"Cannonade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Robert," Terence said, "but I certainly could not hope to bar the passes to a French army. I have no artillery and, though my men are steady enough against infantry, I doubt whether they would be able to withstand an attack heralded by a heavy cannonade. With a couple of batteries of artillery to sweep the passes, one might make a fair stand for a time against a greatly superior force; but with only infantry, one could not hope to maintain ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... by the cyclists for the horses to arrive was far overlapped by the time we once again took the road, but the sound of the cannonade had gradually grown closer. ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... few men have the courage to antagonize in public. Theoretically the pulpit is supposed to cannonade all sin of every variety and species, but, alas, it is usually too cowardly. The Spirit-filled man fears no one from Sandow down to Tom Thumb, from a plug-hat Bishop to ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... with the said Archbishop at Anatolico (where I went by invitation of the Primates a few days ago, and was received with a heavier cannonade than the Turks, probably,) for the second time (I had known him here before); and he and P. Mavrocordato, and the Chiefs and Primates and I, all dined together, and I thought the metropolitan the merriest of the party, and a very good Christian for all that. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... as the baroness has given it to us makes, indeed, moving reading. Once a frightful cannonade was directed against the house in which the women and the wounded had taken refuge. In the cellar of this place Madam Riedesel and her children passed the entire night. It was in this cellar, indeed, that the little family lived during the long period of waiting that ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... dreadful day. The wind and snow swept the heights of the desolate moor, seriously interfering with the running of the automobiles. Here and there, on a slope, a lorry was stuck in the slush, though the soldier passengers were out of it and doing their best to push it along. The cannonade was still so intense that, in intervals between the heavier snow-flurries, I could see the stabs of fire in the brownish sky. Wrapped in sheepskins and muffled to the ears in knitted scarves that might have come from New England, the territorials who had charge of the road were filling the ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... from Tirschenseil conveyed it. 5 Soon after sunrise did the fight begin! A troop of the Imperialists from Fachau Had forced their way into the Swedish camp; The cannonade continued full two hours; There were left dead upon the field a thousand 10 Imperialists, together with their Colonel; Further than this he did ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... outrageous uproar, the grisly scream of a siren and the cannonade of a powerful exhaust, as a great white touring-car swung round us from behind at a speed that sickened me to see, and, snorting thunder, passed us "as if we had ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... M'Wherry and Luke M'Tavish did the work at half-back, but their kicking was somewhat feeble when compared with those of the Conquerors, Tom James and Willie Keith. The Conquerors were far too anxious to score, and for some time kept up a close cannonade at their opponents' goal without effect. Bob Prentice used his hands cleverly, and, though the goal was again and again endangered, not one of the forwards on my master's side could get the ball under the tape. A fine run was made by Wild, Lucky, Grind, Short, and my master, and ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... was deafening, the little window panes were streaming; a dark, glistening shadow crept out from the bottom of the door and began to spread; the howling wind shook the very walls of the staunch cabin, while all about them roared the ear-splitting cannonade, the crash of splintered skies, the crackling of musketry, the rending and tearing of all the garments ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... On 5th inst. they made a very determined attack after exploding 2 mines and [Greek: suksaeded] for a [Greek: moment] in [Greek: almost geting] into one of our [Greek: bateries], but were eventually repulsed on all sides with heavy loss. Since the above date they have kept up a cannonade & musketry fire, occasionally throwing in a shell or two. My [Greek: waeklae loses] continue very [Greek: hevae] both in [Greek: ophisers] & [Greek: men]. I shall be quite out of [Greek: rum] for the [Greek: men] in [Greek: eit dais], but we have been [Greek: living] on [Greek: redused ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... conversation with Goliath before bringing him down), can hardly be brought within the designation. The twang of either heavy or light was but a thin contribution to the orchestra of battle compared to "the diapason of the cannonade." How much we have lost in the absence of this element of tremendous noise from the conflicts of ancient days! What a tool it would have been in Homer's hands! How trivial, to the author of the book of Job, would have seemed the noise ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... there being no firing on either side; but the next morning about 5 a.m. the Boers opened with 'Long Tom' from Pepworth Hill, and commenced a duel of some hour's duration with our naval 4.7, which was placed on Junction Hill. They also kept up a continual cannonade with their long-range twelve-pounders, but did little or no damage, as they had not yet discovered the exact location ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... the panic created by it in the American ranks, that even with this additional