 MARSHALL J. BASTABLE Before dawn on Sunday, November 5, 1854, 50,000 Russian soldiers moved out of Sevastopol and quietly arranged their artillery to bombard the British and French positions in the hills around the city. It had rained throughout Saturday, and the British, believing that the thick mud and heavy fog made a Russian offensive unlikely, had no artillery on hand to defend Inkerman, one of their main positions. When the Russians attacked, Lord Raglan, the commander of the British army, ordered that two 18-pounder guns be brought up from the siege train below. There were no draft horses available, however, and it took 150 soldiers and eight supervising officers three hours to haul the 2-ton guns a mile and a half up the muddy hillside.1 Once in place the guns relieved the pressure from the Russian artillery, and, when French reinforcements arrived in the early afternoon, the attack was finally beaten back. Yet the losses were large, in part because the great bulk and weight of cast-iron guns made it impossi­ ble to maneuver them quickly over the rough terrain of the southern Crimean peninsula.2 The Crimean War, and the losses at Inkerman in Dr. Bastable, who is currently preparing a study of the British political, military, and industrial complex between 1800 and 1914, received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1990. This article is based on part of his thesis, “Arms and the State: A History of Sir William G. Armstrong and Company, 1854-1914.” He extends his thanks to the editors and referees of Technology and Culture and to Professors Richard Helmstadter and Bert Hall of the University of Toronto for their helpful suggestions and constructive criticisms. 'W. Baring Pemberton, Battles of the Crimean War (London, 1962), pp. 125-27, 154-55; Alexander W. Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea (New York, 1875), 3: 255-56. An “18-pounder” fired an iron shot weighing 18 pounds. 2The Times, November 7, 1854, p. 6; December 4, pp. 6-8; December 28, p. 9; General Simpson to Lord Panmure, in The Panmure Papers: Selectionsfrom the Correspon­ dence ofFox Maule, 2nd Baron Panmure, ed. George B. Douglas and Sir George Dalhousie (London, 1908), 1:170; “Report of the Artillery Committee on Ordnance Employed at Sebastopol,” November 17, 1855, War Office, Public Record Office, London (hereafter W. O.), 32/7555.© 1992 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/92/3302-0001$01.00 213 214 MarshallJ. Bastable particular, turned the attention of British engineers toward arma­ ments and made the British government receptive to their sugges­ tions for innovations in artillery. Relatively little is known about the invention and development of modern artillery that took place after the Crimean War. Historians of science and technology have produced many books on the invention and development of contemporary ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, weapons of unprecedented destructive capacity that de­ serve much attention.3 Twentieth-century missiles, however, have roots in 19th-century artillery, the knowledge of which will broaden and deepen our understanding of contemporary nuclear dilemmas. At the same time, 19th-century artillery technology has its own historical importance. It was a tool of empire, it altered the face of battle, and it formed the basis of great industrial enterprises. As Alex Roland reminds us, while “the history of contemporary military technology will continue to attract productive scholars . . . the histor­ ical community should not lose sight of the rewarding and revealing issues from earlier periods that await attention.”4 General histories of technology are particularly inadequate on 19th-century artillery.5 There is substantial confusion about artillery technology and those involved in its development. Historians have reproduced each other’s errors concerning Sir William Armstrong, one of the most important inventors of modern artillery.6 The primary objective of this article is to provide an accurate account of the artillery inventions of this important historical actor. ’Robert Seidel, “Books on the Bomb,” Isis 81 (1990): 519-37. 4Alex Roland, “Technology and War: A Bibliographic Essay,” in Military Enterprise and Technological...