Part 46

=Guatemala.= A republic in Central America, declared independent March 21, 1847. A war between Guatemala and San Salvador broke out in January, 1863, and on June 16 the troops of the latter were totally defeated.

=Guatuso Indians.= A tribe of aborigines living on the Rio Frio, in Central America. They are said to be a brave and warlike race.

=Gubbio= (anc. _Iguvium_). A city of Central Italy, 27 miles south of Urbino, on the southern declivity of the Apennines. It bore a conspicuous part in the beginning of the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey, when it was occupied by the prætor Minucius Thermus with five cohorts; but on the approach of Curio with three cohorts, Thermus, who was apprehensive of a revolt of the citizens, abandoned the town without resistance.

=Gudda.= An Indian term for a fool; also a small fort erected upon a hill or eminence.

=Guelphs and Ghibellines.= Names given to the papal and imperial factions who destroyed the peace of Italy from the 12th to the end of the 15th century (the invasion of Charles VIII. of France in 1495). The origin of the names is ascribed to the contest for the imperial crown between Conrad of Hohenstaufen, duke of Swabia, lord of Wiblingen (hence _Ghibelin_), and Henry, nephew of Wolf, or Guelf, duke of Bavaria, in 1138. The former was successful; but the popes and several Italian cities took the side of his rival. _Hie Guelf_ and _Hie Ghibelin_ are said to have been used as war-cries in 1140, at the battle before Weinsberg, in Würtemberg, when Guelf of Bavaria was defeated by the emperor Conrad IV., who came to help the rival duke, Leopold. The Ghibellines were almost totally expelled from Italy in 1267, when Conrad, the last of the Hohenstaufens, was beheaded by Charles of Anjou. Guelph is the name of the present royal family of England.

=Guelphs, Order of.= An order of knighthood for Hanover, instituted by George IV., when regent, on August 12, 1815. It is both a military and civil order, unlimited in number, and consisted originally of three classes,--Knights Grand Cross, Commanders, and Knights; but in 1841 another class of simple members was added to the order.

=Guerite= (_Fr._). A sentry-box, small turret. In fortified towns there are several small turrets of this denomination, which are sometimes made of wood, and sometimes built with stones. They are generally fixed to the acute points of bastions, and sentinels are posted within them for the purpose of watching the ditch, and of preventing any surprise in that quarter.

=Guerre= (_Fr._). War; warfare; art of war; dissension; strife. _En guerre_, at war; in action; ready for action; a piece of ordnance unlimbered, trunnions shifted, and everything made ready for firing.

=Guerrillas= (Sp. _guérra_, “war”). The name given to armed bands, who on occasion of foreign invasion or civil wars, carry on an irregular warfare on their own account. The name was first applied in Spain to irregular soldiery. From 1808 to 1814 they were regularly organized against the French, and being favored by the character of the country which they fought in, were successful on many occasions. In our late civil war many bands were organized in the Border States, and were a great annoyance to both armies. If guerrillas are taken captive in open warfare, they should be treated according to the usual customs of war, unless they are known to have been guilty of acts not tolerated in civilized warfare. In the Franco-German war, however, we find that the Germans refused to recognize as soldiers, or extend the privileges of war, to the _francs-tireurs_, a body of French volunteer sharpshooters, who, to a great extent, adopted this system of guerrilla warfare.

=Guerrillero= (_Sp._). An irregular soldier; a member of a guerrilla band or party; a partisan.

=Guet= (_Fr._). This term was particularly attached to those persons belonging to the French body-guard, who did duty during the night. It also signified rounds, or those duties of a soldier, or patroling party, which are prescribed for the security of a town, etc., and to prevent surprises. It is also used in a military sense in conjunction with other words; as _guet à pied_, foot patrol; _guet à cheval_, horse patrol, etc.

=Gueux= (_Fr._). “Beggars.” A name applied by the Count of Barlaimont in 1566 to the confederated nobles and others of the Low Countries who opposed the tyrannies of Philip II. The malcontents at once adopted the title, and calling themselves _gueux_, for many years opposed the Spanish king by sea and land with varying success.

