2. Different sorts of artillery: Artillery of an Army; Artillery of an Army Corps; Artillery of a Division; Trench artillery “Tanks,” or artillery of assault. 3. Mission and use of the artillery during a battle. 4. Anti-aircraft artillery. 5. Advance or withdrawal of the batteries. 6. Conclusion. =1. Retrospective view.= _General considerations._ In the French army long before the war, several clear-headed and well-informed men had foreseen the necessity of having a large, heavy field artillery, similar to that of Germany. To recall General Pétain’s motto: “The artillery conquers the positions, the infantry occupies them”--this simple axiomatic statement obviously compels the inference that an army shall possess an artillery able to bombard efficiently every species of fortification. Unfortunately few people in the Government or parliamentary spheres could be brought to consider the possibility of a war; so this question of a heavy artillery, although continually agitated in those circles, remained unsolved. In 1914, the immense majority of the French nation, including not only the politicians but also a great many army officers, scoffed at the possibility of a war with Germany. The Moroccan imbroglio, the war in the Balkans, and the Austrian policy of conquest were not sufficient warning for them. That France’s military preparation was entirely inadequate, and that this was due solely to the lethargy of the national mind, is generally admitted to-day. During the first year of the war, not only were we hopelessly outclassed in heavy artillery, but at Lille, Maubeuge, and La Fère the Germans captured a goodly number of our heavy guns with their munitions, and turned them against us. Fortunately we are able to assert that they used them with very little advantage to themselves. Only a few heavy-artillery regiments existed before the war. Their armament included few quick-firing 155 mm. Rimailho guns, which, though rapid in action, were too short in range. Other batteries were armed with 120 and 155 mm. siege guns; good types, but too small in calibre, and too slow in action. Moreover all these guns were placed at the disposal of armies which, at the beginning of the conflict, considered them as a reserve stock and kept them too far from the battle-fields of August and September, 1914. The impossibility of following up the victory of the Marne gradually opened the eyes of the Government to the need of a very large, heavy artillery, but this necessity was frankly admitted only in the autumn of 1915, and then largely under the influence of the example given by our British Allies. They had much more quickly comprehended that no victory would be possible unless supremacy in artillery was achieved, and, with their usual cold determination, had turned all the resources at their disposal to the manufacture of every kind of gun, and mountains of ammunition. France followed the example.