Officers and Soldiers of French

Artillery, 1786-1815

In the Middle Ages, the term « Artillery » meant « all the machines that an Army makes use of » . The Artillery Corps of the time was therefore made up of officers whose job it was to create, use and maintain these machines.

It is necessary to wait for several centuries and many vicissitudes, so that the artillery is finally endowed with an effective organization it is the work of Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval.

This was the organisation of M. Gribeauval, the Inspector of Artillery, set up slowly over nearly thirty years and which remained more or less as it was until 1825 and which is the object of these two volumes.