=Guichet= (_Fr._). A small door or outlet, which is made in the gates of fortified towns. It is generally 4 feet high, and 2 broad, so that a man must stoop to get through. In garrison towns the guichet was left open for the space of one-quarter of an hour after the retreat, in order to give the inhabitants time to enter.

=Guides.= Generally the country people in the neighborhood where an army encamps. They give intelligence concerning the country, and the roads by which the enemy may approach. In time of war, particularly in the seat of it, the guides invariably accompany headquarters. Of late years it has been customary to form them into regular corps with proper officers at their head.

=Guides.= The name given to the non-commissioned officers, or other enlisted men, who take positions to mark the pivots, marches, formations, and alignments in modern discipline; the French call them _jaloneurs_, from _jalon_, a post.

=Guides, Corps des= (_Fr._). The corps of guides. This body was originally formed in France in 1756, and consisted of 1 captain, 1 first lieutenant, 2 second lieutenants, 2 sergeants, 2 corporals, 1 anspessade, and 20 privates, called _fusiliers-guides_. Another corps of guides was also formed in 1796. This corps now forms part of the imperial guard.

=Guidon.= A small flag or streamer, as that carried by cavalry, which is broad at one end, nearly pointed at the other, and usually of silk; or that used to direct the movements of infantry, or to make signals at sea. In the U. S. service, each company of cavalry has a guidon.

=Guidon.= One who carries a flag. Also, one of a community of guides established at Rome by Charlemagne to accompany pilgrims to the Holy Land.

=Guienne=, or =Guyenne=. An old province in the southwest of France, lying to the north of Gascony. It was part of the dominions of Henry II. Philip of France seized it in 1293, which led to war. It was alternately held by England and France till 1453, when John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, in vain attempted to take it from the latter.

=Guilford Court-house= was situated about 5 miles northwest of Greensboro’, N. C. Here an engagement took place between the British troops under Cornwallis, and the American forces, chiefly composed of inexperienced militia, under Gen. Greene, on March 15, 1781. The fight resulted in a partial victory for the royal troops, owing principally to the disorganization and flight of the North Carolina militia. Gen. Greene, not wishing to risk the annihilation of his army, retreated to Speedwell’s iron-works, 10 miles distant. Cornwallis, however, did not attempt to pursue him, but fell back himself to Cross Creek (Fayetteville).

=Guillotine.= The instrument of decapitation introduced during the French revolution by the Convention, and named after its supposed inventor, J. I. Guillotin. It is composed of two upright posts, grooved on the inside, and connected on the top by a cross-beam. In these grooves a sharp iron blade, placed obliquely, descends by its own weight on the neck of the victim, who is bound to a board laid below. The invention of machines of this kind is ascribed to the Persians. In Italy, from the 13th century, it was the privilege of the nobles to be put to death by a machine of this kind, which was called _mannaia_. Machines of similar kind were used in Scotland and Holland for the purpose of decapitation.

=Guinegate, Battle of.= Or more familiarly, the “Battle of the Spurs,” was fought at Guinegate, not far from Tournai, in the province of Hainault, August 16, 1513, between the English under Henry VIII., assisted by a considerable body of troops headed by the emperor Maximilian, and the French under the Duc de Longueville. The latter were defeated. The battle received its familiar designation from the circumstance of the French knights having made better use of their _spurs_ than of their _swords_.

=Guisarme=, or =Gisarme= (_Fr._). An offensive weapon formerly used in France; it was a two-edged axe mounted upon a long handle, and sometimes called _voulque_. There were three kinds; the _glaive gisarme_ had a sabre-blade with a spike, the _bill gisarme_ a blade like a hedging-bill, and the _hand gisarme_ was a kind of bill with a serrated back.

=Guisarmiers= (_Fr._). Were French foot-soldiers (_piétons_) of the free archers, armed with the guisarme.

=Gujerat=, or =Guzerat=. A walled town of the Punjab, on the right side of the Chenab, about 8 miles from the stream. It is a place of some military importance, being on the great route between Attock and Lahore. Here on February 21, 1849, a Sikh army of 60,000 men was utterly defeated by a British force decidedly inferior in point of numbers.

