Since the earliest ages men have made war on one another, and we have a great crowd of words, new and old, connected with war. Some of these are very simple words, especially the names of early weapons; some are more elaborate and more interesting in their derivation. The chief of all weapons, the sword, has its simple name from the Old English language itself, and so has the spear. But it was after the Norman conquest of England that war became more elaborate, with armoured knights and fortified towers, and nearly all the names connected with war of this sort come to us from the French of that time. The word _war_ itself comes from the Old French word _werre_. _Battle_, too, comes from the French of this time; and so do _armour_, _arms_, _fortress_, _siege_, _conquer_, _pursue_, _tower_, _banner_, and many other words. All of these words came into French originally from Latin. _Knight_, however, is an Old English word. The French word for knight, _chevalier_, never passed into English, but from it we got the word _chivalry_. The great weapons of modern warfare are the gun and the bayonet. There are, of course, many kinds of guns, small and large. Formerly it was the fashion to call the big guns by the name of _cannon_, but in the great European war this word has hardly been used at all. They are all "guns," from the rifles carried by the foot soldiers to the Maxims and the great howitzers which each require a company of men to serve them. The word _cannon_ comes from the French _canon_, and is sometimes spelt in this way in English too. It means "great tube." The derivation of the word _gun_ is more interesting. Gunpowder was not really discovered until the fifteenth century, but long before this a kind of machine, or gun, for hurling great stones, or sometimes arrows, had been used. These instruments were called by the Latin word _ballista_ (for the Romans had also had machines of this sort), which comes from the Greek word _ballo_, meaning "throw." In the Middle Ages weapons of this sort were called by proper names, just as ships are now. A common name for them was the woman's name _Gunhilda_, which would be turned into _Gunna_ for short. It is probably from this that we get the word _gun_. The most interesting of all the guns used in the Great War has only a number for its name. It is the famous French '75, and takes this name merely from a measurement. The special weapon of the foot soldier, or infantryman, is the bayonet. This is a short blade which the foot soldier fixes on the muzzle of his rifle before he advances to an attack. In the trenches his weapon is the rifle; before the order is given to go "over the parapet"--that is, to climb out of the trenches, to run forward and attack the enemy at close quarters--he "fixes his bayonet." The word _bayonet_ probably comes from _Bayonne_, the name of a town in France.