Page 126 - Wish Stream Year of 2016

New Perspectives on the Artillery
Pieces at RMA Sandhurst
Part 1: The ‘Waterloo’ Guns
By Mr Sebastian Puncher MA AMA, Deputy Curator, Sandhurst Collection
Very little has been written on the artillery pieces at Sandhurst. An article by a cadet in the 1960s gave a good historical back- ground to them but little in the way of techno- logical, conservation or RMC-speci c detail. This article, which is in two parts, will add some new perspectives based on research carried out on them during my time as Deputy Curator.
This rst part adds some new information about those six guns which stand directly in front of Old College, facing the spectators at each Sov- ereign’s Parade. Although they are often referred to as the ‘Waterloo Guns’, only the two French 12 pounders, along with the 6 pounder at 44 Sqn RLC, are de nitely from the battle. The three French guns carry a plaque on their sides, probably made by the Royal Carriage Depart- ment, saying ‘Taken at Waterloo’. These French guns were manufactured during the time of the monarchy and bear the dates 1750 and 1769. The 6 pounder bears the later date of 1813 but has the earlier cypher of King Louis XV (two ‘Ls, one reversed, surmounted by a crown) on the breech. This seems to suggest that it, like the other two, had been re-proofed and issued by the revolutionary French army. The two 12 pounders were certainly made according to the Gribeauval system – a system introduced under Lt Gen Jean Baptiste Gribeauval during the 18th Century which revolutionised French cannon. It
standardised the types of guns and reduced the decorative embellishments, producing lighter guns without sacri cing range. The 6 pounder is also probably made under the Gribeauval sys- tem, but its date of 1813 may indicate that it was incorporated (and so re-proofed) into the ‘Year XI’ system, that is, the 11th year of the French Republic, or 1803. The ‘Year XI’ system was essentially a revision of the Gribeauval system.
The most noticeable inscriptions on the 12 pounders, from when they were re-proofed, are the French republican slogans of ‘égalité’ and ‘liberté’ (equality and freedom), which, with ‘fra- ternité’, are a part of the national motto of the Republic of France. However, ‘fraternité’ was not in common use at the date of the guns’ use. The gun, founded in 1769, also bears an inscription near the cascabel which translates as ‘The Sec- ond Year of the Republic’.
The guns are notable in that they all have bracket trail carriages – that is the ‘tail’ of the carriage consists of two large vertical pieces of timber running continuously down from the cheeks either side of the barrel and are joined at the end by a horizontal board. The larger 12 pounder would have created an amount of recoil which the sturdy bracket trail would have had the ability to withstand. It is unclear when these guns came to the Royal Military College, but photographs
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