=Gules.= The term by which the color red is known in heraldry. In engraving it is marked by perpendicular lines traced from the top of the shield to the bottom. It is supposed to indicate valor, magnanimity, and the like, and is regarded as the most honorable heraldic color.

=Gun.= In its most general sense, a gun is a machine, having the general shape of a hollow cylinder closed at one end, and used for the purpose of projecting heavy bodies to great distances by means of gunpowder. Technically, it is a heavy cannon, distinguished by its great weight, length, and absence of a chamber. It is used for throwing projectiles with large charges of powder to long distances, with great accuracy and penetration. Guns came into use in the 14th century, and were first fired from supports, and in reality were artillery. Shortly after, they took the form of a clumsy hand-gun, called an arquebuse, which was portable, but discharged from a forked rest. The next modification, which came into use about the end of the 14th century, was called the matchlock. The piece was discharged by a lighted match brought down on the powder-pan by the action of a trigger. This was superseded in 1517 by the wheel-lock, the fire being produced by the action of a toothed wheel upon flint or iron pyrites. Almost contemporary with this was the snaphance gun, in which sparks were generated by the concussion of flint on the ribbed top of the powder-pan. About the middle of the 17th century the flint-lock began to be employed. This was a combination of the two latter weapons, but much superior to either. It continued universally in use until the early part of the present century, when the percussion-lock was invented, which by 1840 (the time of its adoption by the British government), had completely superseded it. As the lock improved, and the rapidity of firing increased, the weight of the piece diminished; the old tripod first used as a rest gave way to one stake, and finally, in the 18th century, was abandoned altogether. The weapon was then the smooth-bore musket, which continued in use with various modifications until the middle of the 19th century, when it was partially superseded by the rifle. (See SMALL-ARMS.) In their earlier stages cannon went by various names, as bombards, culverins, petronels, and later on were reduced to the three denominations, technically, of guns, howitzers, and mortars. For the two latter, see HOWITZER and MORTAR. Guns are subdivided in the U. S. service according to their use, into field, siege, and sea-coast guns. The field-guns consist of two rifle pieces; the 3-inch rifle, adopted in 1861, and the 3¹⁄₂-inch rifle, adopted in 1870 (see ORDNANCE, CONSTRUCTION OF), and the Napoleon gun, a 12-pounder smooth-bore, adopted in 1857. (See NAPOLEON GUN.) The only siege gun adopted by the United States is a 4¹⁄₂-inch rifle. The 30-pounder Parrott, so extensively employed in our service for siege purposes, is not a regulation gun. The sea-coast guns consist of 13-, 15-, and 20-inch smooth-bores, and 10- and 12-inch rifles. An 8-inch rifle has been constructed by converting the 10-inch smooth-bore according to the Palliser or Parsons method. The 13-inch smooth-bore and the 10- and 12-inch rifles are regarded as experimental guns. The guns principally in use for the land and sea forces of the United States are those known as the Columbiad, or Rodman, Dahlgren, Gatling, Hotchkiss, Napoleon, Parrott. (For particular descriptions, see appropriate headings.) In the British service they are the Armstrong, Palliser, Woolwich, or Fraser, and the Lancaster, Mackay, and Whitworth; the three latter being now very little used. (See appropriate headings.) The only breech-loader in general use in Europe is the Krupp, which is largely employed for all purposes by Germany and Russia. See KRUPP GUN.

=Gun, Curricle.= Is a small piece of ordnance, mounted upon a carriage of two wheels, and drawn by two horses. The artilleryman is seated on a box, and the whole can be moved forward into action with astonishing rapidity. The tumbrils belonging to curricle guns carry 60 rounds of ball cartridges. This gun is no longer in general use.

=Gun Factories, Royal.= Are government establishments in England, at Woolwich, and Elswick, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, for the construction of great guns for the use of the British army and navy.

