Page:Pyrotechnics the history and art of firework making (1922).djvu/248

 of the description without assuming a knowledge of compositions which at the time did not exist.

From the period of Greek fire onward military and recreative pyrotechny appear to have marched side by side.

As we have seen, the progress in the latter branch was extremely slow, so with the former, and it was not until the introduction of modern or comparatively modern methods that real progress commenced.

With the progress came divergence, the introduction of the rifled bore in artillery, and of nitro compounds and high explosives whose dynamic force exceeds many times that of gunpowder, which however useful they might be to the artillerist, were of little value to the recreative pyrotechnist. It was not until the great war that the resources of pyrotechny were fully realised and utilised by the military. It is curious to note that just as the tactics and methods of warfare eventually adopted—although on an unprecedentedly large scale—were in a great measure those of centuries before, so military pyrotechny returned to ideas just as antiquated. With the advantages of modern science, and by the assistance of knowledge gained in the development of recreative pyrotechny, the progress made in a month or so in military pyrotechny during the war may, without exaggerating, be said to have exceeded that of previous centuries.

Speaking generally, the use of pyrotechny in warfare, or indeed any science, has two objectives, the first to destroy or embarrass the troops of the enemy, and secondly, to assist one's own.

Until the late war it was the first of these which received by far the greater attention, and it is but natural that the introduction of the modern methods mentioned above should have provided means which left pyrotechnics far behind. In the second division, however, pyrotechny triumphed.