Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/727

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ARTICULATA—ARTILLERY
685

internal regulations the legislature has left the company free to adopt whatever terms of association it chooses. It has furnished in the schedule to the Companies Act 1862 (Table A), a model or specimen set of regulations, but their adoption, wholly or in part, is optional; only if a company does not register articles of its own these statutory regulations are to apply. When, as is commonly the case, a company decides to have articles of its own framing, such articles must be expressed in separate paragraphs, numbered arithmetically, and signed by the subscribers of the memorandum of association. They must also be printed, stamped like a deed, and attested. When so perfected, they are to be delivered, with the memorandum of association, to the registrar of joint stock companies, who is to retain and register them. The articles of association thereupon become a public document, which any person may inspect on payment of a fee of one shilling. This has important consequences, because every person dealing with the company is presumed to be acquainted with its constitution, and to have read its articles. The articles, also, upon registration, bind the company and its members to the same extent as if each member had subscribed his name and affixed his seal to them. (See also Memorandum of Association; Company; Incorporation.)

In the United States, articles of association are any instrument in writing which sets forth the purposes, the terms and conditions upon which a body of persons have united for the prosecution of a joint enterprise. When this instrument is duly executed and filed, the law gives it the force and effects of a charter of incorporation.

ARTICULATA, a zoological name now obsolete, applied by Cuvier to animals, such as insects and worms, in which the body displays a jointed structure. (See Arthropoda.)

ARTICULATION (from Lat. articulare, to divide into joints), the act of joining together; in anatomy the junction of the bones (see Joints); in botany the point of attachment and separation of the deciduous parts of a plant, such as a leaf. The word is also used for division into distinct parts, as of human speech by words or syllables.

ARTILLERY (the O. Fr. artiller, to equip with engines of war, probably comes from Late Lat. articulum, dim. of ars, art, cf. “engine” from ingenium, or of artus, joint), a term originally applied to all engines for discharging missiles, and in this sense used in English in the early 17th century. In a more restricted sense, artillery has come to mean all firearms not carried and used by hand, and also the personnel and organization by which the power of such weapons is wielded. It is, however, not usual to class machine guns (q.v.) as artillery. The present article deals with the development and contemporary state of the artillery arm in land warfare, in respect of its organization, personnel and special or “formal” employment. For the matériel—the guns, their carriages and their ammunition—see Ordnance and Ammunition. For ballistics, see that heading, and for the work of artillery in combination with the other arms, see Tactics.

Artillery, as distinct from ordnance, is usually classified in accordance with the functions it has to perform. The simplest division is that into mobile and immobile artillery, the former being concerned with the handling of all weapons so mounted as to be capable of more or less easy movement from place to place, the latter with that of weapons which are installed in fixed positions. Mobile artillery is subdivided, again chiefly in respect of its employment, into horse and field batteries, heavy field or position artillery, field howitzers, mountain artillery and siege trains, adapted to every kind of terrain in which field troops may be employed, and work they may have to do. Immobile artillery is used in fixed positions of all kinds, and above all in permanent fortifications; it cannot, therefore, be classified as above, inasmuch as the raison d’être, and consequently the armament of one fort or battery may be totally distinct from that of another. “Fortress,” “Garrison” and “Foot” artillery are the usual names for this branch. The dividing line, indeed, in the case of the heavier weapons, varies with circumstances; guns of position may remain on their ground while elaborate fortifications grow up around them, or the deficiencies of a field army in artillery may be made good from the matériel, more frequently still from the personnel, of the fortress artillery. Thus it may happen that mobile artillery becomes immobile and vice versa. But under normal circumstances the principle of classification indicated is maintained in all organized military forces.

Historical Sketch

1. Early Artillery.—Mechanical appliances for throwing projectiles were produced early in the history of organized warfare, and “engines invented by cunning men to shoot arrows and great stones” are mentioned in the Old Testament. These were continually improved, and, under the various names of catapulta, balista, onager, trébuchet, &c., were employed throughout the ancient and medieval periods of warfare. The machines finally produced were very powerful, and, even when a propelling agent so strong as gunpowder was discovered and applied, the supersession of the older weapons was not effected suddenly nor without considerable opposition. The date of the first employment of cannon cannot be established with any certainty, but there is good evidence to show that the Germans used guns at the siege of Cividale in Italy (1331). The terms of a commission given (1414) by Henry V. to his magister operationum, ingeniarum, et gunnarum ac aliarum ordinationum, one Nicholas Merbury, show that the organization of artillery establishments was grafted upon that which was already in existence for the service of the old-fashioned machines. Previously to this it is recorded that of some 340 men forming the ordnance establishment of Edward III. in 1344 only 12 were artillerymen and gunners. Two years later, at Creçy, it is said, the English brought guns into the open field for the first time. At the siege of Harfleur (1415) the ordnance establishment included 25 “master gunners” and 50 “servitour gunners.” The “gunner” appears to have been the captain of the gun, with general charge of the guns and stores, and the special duty of laying and firing the piece in action.

2. The Beginnings of Field Artillery.—It is clear, from such evidence as we possess, that the chief and almost the only use of guns at this time was to batter the walls of fortifications, and it is not until later in the 15th century that their employment in the field became general (see also Cavalry). The introduction of field artillery may be attributed to John Žižka, and it was in his Hussite wars (1419–1424) that the Wagenburg, a term of more general application, but taken here as denoting a cart or vehicle armed with several small guns, came into prominence. This device allowed a relatively high manœuvring power to be attained, and it is found occasionally in European wars two centuries later, as for instance at Wimpfen in 1622 and Cropredy Bridge in 1644. In an act of attainder passed by the Lancastrian party against the Yorkists (1459), it is stated that the latter were “traiterously ranged in bataill . . . their cartes with gonnes set before their batailles” (Rot. Parl. 38 Henry VI., v. 348). In the London fighting of 1460, small guns were used to clear the streets, heavy ordnance to batter the walls of the Tower. The battle of Lose Coat Field (1469) was decided almost entirely by Edward IV.’s field guns, while at Blackheath (1497) “some cornets of horse, and bandes of foot, and good store of artillery wheeling about” were sent to “put themselves beyond” the rebel camp (Bacon, Henry VII.). The greatest example of artillery work in the 15th century was the siege of Constantinople in 1453, at which the Turks used a large force of artillery, and in particular some monster pieces, some of which survived to engage a British squadron in 1807, when a stone shot weighing some 700 ℔ cut the mainmast of Admiral (Sir) J. T. Duckworth’s flagship in two, and another killed and wounded sixty men. For siege purposes the new weapon was indeed highly effective, and the castles of rebellious barons were easily knocked to pieces by the prince who owned, or succeeded in borrowing, a few pieces of ordnance (cf. Carlyle, Frederick the Great, book iii. chap. i.).

3. The 16th Century.—In the Italian wars waged by Charles