The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-22 00:00:00

GENERAL CIALDINI.

M. Petrucelli della Gattina, a well-known mem-
ber of the Italian Parliatbent, supplies to the Presse
an interesting biographical sketch of Gen. Cialdini:
—" General Cialdini has undertaken a difficult task
—to carry on the Dictatorship with kid gloves, and
tosucceed notwithstanding. He is only 17 years of age
and is a General in the Army'—that is to say, equal
in rank to a French Marshal. All his steps have
been won on the field by hard fighting. Enrico
Cialdini is a Modenese. At the age of 16 he
marched with General Zucchi to aid the Romagna
insurrection at Bologna in 1831. After the Aus-
trian intervention in Central Italy he was obliged to
emigrate. His father had been arrested, and was
poisoned by slow doses of belladonna in the dun-
geons of the Duke of Modena. Cialdini went to
Paris, where he studied chemistry under M. Tre-
nerd, and was preparing to study medicine when a
proposal was made to him to go to Spain. The pro-
spect of a pair of epaulets tempted him. He went
and took part in the war of succession, and the revo-
lution of 1848 found him a lieutenant-colonel in the
Spanish service. Mazzini knows where, in any part
of the world, an Italian of courage is to be found.
He gave the name of Cialdini to the Provisional
Government of Milan, which was in want of officers,
and a letter from the secretary of that government
found him out in Aragon. Cialdini obeyed the call,
but on arriving at Milan he found the state of affairs
changed. Lombardy had given herself up to King
Charles Albert, and governed herself in his name:
It was not the moment for hesitating ; the King had
just been beaten, and Italy was about to fall once
more into Vic clutches of Austria. Cialdini enrolled
himself in the corps of Gen. Durando; he marched
on Vicenza, and there received three wounds, sup-
posed at the time to be mortal. He was, therefore,
for a year reduced to a state of helplessness. The
fate of Italy had been decided at Novaro and Rome,
and it was necessary for him to again return to
Spain. Cialdini wrote to the Piedmontese Minister
of War, You have more officers than you can find
employment for, and as I am ashamed to be a bur-
den to you without doing anything, and to go on
half-pay at 40, I intend resuming my post in the
Spanish army. You will find me there when Italy
requires my services_' The Ministerreplied by these
words—' Don't go.' Then came the expedition to
the Crimea. Cialdini went there with the rank of
general, and at the battle of the Tchernata showed
what he was worth. In 1859 Cialdini was the first
in the allied army who fired a shot on the enemy,
ex, mating the passage of the Sesia under the fire of
the Austrians, whom he drove from their position.
This corps d'armee then went into the mountains to
act in the Tyrol. The peace of Villafranca checken
him in his career. In 1860 he defeated the army of
Lamoriciere, and gained the battle of Castelfidardo ;
and in 1861 he took Gaeta in 17 days, for the 55
days which preceded the bombardment were ex-
pended in the construction of the necessary works.
Fifteen days after Cialdini also took the citadel of
Messina. He had been made a Major-General after
the campaign of the Umbria, and the King nomi-
nated him General of the Army after Messina.
Cialdini is tall, slight, and of distinguished conn-
tenenca. He unites the frank manners of a soldier
with the urbanity of a gentleman. He does not
know what hesitation means. He likes to overcome
obstacles by force rather than by delay. Time, in
his opinion, is so valuable that he sometimes carries
rapidity to the length of imprudence. His line is a
direct one, not only because it is the shortest, but the
frankest, and sometimes the boldest. His life has
been almost a continuous series of successes—fortune
has smiled on him and circumstances have favoured
him ; but nothing has made him lose that evenness
of temper owing to which his brilliant career, far
from creating him enemies even in the army, has
given him only rivals who are friends at the same
time. In Spain he has only left comrades who regret
him. His famous outburst against General Garibald_
was forgotten in r a:f an hour after, and as soon as be
shook hands with the General he regretted it. The
Legitimist and Ultainiontene journals represent him
as a sanguinary man, and vet in no civil war were
se many prisoners spared, even brigands taken with
arms in their hands, and whom he was entitled to
shoot on the spot."

