Читать книгу The Complete English Wing Shot онлайн

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It is extraordinary to consider that the rifle had existed for three centuries and a half before this plan became effective, and made the rifle a much superior weapon to the musket. If any country had discovered it at the time of Marlborough or Wellington, it would have made that country master of Europe, just as the first use of the breech-loader as a military arm made Prussia and her needle gun invincible, until other nations also armed themselves with the breech-loader.

It has often been said that “vile saltpetre” was the deathblow to chivalry. That was not so; the long-bow and the cross-bow had before this made Jack as good as his master, and as a matter of fact the bow was much more highly valued up to the reign of Elizabeth than the gun was.

Nevertheless, one French writer attributes the loss of the battle of Crecy to the English use of guns, and he goes on to show that, although the French had used cannon in the sieges of castles, they would not employ them against men. The fact that gunpowder was known in Europe long before Crecy, and is said to have been used by the followers of Mahomet, and by the defenders of India against Alexander the Great, goes to support the French author’s views, that chivalry forbade the use of such a method of warfare.