Artillery, Light and Heavy: Sardinia-Piedmont and Sweden in the Nineteenth Century

The artillery revolution of the nineteenth century came about partly through collaboration between southern and northern Europe. Their outlooks were quite different. In the south, the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont needed to go on the offensive beyond its borders to achieve its aim of creating a united Italy. In the north Sweden had the defensive aim of protecting its borders against an invading enemy. This situation called for two different kinds of artillery—light and movable in the south; heavy and powerful in the north. How the two countries, in spite of their different outlooks, came to be involved in a joint development of path-breaking artillery technology is the subject of this article.