THE ARMSTRONG GUN v. JONES'S

7 A RGET.

The trial between these two celebrated champions
—one of attack and the other of defence—took place
yesterday at Portsmouth, under the superintendence
of Captain R. S. Hewlett, C. 8., commanding her
M ajesty's ship Excellent. The same target was
tested. yesterday that was pounded in Porchester
Creek by the Stork's 68-pounder on the 4th, 7th,
Bth, and 9th of August, 1860. No repairs of any
kind have been effected to the target since that
time, and the only alterations it has received to fit
it for the trial of yesterday has been the removal of
the old plates, dubbing off 11 inch of timber back-
ing to level it for receiving the new plates, and the
fixing the new plates in their proper position. An
examination of the back of the target showed that
not a bolt or nut was started in the slightest degree,
and that the framework of the target was as firm as
on the day it was first put together. The most re-
markable feature in connection with the removal of
the old plates was the very small amount of injury
the timber " backing" had received by the impact

of the shot upon the plates, and this is the more ex-

traordinary as, during the trial of the target with
the 68-pounder, 17 shot struck the plates within a
space of 5 feet by 21 feet, the visual area of which on
a vertical plate would be 3 feet. The target was
yesterday, as on the former trial, fixed on the
deck of an old Arctic vessel, the Griper,
and presented its armoured face at an angle of about
50 degrees. The armour-plates lie on 12 inches of
pine backing (on the last trial there was 131 inches),
which is bolted to a plate of Lin. iron, that may be
called the skin of the ship, the whole being supported
on iron ribs and stanchions, and representing, so far
as a mere target can, a section of a ship's side on the
sloping, or, as it has become usual to term it, the
angulated principle. The four new plates manufac-
tured for yesterday's trial are of rolled iron from the
works of Messrs. Beale, of Parkgate, Yorkshire, two
of them being of 43 in., and the remaining twa of
51. Their edges are laid square with each other,
instead of being tongued and grooved similarly to
those of the Warrior and others of our iron-clad
fleet. This absence of the supposed improved rule to
the edges of the plates it was anticipated by Mr.
Jones would preserve to the plates their natural
strength as plain metal slabs, and which there is no
doubt the tongue and groove tends to weaken. To
prepare the edges of the plates, however, to receive
the impact of the shot, strips of five-eighths iron are
let in the timber backing on which the edges of the
plates, where they meet, rest. The plates themselves
were hung in a peculiar manner, with the intention
that should any of the bolts be started or broken, or
the plates themselves destroyed, the inner skin or
real hull of the ship should not be injured in any
way, or caused to leak by the bolt-holes or other-
wise. The Griper was towed out of Portsmouth on
Tuesday morning, and moored in position on the
shoals to the southward of Southsea Castle, in readi-
ness for Ihe practice of the following day. Yester-
day moraing the practice was commenced from the
Stork, moored at 200 yards, from her Armstrong gun,
with a cast-iron bolt 12 inches in length and seven
in diameter, weighing 1101 b. (the established ser-
vice bolt), with a charge of 141 b. of powder. The
firing was first directed at the two 41-inch plates,
and No. 1 struck the outer plate in the centre—
a splendid shot for testing the powers of both gun
and target. The result was an indentation of one
inch only, with a circumference of 6 inches, and
without the slightest sign of fracture, surface or

otherwise. Other shots followed at the two 44 inch
plates, and the indentation varied from 1 inch to 14-
inch. In the spot where two shots struck upon each
other's circumference, as in Nos. 7 and 11, a surface
crack extended from the centres, hut only admitting
the point of a penknife and extending apparently
about one inch in depth—the first layer of metal.
At length, towever, by good gunnery, aided by
extraordinary luck, a line was drawn from the
bottom of No. 2 plate from the right of the, target
(the inner 41 inch) to rather more than half-way
up the outer edge of the outer ft-inch target, shot
after shot being planted across that corner of the
target on which the two plates stood in a most un-
precedented manner, and apparently sufficient to
cut that portion of the target off from the main part.
An after examination of the target showed that six
bolts had struck the target within a space—mea-
suring from the centres—of 21 inches by 12, and
three of these, all within an inch or two of the same
spot, and consequently pounding each others' work,
were close to tho edge of the inner 44inch plate.
The result of this tremendous hammering might
naturally have been expected to be such that the
plate would have been driven clear through the
target ; but, on the contrary, the plate was merely
driven in upon the pine backing to a depth of 31
inches beyond the original level of the plate, and
fractured at right angles, but not entirely
bepirated from the main body. The result of 16
shots on the two plates was the displacing, or rather
separation, of the left hand corner of the inner 41-
inch. plate, but the target was not peneti ated. The

