We have seen how the development of field ordnance stimulated the development of the rifle. In turn the attainment of superior range and accuracy by rifled small arms led directly to a corresponding development of field ordnance, designed to recover the loss of its ascendancy. In France, where the logical consequences of the progress in small arms were officially noted on several occasions, Napoleon III, himself an authority on artillery, took the initiative to restore field ordnance to its former relative position. It was in the Crimean War that the enhanced effects of rifle regiments were first seriously felt. Convinced by the protraction of the operations before Sebastopol of the inadequacy of smooth-bore guns, the Emperor caused bronze pieces to be rifled, and these, being sent to Algeria on active service, gave conclusive proof of their increased efficiency. On report of which, all the bronze field pieces in the French army were rifled in accordance with the plans which a M. Treuille de Beaulieu had submitted in 1842, viz. with six shallow rounded grooves in which engaged zinc studs carried on two bands formed on the cylindrical projectile. The gain in power obtained by rifling ordnance was greater even than that obtained from rifling as applied to small arms. For not only did rifling confer the advantages of a more massive projectile more suitably shaped for flight through a resisting medium, but it allowed a large increase in the number of balls which could be discharged in the form of case or shrapnel, and a large increase in the powder-charge which could be carried inside a common shell. An advantage was also gained in respect of that important detail, the fusee or fuze; the rotation of the projectile about a definite axis made it possible to use fuses whose action depended on one definite part of the projectile coming first in contact with the ground or target.[124] All these advantages were found to be present in the French field pieces when rifled on the above plan. “And thus,” said an English writer, “at slight expense but too late for use in the Crimean War, France was put in possession of an artillery which, consuming its usual powder and using either round ball or elongated projectiles, proved of immense value in the war against Austria in 1856, when, at Magenta and at Solferino, the case shot from their rifled field-pieces ploughed through the distant masses of opposing infantry and decimated the cavalry as they formed for the attack.”[125] In England an almost simultaneous development took place, but on entirely different lines. Let us tell it in the words of Sir Emerson Tennant: