out
a 13.6-inch naval gun. But the master gun, the very latest product of
French brains and French foundries, is the huge 520-millimetre
(20.8-inch) howitzer which has just been completed at the Schneider
works at Creusot. This, the largest gun in existence, has a length of
16 calibers (that is, sixteen times its bore, or approximately 28
feet), and weighs 60 tons. It fires a shell 7 feet long, weighing
nearly 3,000 pounds, and carrying a bursting charge of 660 pounds of
high explosive. Its range is 18 kilometres, or a little over eleven
miles, though this can probably be increased if desired. This is
France's answer to the German 42's, and, just as the latter shattered
the forts of Liege, Antwerp, and Namur, so these new French titans
will, it is confidently believed, humble the pride of Metz and
Strasbourg.

So insistent has been the demand from the front for big guns, and yet
more big guns, that new batteries are being formed every day.
Generally speaking, the French plan is to assign short-range howitzers
and mortars to the division; the longer range, horse-drawn
guns--_hippomobile_ the French designate them--to the army corps;
while the tractor-drawn pieces and those mounted on railway-carriages
are placed directly under the orders of the chief of artillery of each
army.

A new, and in many respects one of the most effective weapons produced
by the war is the trench mortar. These light and mobile weapons, of
which the French have at least four calibers, ranging from
58-millimetres to 340-millimetres, are under the direction of the
artillery, and should not be confused with the various types of
bomb-throwers, which are operated by the infantry. The latest
development in trench weapons is the Van Deuren mortar, which takes
its name from the Belgian officer who is its inventor. Its chief
peculiarity lies in the fact that its barrel consists of a solid core
instead of a hollow tube like all other guns. Attached to the base of
the shell is a hollow winged shaft which fits over the core of the
gun, the desired range being obtained by varying the length of the
powder-chamber: that is, the distance between the end of the barrel
and the base of the shell proper. The gun is fired at a fixed
elevation, and is so small and light that it can readily be moved and
set up by a couple of men in a few minutes. In no branch of the
artillery has such advancement been made as in the trench mortars,
which have now attained almost as