Tombstone epitaph., 1915-07-25

tectile. An English artillery officer has written:
 "Shrapnel realized that the effect of round shot (cannon balls), impact bombs, case or grape shot against troops in the field was trivial His Idea was to increase the ranges of the most effective missiles. namely. case and grape shot. by producing a collective fire at long distances. Shrapnel therefore suggested a hol- low spherical projectile filled with carbine balls and containing small quantity of gunpowder. just sufficient to burst the shell. the explosion to be timed at a short distance previous to its execution. by which means the fire would be equally severe at all ranges"
 In l7s7 the records of the British army state that Shrapnel in that year described 10 General O'Hara, then commanding at Gibraltar, "a new method of extending the use of grape or case shot to the utmost range of ordnance"
 In 1902 Shrapnel's idea may be said to have taken. for the first time, deti- mite shape. In that year there was issued at Woolwich. England. book which embodied "a table of practice with Lieutenant Shrapnel's proposed new method of firing case shot" and in that same year It is recorded that Shrapnel exhibited the new shells s1h s, tka of his majesty the king and a great number of general officers, and that all foreigners were excluded" Among the general officers was Wellington, who was greatly impressed. but who in later years changed to a certain extent his opinion as to the effective ness Of shrapnel in war.
 In 1903. and following the royal in- spection of the new shells at Wool wich, Shrapnel was ordered to Els wick. there to superintend the manu- facture of his spherical case shot for immediate issue to the army"
 In the following year shrapnel were for the first time employed by the British. The occasion was The bom- bardment of the Batavian settlement Of Surinam in the Dutch East Indies The time was the latter part of April and the year was 1894. A Major VII son commanded the British artillery, and it was under his directions that the shrapnel shell was used for the first time in history. After the bom- bardment Major Wilson reported that "shrapnel had so excellent an effect as to cause the garrison of Fort Am sterdam to surrender after receiving the second shell" Major Wilson's re port continued:
 The enemy was SO astonished at these shells ss not to be able to ex- plain how they apparently suffered from musketry at so great distance as 1000 yards"
 Two years passed before shrapnel was again mentioned in official rec ords. It was at Calabria in 1906, when a force of 1000 British troops defeated force of 5000 French Ad- miral Sir Sidney Smith, commanding the British naval force oil Calabria. witnessed the engagement. He sub seQuently wrote:
 Tt was evident that the shells of Colonel Shrapnel's invention. when burst in their flight and short of their objects. as they ought to be, did great execution"
 So impressed was the admiral that he asked the admiralty to issue shrap- nel to the navy. but his request was refused. whereupon Sir Sidney man. aged to get some of the shells by pay ing for them out of his own pocket. In February. 1907, he successfully used the shells in the landing Of a division in the Dardanelles.
 The victory of yimeiro. in the benin sula war. was largely due to shrapnel. when at the critical moment of that hattie the British artillery opened a shrapnel fire. using their ninepound- CTS, and routed the French infantry. | The French could not understand where the little balls came from. and the soldiers swore that devils were in the British shells"