The Express.
London, England, 1848-08-03 00:00:00

THE HORSE ARTILLERY.

Our remarks on the ably-written article on the
Ordnance in the Quarterly Eeriest', we have every reason to
believe attracted attention to the extravagant expenditure of
that department, and the comparatively inefficient condition of
the art illery service, arising from a combination of causes. That
this branch of the service requires a thorough reform, and to
be placed under the immediatecontrol of the highest military
direction power (the Horse Guards), no one, we expect, will
deny. The divided in re rests o fthe corps imperatvely demand it.
A house divided against itself cannot last. It is not to be
wondered at that alter a lapse of thirty years' peace we
should be without an adequate field force, when we
find the best energies of the service, the real work•
ing part of the corps, stifled in the best endea-
vour to raise it to a general standard of per-
fection, and this is effected by the influence el
a dominant fraction of that arm, for the sole object
of keeping up a pet ()err' that offers better emo-
luments and exemption from foreign service for relatives and
iriends. Yes, ruined in efficiency and degraded in appear-
ance when mounted. we find the great bulk of the corps,
owirg to the partiality awl attention bestowed on that inte-
gral portion of the regiment denominated the horse artillery.
We ask why it is, since the formation of the field batteries
under the Duke of Wellington's system, they have not met
with the same encouragement as the hone artillery ? If
they have been found nut to answer, why have they been
continued so long ?
Unfortunately,b is grace left the Ordnance before they were
quite established, or we should have seen probably further
changes. We ask again, why it is that a horse artillery
officer is kept for so many years in command of the field
batteries ? lie is doubtless well adapted to the purpose,
but it says very little for the qualification of the
sixty colonels of the ten battalions, if none could be found
to take his place, which is that entirely of a battalion officer
—we are quite unwilling to believe it, and, in fact, we know
to the contrary. A more indefatigable officer never com-
manded the field batteries, but he is otherwise occupied now,
and it would be against human nature to suppose he would
depreciate that favoured branch to which he and his son
belong. The commandant of the garrison happens to be also
commandant of the horse artillery, and indeed so was his
predecessor. Tne Deputy Adjutant-General also hos always
been a horse artillery officer, and his son is so at the present
time. It would be unnatural then to suppose they are
particularly interested for what is t rmed the field batteries,
since the more rapid and perfect their movements the
more does it hazard the existence of the horse artillery. It
plumes itself on the rapidity of its movements, but it
has never yet entered into the heads of any of its
partisans to prove they are so in fact, if fair play
be shown to the field battteriee. It would indeed
be difficult for them to show that four horses in the field bat-
teries were unequal to move with a six-pounder with the same
celerity as four horses in the horse artillery, simply because
differently styled. This is the gist of the thing, in point of
fact. The horse artillery detachment' for working the
guns are mounted on horses in front of the gun, those for the
field batteries on what is termed a limber waggon, drawn by
the same number of horses as the gun, but in rear, and con-
sequently haying nearly three times as much ammuni-
tion. As the movement of the detachment is regulated entirely
by the pace of the gun (for it cannot be lett behind) what
difference can it make whether the detachment is in front
or rear of the gun ? What are the advantages now com-
pared to the disadvantages, almost in every point, under
which the horse artillery labours, viz.—nearly double the
number of horses to forge, and two-thirds less ammunition,
added to which is the overwhelming expense in comparison to
the field battery system ; and then they are not ready to
take the field. In their present state they could not take
a morsel of camp equipage ; on the contrary, the field bat-
teries are ready to march and encamp to-morrow, wherever
ordered.
Despite the fact that the field battery horses
were the day before (and are, indeed, nearly con-
stantly) in heavy straining draught, dragging timber,
bricks, and mortar, in the Arsenal, and the men
some of them only four months attached to field batteries,
they did not on the last review do much discredit to their
manccuvres, and this but proves what they might be under a
better system and the same paternal care as the " denomi 11
-
nated" Horse Artillery, with leas carting of bricks
and mortar. By the by, we recollect a cood many
years ago. when the field batteries could bout of better
training, being present at a review by his late Majesty Sing
William IV., when his Iflijesty, on learning that the