Industrialization of War, 1840–84 241
Nor did the Union’s victory blight their prosperity for long. Lesser
countries of Europe and governments in distant parts, like those of
Japan and China in the Far East and Chile and Argentina in South
America, proved able and willing to purchase privately manufactured
big guns and soon began to buy the warships to carry them as well.
A global, industrialized armaments business thus emerged in the
1860s. It quite eclipsed the artisanal manufacture of arms for inter
national sale that had been centered in the Low Countries ever since
the fifteenth century. Even technically proficient government arsenals
like the French, British, and Prussian, faced persistent challenge from
private manufacturers, who were never loath to point out the ways in
which their products surpassed government-made weaponry. Com
mercial competition thus added its force to national rivalry in for
warding improvements in artillery design.
The effect was felt first and most radically in naval artillery. Giant
guns needed to puncture armor that got thicker and thicker with each
new ironclad design made the old principle of mounting rows of can
non along a warship’s sides impractical. The new guns were so pon
derous that they had to be installed amidships to assure stability.
Inboard mounting, in turn, meant that masts and sails had to go, since
otherwise the big guns could not command a free field of fire. Radical
improvements in steam engine efficiency and power made this feasible
by the 1880s. Protection from enemy fire likewise dictated the con
struction of armored turrets to house the big guns; but the turrets had
to be capable of revolving so as to bring the gun on target. Heavy
hydraulic machinery able to perform this task in turn required addi
tional steam power; and as though these complications were not
enough, electrical ignition, introduced as early as 1868, added still
another dimension to the art of naval gunfire and gunlaying. Yet in the
only European naval combat of the period, which occurred in the
Adriatic between Austria and Italy in 1866, gunfire proved indecisive.
But one warship sank after being rammed. For a generation thereafter
ramming rivaled gunfire in the esteem of naval officers as the key to
victory. Everyone assumed that sea battles would continue to be
fought as in Nelson’s day by laying close alongside. Ship design
therefore concentrated on achieving maximal power to penetrate
armor at pointblank range.^32
- Stanley Sandler, The Emergence of the Modern Capital Ship (Newark, 1979) gives a
clear, narrative of these developments; Parkes, British Battleships, “Warrior” to “Van
guard” is the standard authority for Royal Navy ships and provides very full technical
details. Brodie, Sea Power in the Machine Age offers a briefer, more incisive account.