force, they, on the sudden appearance of the British fleet, with a small body of troops on board, after sustaining a short cannonade, continued their retreat to Fort George, leaving their tents standing, nor halting until they had gained ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the mutilated dead beneath the ruins of their dwellings. The booming of the cannon, from the distant batteries, was answered by the thunder of the guns from the citadel and the walls, and blended with all this uproar rose the uninterrupted shrieks of the wounded and the dying. The cannonade from the Prussian batteries was so destructive, that in a few days one quarter of the entire ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... been strengthened by three additional guns; the cannonade on either side went on with increased fury, and in the hideous uproar terror—a wild, unreasoning terror—filled Maurice's soul. It was his first experience of the sensation; he had not until now felt that cold ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... and right beneath the flying feet; the steady chug-chug of the tireless engines with their fireboxes seething white-hot in the effort to hold the steam to its figure on the gauge. The far shock and the dull boom of dynamiting that was like the rumor of a distant heavy cannonade. Then the men, the leagued enemies against this arch conspirator—the thousand heroisms of these men who contended without fear against unbeatable odds; the stark, cold bravery that is a thing outside of human experience save in some sublimated essence ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... "The Russian cannonade ceased after a few minutes," the Emperor resumed. "You did not remain on the surface after the first shot; you did not launch your torpedo, neither did you permit the other submarine to do so. ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... day a lively cannonade, proceeding from the castle of the lake and from Lithoritza, announced that the besieged intended a sortie. Soon Ali's Skipetars, preceded by a detachment of French, Italians, and Swiss, rushed through the Ottoman fire and carried the first redoubt, held by Ibrahim-Aga-Stamboul. They found ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... therefore greatly surprised on the morning of April 6, when he proceeded from Savannah to Pittsburg Landing, to learn the cause of a fierce cannonade. He found that the Confederate army, forty thousand strong, was making an unexpected and determined attack in force on the Union camp, whose five divisions numbered a total of about thirty-three thousand. The Union generals had made no provision against such an attack. ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... flourishes among the bits. You proceed a little further to a large, circular place, once imposing. Every house in it presents the same blighted aspect. There is no urban stir. But in the brief intervals of the deafening cannonade can be heard one sound—blinds and curtains fluttering against empty window-frames and perhaps the idle, faint banging of a loose shutter. Not even a cat walks. We are alone, we and the small group of Staff officers ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... heard, during this cruel night, the sound of the cannonade and fusillade from the direction of Borisow. Napoleon and Victor were in great anxiety; the latter thought that the measure taken, i.e., the sacrifice of his best division, of 4 thousand men who would have been of great value, had ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... to the rank of Lieut.-Colonel in the regular service. Two days after the battle, General Lee reviewed the garrison at Fort Moultrie, and thanked them "for their gallant defence of the fort against a fleet of eight men-of-war and a bomb, during a cannonade of eleven hours, and a bombardment of seven." At the same time, Mrs. Barnard Elliott presented an elegant pair of embroidered colors to the Second Regiment, with a brief address, in which she expressed her conviction that they would "stand by them as long as they can wave in the air ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... just above us, whose constant melting left them trembling on the edge of a fall. It communicated no very pleasant sensation to see above you these immense missiles hanging by a mere band, and knowing that, as soon as the sun rose, you would be exposed to a constant cannonade. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... The cannonade was growing in intensity and volume. Despite the sunset they saw an almost continuous flare of red on the horizon. The three boys felt some awe as they sat there and listened and looked. Well they might! Battle ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... read it; and I now saw that the corvette had braced up sharp to the wind again, on the same tack that we were on; so I slipped down like an eel, and once more stretched myself beside Paul, on the lee side of the cabin. We soon found that she was indeed after us in earnest, by the renewal of the cannonade, and the breezing up of the small arms again. Two round shot now tore right through the deck, just beneath the larboard coamings of the main hatchway; the little vessel's deck, as she lay over, being altogether ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... allied fleet had anchored the garrison commenced a cannonade from the mole and from a battery close to the sea upon some of the transports nearest to the shore; but their shot did not reach the vessels, and the fire soon ceased. The east wind, however, proved more troublesome than the enemy's fire, and the ships rolled heavily from the sea which came in ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... after, the cannonade commenced. These were the shots that D'Artagnan had heard as he landed in France. But the boats were too near the mole to allow the