success t,f the target as opposed to the 100 pounder
Armstrong is altogether unprecedented in gunnery
,experiments of this kind. The quality of the metal
of which the plates were manufactured, it is only
just to Messrs. Beale to say, was never before
equalled by either themselves or other makers of
plates supplied to Portsmouth. The 51-inch plate
bad but one shot fired at it, and that made an in-
dentation of only 2of an inch. It is proposed by
Captain Hewlett to place the 51-ioch plates verti-
cally, and then renew the practice at them from the
Armstrong. The following is an accurate Mum of
each shot and its effects :

No. 1. Depth, lin. ; indentation, 61in. diameter;
"n) cracks ; two bolts broken ; four slightly started ;
no bolts through the skin started ; the shell of the
vessel quite sound.
No. 2. =Missed the target, flew over.
No. 3. Indentation, 14-in. deep, 6in. diameter; no
cracks ; four of the bolts through the armour plate
slightly started.

No. 4. Tore away logs in front of the target, and
burying itself below the right hand armour-plates,
having pierced the l‘Z- plate fixed for securing the
foundation of the target.

No. 5. Indentation lin. deep, 61n. diameter • two
slight cracks from the bolthead deep; twoo
more bolts flown, from which and repeated blows
the plate started fin. at the top.
No. 6. Indentation Sin. diameter; cracks
none ; on the 51in. plate five bolts through the
armour-plates slightly started.
No. 7. Indentation 1 1-16 in, 6in. diameter ; no
cracks, the plate about the shot bulged in about half
an inch.

No. 8. Indentation lin., 6in. diameter; no cracks,
grazed the edge of 51 plate.
No. 9. A miss through the Griper's side.
No. 10. Indentation lain., 6in. diameter; on
bolthead (two fuses hung fire).

No. 11. Indentation 1 5-10 in., bin diameter ;
four cracks from the centre of No. 7 shot; Sin.
from the centre of No. 7 to the centre of No. 11.

No. 12. Indentation yin., Gin. diameter.
No. 13. Indentation, 1 yin., 6in diameter ; no

cracks.

No. 14. Indentation, lin., 6in. diameter, causing
cracks in No. 5.

No. 15. Indentation, 3lin., 6-in. diameter; on
and above No. 3 ; broke an irregular piece of plate
Bin. by 61in., and divided the welding to the extent
of abut2-ft. This made the fifth shot (on the se-
cond plate from the left) within lft. 9in. by lft.
from the centre of the extremes. The top edge of
the second plate started 2in.
No- 16. Missed the target, struck the Griper's
sid_oonaking a large hole in the deck.
17. lin. indentation, 6in. diameter ; no cracks.
No. lg. 24in. indentation, Gin. diameter ; four
aural eraelz% in the indentation, two in the bolt.
No. 19. .Missed the armour• lees damaging the
rework of the tart
[O. 20. 11 in: indentation, Gin, diameter ; no
ks.

era
No. 21. Above and
slightly to the left of No.
11 Alot.
P-keis ue.jtvrena‘svha:s:
No. ). On Nos. 15 an,l 3, carrying
of the 1:111:
arnaour plates it i irregular 1 , the
'-'l, 11, 7, crashing the surface
any way breakninc
darayging the shell of theg
wooden backing, but not in
through the same Or
.ves'43l in the slightest degree.
Mr. loneb's principle luks Proved 80 satisfactory

in its trial with the Armstrong that Captain Hal-
sted's testimony, as given in his lectures on iron-
cased ships, deserves to be recorded. He says :
" When England's true international position in
naval matters comes to be more generally felt and
acted on throughout the country than it now is,
there can be no doubt and every confidence that
Mr. Jones himself will come to be more worthily
recognized, as well as the important principle he
has so patriotically forced into notice."