=Gun-barrel.= The barrel or tube of a gun. Gun-barrels were formerly made on the coiled principle, and this method is still largely followed in thin barrels like those of shot-guns. The superior kinds of shot-gun barrels are known as _stub_, _stub-twist_, _wire-twist_, _laminated_, etc.

_Stub-iron_ is made from horseshoe nails cleaned by tumbling and mixed with a small proportion of steel scrap. It is then puddled and put through various processes, which end in the production of a flat bar called a _skelp_.

_Twist_ is the term applied to _coiled barrels_. The iron or steel is made into a ribbon, which is wound spirally around a mandrel and welded.

_Stub-twist_ is stub-iron coiled.

_Wire-twist_ is made by welding iron and steel bars together, or two qualities of iron, and drawing the compound bar into a ribbon, which is coiled as before described. The term is specially applied to coiled barrels made from small ribbons.

_Damascus iron_ is made by twisting compound bars of steel and iron, welding several of the twisted bars together and forming a ribbon from the mass.

_Laminated_ is the term applied to barrels made from compound bars.

In twist-barrels, the ribbon is several yards long, about half an inch wide, and thicker at the breech than at the muzzle end. It is heated to redness, wound on the mandrel, then removed and heated to the welding-point slipped over a rod with a shoulder at the lower end. The rod is then dropped vertically several times on a block of metal, which welds the spiral edges together. This is called _jumping_. The welding is completed by hammering.

Rifle-barrels and the cheaper kinds of shot-gun barrels are made directly from the _skelp_, which is passed between rollers, which first bend the plate longitudinally and afterwards convert it into a tube. The tube is then heated to a welding heat, a mandrel is pushed into it, and it is passed through the welding rolls, which weld the edges and at the same time taper and lengthen the tube. The boring and turning are done in lathes.

=Gun-carriage.= See CARRIAGE.

=Gun-carriage, Barbette.= See BARBETTE CARRIAGE.

=Gun-carriage, Field.= See FIELD-CARRIAGE.

=Gun-carriage, Flank Casemate.= See FLANK CASEMATE CARRIAGE.

=Gun-carriage, Mountain.= See ORDNANCE, CARRIAGES FOR.

=Gun-carriage, Prairie.= See ORDNANCE, CARRIAGES FOR.

=Gun-carriage, Sea-coast.= See ORDNANCE, CARRIAGES FOR.

=Gun-carriage, Siege.= See ORDNANCE, CARRIAGES FOR.

=Gun-cotton=, or =Pyroxyle=. Gun-cotton was discovered by Schönbein in 1846, and was first made by treating ordinary cotton with a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids. The product resembles ordinary cotton in appearance, but in color is slightly tinged with yellow, and is very much heavier. It explodes with great violence, but is unfit for most military purposes on account of its liability to spontaneous explosion, its corroding residue, and the irregular character of its explosion. Baron von Lenk, of the Austrian service, however, succeeded to some extent in regulating the suddenness of the explosion by twisting it into ropes, and weaving it into cloth, but it never came much into favor for military purposes. As first made, the length of time necessary for its manufacture was about two or three months, but Mr. Abel, of the British war office, has by a series of experiments materially decreased the time necessary for its manufacture, and greatly increased the safety and certainty of the product. At Favesham the manufacture of a peculiar kind of gun-cotton, known as _tonite_, is conducted on a large scale. The process consists in intimately mixing the ordinary gun-cotton with about an equal weight of nitrate of baryta. This compound is then compressed into candle-shaped cartridges, formed with a recess at one end for the reception of a fulminate of mercury detonator. It contrasts favorably with soft, plastic dynamite from the fact of its being easily fastened to the safety-fuze. Among its advantages, said to be due to the use of the nitrate, are that it contains a great amount of oxygen in a very small volume, and that it is very ready under the detonator, while its great density makes it slow to the influence of ordinary combustion. It is 30 per cent. stronger than ordinary gun-cotton, and takes up but two-thirds of its space, or the same space as dynamite. The cartridges are generally made water-proof. The projectile force of gun-cotton, when used with moderate charges, is equal to about twice its weight of the best gunpowder. Its explosive force is in a high degree greater than that of gunpowder, and in this respect its nature assimilates much more to the fulminates than to gunpowder. It evolves little or no smoke, as the principal residue of its combustion is water and nitrous acid. Recently, by the mixture of nitre and cane-sugar its quickness in action has been reduced so as to make it available for use in small-arms. The nitrous acid, however, will soon corrode the barrel if the piece is not carefully wiped after firing. Other explosive substances analogous to gun-cotton may be prepared from many organic bodies of the cellulose kind, by immersing them in the same bath as for gun-cotton; among these may be mentioned paper, tow, sawdust, calico, and wood fibre.