cannon to aim correctly. They landed, and the combat ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Love, with tears and joy; if Want, with his scourge; if War, with his cannonade; if Christianity, with its charity; if Trade, with its money; if Art, with its portfolios; if Science, with her telegraphs through the deeps of space and time, can set man's dull nerves throbbing, and, by loud taps on the tough chrysalis, can break its ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... just the same story to tell—monotonous, yet awful because of its tragedy. It was their fate to be along the line of death. One old fellow who came from Vailly had lived for two months in a continual cannonade. He had seen his little town taken and retaken ten times in turn by the French ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... we obtained a fine view of the Bogue forts. The old ruins still remain, mute witnesses of the completeness of our cannonade during the Chinese war. At a short distance from the old, a much stronger and more formidable structure is reared, which in the hands of Europeans would form an almost impassable barrier. In addition to the large fort, two small islands off in the river are ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... of the enemy's cannonade, the crashing of the balls against the thick walls of the Seminary, the rattle of the enemy's musketry, and the louder roar of the muskets of the defenders, blended on both sides with shouts and cheers, break out, that for a minute or two Tom ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... of guns the English marched to the attack, the troops leading the way, the guns some distance behind. A deafening cannonade was opened on us by the enemy's artillery, at a range of about 4,500 yards. Our gun fired a few shots in return, but was soon silenced, and we had to remove it from its position. Small arms were our only weapons for the ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... The cannonade continued for a full hour and then ceased abruptly. The great cloud of smoke began to lift, and the Alamo, river and town came again into the brilliant sunlight. The word passed swiftly among the defenders that their fortress was uninjured and ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 'mid rain and thunder That burst with the lull of our cannonade, We vamped the streets in the stifling air - Our hunger unsoothed, our thirst unstayed - ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... the wind was let loose among the mountains, that the old Highland people thought that their dead were about them. All night long, after Hadria returned to her room in the keep, the wind kept up its cannonade against the walls, hooting in the chimneys with derisive voices, and flinging itself, in mad revolt, against the old-established hills and the stable earth, which changed its forms only in slow obedience to the persuadings of the elements, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... been talking I had heard the cannonade in the distance—now at the north and now in the east. This seemed a proper moment, inspired by the fact that he was talking war, of his own initiative, to put a question or ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... the hussars until night, the battalion remained in the same position, skirmishing with the Prussians. We kept them from occupying the wood; but they prevented us from ascending to the ridge. The next day we knew why. The hill commanded the entire course of the Partha, and the fierce cannonade we heard came from Dombrowski's division, which was attacking the Prussian left wing, in order to aid General Marmont at Mockern, where twenty thousand French, posted in a ravine, were holding eighty thousand of Bluecher's troops in check; ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... nursing being none of the lightest. A bedroom had been prepared for him next to the boy's: Mark had a string close to his hand whose slightest pull sufficed to ring a bell, which woke the major as if it had been the opening of a cannonade. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... hurled back in crash after crash from the rocky ramparts. That thunder is the most terrible yet heard in the war. It stirs the coolest veterans. General Hancock, the composed and unexcitable soldier, is going to say of it, "Their artillery fire was most terrific...it was the most terrific cannonade I ever witnessed, and the most prolonged.... It was a most terrific and appalling cannonade, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... hollow. Indeed, already the sharp snap of those soixante-quinze had begun to punctuate the air, and shrapnel-bursts could be seen above the evergreen tree-tops upon the snow-clad slopes, and over hollows where the enemy were massing. But now, as the enemy cannonade died down a little, and that torrent of shells which had been hurtling upon the French trenches ceased a trifle, the din of the German bombardment was rendered almost noiseless, was shut out, as it were, was eclipsed, by the demoniacal rattle of those French 75's casting ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... half-past eleven a smart point-blank firing commenced on both sides, which was severely felt by the enemy. The main topsail-yard of one of the brigs was cut through, and the frigate lost her after-sails. The batteries on I'lsle d'Aix opened on the Pallas, and a cannonade continued, interrupted on our part only by the necessity we were under to make various tacks to avoid the shoals, till one o'clock, when our endeavour to gain the wind of the enemy and get between him and the batteries proved successful. An effectual ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... perceived her to be defended by a line of breakers which drew off on either hand, and marked, indeed, the nearest segment of the reef. Heavy spray hung over them like a smoke, some hundred feet into the air; and the sound of their consecutive explosions rolled like a cannonade. