The disaster which overtook Trautmann’s Battery at St. Hubert, during the battle of Gravelotte, demonstrates how difficult it is to unlimber on open ground when under effective infantry and artillery fire; but, if five limbers with their teams had not stampeded, perhaps it might have been possible after a while, for the battery to reopen fire. Hasse’s Battery, also at St. Hubert, was rendered incapable of moving in a short time, but, in spite of the greatest difficulties, managed to continue its fire for about two hours, though with only a part of the guns. Gnügge’s Battery managed to unlimber under cover of a garden wall at St. Hubert and to maintain itself there under enfilading infantry fire till the end of the battle. Trautmann’s Battery lost 17 men and 37 horses; Hasse’s Battery, 38 men and 77 horses; and Gnügge’s Battery, 15 men and 40 horses.[323] [323] HOFFBAUER, _Deutsche Artillerie_, III, p. 227. Unlimbering under uninterrupted hostile fire at short range will always produce conditions similar to those in Trautmann’s Battery, and in the two British batteries of Colonel Long at Colenso.[324] These two batteries did not cease firing because they had suffered too heavily, but only because they had expended all their limber ammunition and the caissons were unable to come up. It was impossible for these batteries to limber up under the hostile fire. It was likewise impossible to destroy a battery, though without protecting shields, even when great quantities of ammunition were expended. [324] _Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften_, 32, p. 43. At the battle of Beaumont, the artillery of the 7th Infantry Division suffered heavy losses. “Although the first caisson sections were up and the men with them were detailed to assist in working the guns, the gun squads in both batteries had dwindled down to 2 or 3 men each by 1 P. M., _i.e._, within half an hour.” Immediately after the French attack had been repulsed, one of these batteries was able to accompany the advancing infantry, however, while the other (the 4th Light Battery) could not move its guns until an hour later, as it had lost 29 men and 34 horses.[325] This example proves again that when artillery has once managed to go into position and to open fire, it cannot be annihilated by infantry alone, and therefore need not fear to take up a more than temporary position in the first line. [325] HOFFBAUER, _Deutsche Artillerie_, 8, pp. 44 and 210. HOPFFGARTEN-HEIDLER, _Beaumont_, p. 40.