Field Artillery – “The Dark Art of Warfare”: Appreciated Support, Despised Killing Machine

Go to to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Artillery was a touchy subject in the late medieval and the early modern period. For example, captured enemy master gunners were frequently made a human cannonball. Friendly artillerymen, in contrast, were usually appreciated for their destructive capabilities but not trusted completely. Their craft of killing and destroying at a distance was incomprehensible to the other soldiers and considered by many to be a dark art. So, without further ado let’s look at what this dark art looked like in practice and what the position of artillery was within early modern armies. Patreon (thank you): Paypal (thank you: Twitter: Bibliography: Fiedler, S., Kriegswesen und Kriegsführung im Zeitalter der Landsknechte, Koblenz 1985. Van Nimwegen, O., Th