The gunner, on his part, admires the infantry with an admiration no less deep because it is hidden. Of course, he lacks soul, thinks the gunner, he has no imagination to see that yesterday's bombardment of the enemy's trench, although it _did_ send a few splinters whizzing into his own, must have a subtle and profound bearing upon the issue of the war entirely outweighing any temporary inconvenience it may have caused him. Besides, he is an incurable marauder, nothing that can be made to burn in a bucket fire is safe for an unguarded moment. Lastly, he _will_ clamour for vengeance upon an offending _Minenwerfer_ just as the light is getting too bad for observation and one's servant appears with tea. But--one can turn in and dream of home in the knowledge that he is between oneself and the enemy. It is interesting to follow the variations of German military opinion on the subject of the Allied artillery. Bernhardi, writing a year or two before the war, gives it as his opinion that the Krupp gun is slightly superior to all other weapons, as, at that time, before the perfection of the French "_soixante-quinze_," it probably was. He advocates the abandonment of shrapnel for "universal" shell, and throws doubts upon the ability of a German commander to use efficiently all the batteries at his disposal. The outbreak of war found the Allies, as regards "field" artillery, that is to say mobile ordnance throwing a shell of from fifteen to twenty pounds, in the possession of superior weapons in slightly inferior numbers. As regards "heavy" artillery, grouping under that heading all natures of ordnance heavier than a field gun, to every twenty pieces brought into action by the enemy we possibly had one. It will probably be the verdict of history that the rapidity of the hostile advance up to the Marne, and the ability of the enemy to establish himself, practically unmolested, upon a strong defensive line, were due entirely to this fact. Documents captured lately, however, have revealed that the higher German artillery advisers consider that, weapon for weapon, our guns have a slight superiority, and in numbers available upon the Western front a distinct preponderance. They also impress upon battery commanders the need of study of our method of concealment and observation, as being in many ways preferable to their own.