If there is any single moment in the history of warfare at which an authentic sense of awe at the exponential power of gunpowder could be palpably felt, it is here in the accounts of the firing of the great guns in the spring of 1453. The taper ignited the powder: And when it had caught fire, faster than you can say it, there was first a terrifying roar and a violent shaking of the ground beneath and for a great distance around, and a din such as has never been heard. Then with a monstrous thundering and an awful explosion and a flame that illuminated everything round about and scorched it,
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