=Gundermuk.= A village of Afghanistan, 28 miles west from Jellalabad. Here the remnant of the British force, consisting of 100 soldiers and 300 camp-followers, were massacred in 1842, while retreating from Cabul (Cabool), only one man escaping.

=Gun-fire.= The hour at which the morning or evening gun is fired.

=Gun-lift.= The gun-lift recently devised by Col. Laidley, of the U. S. Ordnance Corps, is a most complete and rapid means for moving and dismounting heavy guns. In it the hydraulic jack is placed upon a stand over the gun, whereby the building-up of the crib-work of blocks, which serves as a base for the jack to stand on, is dispensed with, and the position of the jack has not to be changed during the operation of raising or lowering a gun. The ordinary carpenter’s horse or trestle is taken as the basis of the _hoisting_ apparatus. The cap of the trestle, having to sustain the weight of the gun suspended at a distance of more than 2 feet from the points of support, is a large, strong, and heavy piece of timber, and the legs of the trestle have to be strongly braced. The bolster, a strong piece of oak on top of the cap of the trestle, has two mortices cut in it, one for a hoisting-bar _to pass through_, and the other for the fulcrum-post to _rest in_. The fulcrum-post has a recess cut on the top to receive the end of a lever and keep it in place. The lever has a mortice through which the hoisting-bar, already mentioned, passes; the latter is perforated with a series of holes through which a pin passes, by which the end of the lever, under which the hydraulic jack works, can be fastened to the hoisting-bar. The hoisting-bar has a hook on its lower end to which the weight to be raised is fastened by means of a sling.

=Gun-metal.= An alloy of nine parts of copper and one part of tin, used for brass cannon, etc. (See BRONZE). The name is also given to certain strong mixtures of cast iron.

=Gunner.= A soldier employed to manage and discharge great guns; an artilleryman. In the U. S. service there is with each piece a gunner, who gives all the executive commands in action. He is answerable that the men at the piece perform their duties correctly.

=Gunner’s Calipers.= Are made of sheet-brass, with steel points. The graduations show diameters of guns, shot, etc.

=Gunner’s Elevating Arc.= See ELEVATING ARC.

=Gunner’s Level=, or =Gunner’s Perpendicular=. Is an instrument made of sheet-brass; the lower part is cut in the form of a crescent, the points of which are made of steel; a small spirit-level is fastened to one side of the plate, parallel to the line joining the points of the crescent, and a slider is fastened to the same side of the plate, perpendicular to the axis of the piece. This instrument is used to mark the points of sight on pieces. By means of the bubble the feet or points of the crescent are placed on a horizontal line on the base-ring or base-line, the slider pushed down until the point rests on the base-ring or line, and its position marked with chalk.

=Gunner’s Pincers.= Are made of iron with steel jaws, which have on the end of one a claw for drawing nails, etc.

=Gunner’s Plummet.= A simple line and bob for pointing mortars.

=Gunner’s Quadrant.= Is a graduated quarter of a circle of sheet-brass of 6 inches radius, attached to a brass rule 22 inches long. It has an arm carrying a spirit-level at its middle and a vernier at its movable end. To get a required elevation, the vernier is fixed at the indicated degree, the brass rule is then inserted in the bore parallel to the axis of the piece; the gun is then elevated or depressed until the level is horizontal. There is also a graduated quadrant of wood, of 6 inches radius, attached to a rule 23.5 inches long. It has a plumb-line and bob, which are carried, when not in use, in a hole in the end of the rule, covered by a brass plate.