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Then came the metals, bronze to begin with and later iron. The
nitrogenous era in warfare began when Friar Roger Bacon or Friar
Schwartz--whichever it was--ground together in his mortar saltpeter,
charcoal and sulfur. The Chinese, to be sure, had invented gunpowder
long before, but they--poor innocents--did not know of anything worse to
do with it than to make it into fire-crackers. With the introduction of
"villainous saltpeter" war ceased to be the vocation of the nobleman and
since the nobleman had no other vocation he began to become extinct. A
bullet fired from a mile away is no respecter of persons. It is just as
likely to kill a knight as a peasant, and a brave man as a coward. You
cannot fence with a cannon ball nor overawe it with a plumed hat. The
only thing you can do is to hide and shoot back. Now you cannot hide if
you send up a column of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night--the
most conspicuous of signals--every time you shoot. So the next step was
the invention of a smokeless powder.


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