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a.m. and was expected to carry on for an hour or a little over, but after twelve hours of the most terrific cannonade ever experienced in this world it has not yet come to an end. Now at 5.30 an occasional shot comes from a battleship. The constant roar has made my head ache, and I am dead tired, having worked hard all day, and I must give an account of ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... Bay, to the assistance of the infantry about to be attacked by the enemy. Leaving three or four of the company to follow the carts, we started immediately at hard gallop for Virgin Bay. When we arrived there, we found that the enemy, after a trifling cannonade of the town from one of the steamers, had put back to the island again, leaving no greater damage than a shot-hole in one of the row-boats,—which still lay at Virgin Bay awaiting the bungling delay (better ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... stop you, the advance under fire becomes almost impossible. The advantage is with the defensive. This is so evident that only a madman could dispute it. What then is to be done? Halt, to shoot at random and cannonade at long range until ammunition is exhausted? Perhaps. But what is sure, is that such a state of affairs makes maneuver necessary. There is more need than ever for maneuver at a long distance in an attempt to force the enemy to shift, to quit his position. What maneuver is swifter ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... ineffectual cannonade over the river, returned to Salisbury, and, on the 7th, marched up the western bank of the Yadkin, and crossed at the Shallow Ford, near the ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... not notice a valley of covered ground and a quarter-mile stretch of trees and shrubbery, where three squads of Belgian field artillery were neatly hidden. Here the men took cover at the first sound of cannonade. Quietly in their retreat the Belgian artillery officers had figured the range and elevation of the cathedral tower, not over fifteen hundred yards away. Just as darkness was setting in and the figures in the belfry ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... All that first mirage of beauty had disappeared, and there was nothing but the monstrous shapes of bursting shells, giants of smoke that appeared one after another along the Turkish lines. All through the morning the cannonade went on. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... distant cannon. When once the sounds had been localised it was possible to examine them more carefully. There were two kinds of reports: one almost a boom, the explosion evidently of some very heavy piece of ordnance; the other only a penetrating whisper, that of ordinary field guns. A heavy cannonade was proceeding. The smaller pieces fired at brief intervals, sometimes three or four shots followed in quick succession. Every few minutes the heavier gun or guns intervened. What was happening? We could only try to guess, nor do we yet know whether ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... said Frank to his comrades the next morning, as a furious cannonade opened up that made the ground shake and filled the air ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... them—rain and wind, and the thunder a cannonade. Christopher, brought at last to the knowledge of its menace, picked Anne up in his arms, and ran for shelter. When they reached the house, they found Ridgeley there. He was stern. "It was a bad business to keep her out. She's afraid ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... time, the country was watching the garrison in Charleston Harbor. All at once the first gun of the four years' cannonade hurled its ball against the walls of Fort Sumter. There was no hamlet in the land which the reverberations of that cannon-roar did not reach. There was no valley so darkened by overshadowing hills that it did not see the American flag hauled down on the 13th of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... attack us at close quarters," he said, "or he would have ordered a further advance before this. Still I do not consider we are justified in quitting our shelter for the present, in the absence of any demonstration from Meer Jaffier. It will be better to let the cannonade go on for the rest of the day, and then try a ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... firm, round hips before the group of dancing-girls packed like poultry, in the shadow of the pillars. Gee, it only rested with herself to have as much of that as Poland! And everything reeked with love, amid the cannonade of the big drums and the clash of the cymbals, while the sudden flashes of the reflectors, moonlight-blue on one side, bright-red on the other, lit up all around her the herd of the languid Hours. But her heart swelled and ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... and right in toward the magazine. The desperate battle was now at its fiercest, raging all round this furious fire, which lit the blackness of that warm Egyptian night with devils' tongues of flame. The cannonade went on. But even the thunder of two thousand guns could not drown the roar of that seething fire, now eating into the very vitals of the ship, nearer and nearer to the magazine. Every near-by ship that could move now hauled clear as far as possible; while the rest closed portholes and hatchways, ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... cannonade in earnest on the town. The first ball that came screaming over the town to crash into the house which was the governor's headquarters was answered by a wild yell of fear, and the boastful Mr. ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... batteries were ordered to be silent, for it was well known to those in command that presently there would be a powerful attack by infantry, for which the cannonade was supposed to have paved the way with death and disorder, and it was necessary that the pieces should be kept cool in order to be in efficient condition to grapple with and suppress this attack. Sometimes a regiment, stung to ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... days after the departure of the little baroness for Versailles we heard loud firing beneath the windows of the house (we lived in the Place Vendome). Was it another revolt, another revolution? For a week nothing more was heard; there was silence. Then at the end of that week the cannonade began around Paris worse than ever. Was the war recommencing with the Prussians? Was it a ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... o'clock of the battle day when the rebel fire was hottest, the shells rolling down every street, and the bridge under the heavy cannonade, a courier dashed over, and, rushing up the steps of the house where I was, placed in my hand a crumpled, bloody piece of paper, a request from the lion-hearted old surgeon on the opposite shore, establishing his hospitals in ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... here fifteen days as plenipotentiary, signed a treaty not dishonorable to Rome; then Oudinot refused to ratify it, saying, the plenipotentiary had surpassed his powers: Lesseps runs back to Paris, and Oudinot attacks:—an affair alike infamous for the French from beginning to end. The cannonade on one side has continued day and night, (being full moon,) till this morning; they seeking to advance or take other positions, the Romans firing on them. The French throw rockets into the town: one burst in the court-yard of the hospital, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... looked like green bottle-glass ornamented with snow. It was bitterly cold here, and in Simplon the stoves were lighted; the champagne foamed, Eva's health was drunk, and, only think! at that very moment an avalanche was so gallant as to fall. That was a cannonade; a pealing among the mountains! It must have rung in Eva's ears. Ask her about it. I ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... began by battering the town. It was soon on fire in several places. Roofs and upper stories of houses fell in, and crushed the inmates. During a short time the garrison, many of whom had never before seen the effect of a cannonade, seemed to be discomposed by the crash of chimneys, and by the heaps of ruin mingled with disfigured corpses. But familiarity with danger and horror produced in a few hours the natural effect. The spirit of the people rose so high that their chiefs thought it safe to act on ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... an hour of prodigious din, the fire slackened and presently ceased altogether, it was evident that this supposition was a correct one. The morning broke bright and still, and an hour later the cannonade began again. Terence at once, after telling Herrara to form the troops up and march them down to the end of the bridge, left the camp, and after proceeding a short distance took off his uniform and donned the attire ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... Charles I. In the King's contest with his Parliament, this was the last fortress that held out for the unfortunate monarch. At Christmas 1644, Sir Thomas Fairfax laid siege to the castle, and on Jan. 19, following, after an incessant cannonade of three days, a breach was made: the brave garrison would not surrender; the besiegers mined, but the besieged counter-mined, and the work of slaughter went on till the garrison were greatly reduced. At length the Parliamentarians were attacked and repulsed by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... consternation, now made a rush for their ships. But Zerebrinow, with coolness and sagacity which no horrors could disturb, had already planted his batteries to sweep them with a storm of bullets and balls. The cannonade was instantly commenced. The missiles of death fell like hail stones into the crowded boats and upon the crowded decks. Many of the ships were sunk, others disabled, and but a few, torn and riddled, succeeded in escaping to sea, where the most ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... tried to prevent the French from crossing the river by the narrow bridge there; but the French, commanded by a general aged 27, Napoleon Bonaparte, who does not understand the art of war, rushed the fireswept bridge, supported by a tremendous cannonade in which the young general assisted with his own hands. Cannonading is his technical specialty; he has been trained in the artillery under the old regime, and made perfect in the military arts of shirking his duties, swindling the paymaster ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... two hours after midday when the enemy arrived within range, and came under our fire from Ramillies. It forced them to halt until their cannon could be brought into play, which was soon done. The cannonade lasted a good hour. At the end of that time they marched to Taviers, where a part of our army was posted, found but little resistance, and made themselves masters of that place. From that moment they brought their cavalry to bear. They perceived that there was a marsh which covered our left, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... rotted in Libby yonder, They starved in the foul stockade,— Hearing afar the thunder Of the Union cannonade! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... fired; at the same time, manoeuvres by the cavalry dispersed the groups on the boulevards. This repression was not effected without some commotion, and without that tumultuous uproar peculiar to collisions between the army and the people. This was what Enjolras had caught in the intervals of the cannonade and the musketry. Moreover, he had seen wounded men passing the end of the street in litters, and he said to Courfeyrac:—"Those wounded do not ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Beppo badly mashed and raving. Buttons unscathed and laughing; Beppo more cautious made a faint attempt to get into Buttons. No go. Tried a little sparing, which was summarily ended by a cannonade from Buttons directly ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... weary space of that day. Some of the barricades fronting the city gates had been battered down by nightfall; they were restored within an hour. Their defenders entered the houses right and left during the cannonade, waiting to meet the charge; but the Austrians held off. "They have no plan," Romara said on his second visit of inspection; "they are waiting on Fortune, and starve meanwhile. We can beat them ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... travel, from the west and from the north, he could hear the cannonade, and what seemed like the clatter of hoofs, and the clash of thrown-away swords. It was possible to imagine anything when Nature was making a change so titanic. Now the water was the black horse of Revelation, with a sable rider ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... sides of the floe began again, and on the smooth surface of the ice, domes and mounds abruptly reared themselves. As the pressure increased these domes and mounds cracked and burst into countless blocks and slabs. Ridge after ridge was formed in the twinkling of an eye. Thundering like a cannonade of siege guns, the whole floe burst up, jagged, splintered, hummocky. In less than three minutes, and while the Freja's men stood watching, the level stretch toward which since morning they had struggled with incalculable toil was ground up into a vast mass ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... work, and plenty of it, the two armies hurling each other backward turn about and about, and victory inclining first to the one, then to the other. Now all of a sudden there was a panic on our side. Some say one thing caused it, some another. Some say the cannonade made our front ranks think retreat was being cut off by the English, some say the rear ranks got the idea that Joan was killed. Anyway our men broke, and went flying in a wild rout for the causeway. Joan tried to rally them and face them around, crying to them that victory was sure, but it ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... following this useless cannonade, each regiment of the corps had dress-parade at six o'clock P. M. Orders from General Stoneman were read by the adjutants of their respective regiments, informing them that the entire cavalry force would move at an early hour next day. A ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... the flashing blade, The bugle's stirring blast, The charge, the dreadful cannonade, The din and shout are passed. Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal, Shall thrill with fierce delight Those breasts that nevermore shall feel ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... more modest in his hopes, because he neither wishes to have his head broken by his errand-boy, nor his wife carried off to an Agapemone by his apprentice, does not take Enlightenment a step farther than a siege on Debrett, and a cannonade on the Budget. Illiberal man! the march that he swells will soon trample him under foot. No one fares so ill in a crowd as the man who is wedged in the middle. A fourth, looking wild and dreamy, as if he had come out of the cave of Trophonius, and who is a mesmerizer and a mystic, thinks ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... creature.... Being a finished child of nature, not a joint product, like most of us, of nature, history, and society, he abounded miraculously in his own clear sense, but was obtuse to the droll miscellaneous lessons of fortune. The cannonade of hard inexplicable facts that knocks into most of us what little wisdom we have, left Shelley dazed and sore, perhaps, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... Greek pilot had been killed; and ere the Asia's boat had reached the ship, the firing was unremitting between the Asia, Genoa, and Albion, and the Turkish ships. About half-past two o'clock, the battle had become general throughout the whole lines, and the cannonade was one uninterrupted crash, louder than any thunder. Previous to the Egyptian frigate firing into us, the men, not engaged in furling the sails, had stripped themselves to their duck-frocks, and were binding their black-silk neckcloths round their heads and waists, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... for the public upstairs. Two women who were there made the sign of the cross each time the lightning flashed—a widespread custom of the French peasantry; but a couple of men who were eating salad and bread paid no heed to the furious cannonade that was kept up by the darkened heavens. It was four o'clock, and they were having their gouter. The peasants of the Quercy do not live on the fat of the land; but they generally have five meals a day, two more than the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... fires of a score of villages. The greater mass of burning Ypres stood up amongst them like the warning finger of God. Occasionally the roaring burst of an ammunition dump flared up into a volcano of fiery sound. The earth under our feet trembled in convulsive shudders from a cannonade so vast that no one sound could be picked out of it and the walls of dug-outs slid in, burying sleeping men. But like the promise of God there came to us in every interval of quietness, as always, the full-throated song ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... time for more than the half of Napoleon's army to come up. He had scarce seventy thousand men disposable; but his position was a very favourable one, and he ably took advantage of it. The guns from the advanced redoubts replied to the enemies' cannonade with little effect, and the Allies swept onwards without a check. They had raised their cry, "To Paris! To Paris!" and were already within a few yards of the Plouen gate, when the word was passed to the division of the Young Guard, which lay behind it, and they sprang to their feet. ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... the 16th of August, a cannonade was kept up against the walls by the French artillery, the Russians replying but seldom. The next morning it was discovered that Prince Bagration had marched with his army from the hills on the other side of the river to ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... invisible particles of dust in the tube; and the method was now successfully applied to the new rays. Yet another method was to direct a slender stream of the particles upon a chemical screen. The screen glowed under the cannonade of particles, and a powerful lens resolved the glow into distinct sparks, which could ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... a languid cannonade between the two seemingly opposed parts of Dumont's army. Under cover of this he captured most of the available actual shares of Great Lakes—valuable aids toward making his position, his "corner," impregnable. But before he had accomplished his full purpose Zabriskie, nominal lieutenant-commander, ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... cloud, in drops like musket balls. He was drenched to the skin in a moment; dazzled and giddy from the flashes; stunned by the everlasting roar, peal over-rushing peal, echo out-shooting echo, till rocks and air quivered alike beneath the continuous battle-cannonade.—"What matter? What fitter guide for such a path as mine than the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... Cyane was properly a frigate, and she being at the rear, Stewart opened fire from the long guns of his port battery. The response from the starboard guns of the enemy was prompt, and for a time the cannonade was deafening. The Constitution gave most of her attention to the rear ship. The smoke around the American becoming so dense as to cloud the vision, Stewart slipped forward and quickly delivered a double-shotted broadside. Before it could be repeated the other ship ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... five, and there was hardly any use in doing anything before that time. A few took naps. A young lady and gentleman played an impersonal game of tennis; but at five an avalanche of social leaders poured out of a dozen shrieking motors and stormed the castle with salvos of strident laughter. The cannonade continued, with one brief truce in which to dress for dinner, until long after midnight. ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... mountains. It was difficult to believe that it was not thunder. Range after range caught up the echoes of that bombardment and passed them on until it seemed as though they must have reached Vienna. For half an hour, perhaps, the cannonade continued, and then, from an Italian position somewhere above and behind us, came a mighty bellow which drowned out all other sounds. It was the angry voice of Italy bidding ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... 22, 1915, the French accelerated their long-sustained bombardment of the German positions with intense fury, continuing day and night without a break until the 25th. The direct object of this preparatory cannonade was to destroy the wire entanglements, bury the defenders in their dugouts, raze the trenches, smash the embrasures, and stop up the alleys of communication. The range included not only the first trench line, but also the supporting trench and the second position, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... of the Howard Mission, was determined to achieve the prayer-meeting. And during the fourth week in May last, when there were many of his clerical friends in the city, Mr. Arnold thought he'd bring a heavy spiritual cannonade to bear on Allen, and see what would come of it. So, on Monday night, May 25th, after a carefully conducted preliminary season of prayer, an assaulting party was formed, including six clergymen from different parts of the country, to march upon the citadel ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... force which had been exerted. Eighty miles to windward lies Barbados. All Saturday a heavy cannonading had been heard to the eastward. The English and French fleets were surely engaged. The soldiers were called out, the batteries manned, but the cannonade died away, and all went to bed in wonder. On the 1st of May the clocks struck six; but the sun did not, as usual in the tropics, answer to the call. The darkness was still intense, and grew more intense as the morning wore on. A slow ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... beneath the long level line of the western horizon, the firing on both sides suddenly ceased altogether, and a great, solemn hush fell upon the scene, that was positively awe-inspiring after the continuous, deafening roar all day of the cannonade, and the crash of bursting shells. And then, as the ear accustomed itself to that sudden silence, it became aware of a low but terrible sound breaking it, the moaning of hundreds of mangled, suffering, and dying men, the ghastly fruits ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... saw that Donald and Mr. Henchard were inseparables. When walking together Henchard would lay his arm familiarly on his manager's shoulder, as if Farfrae were a younger brother, bearing so heavily that his slight frame bent under the weight. Occasionally she would hear a perfect cannonade of laughter from Henchard, arising from something Donald had said, the latter looking quite innocent and not laughing at all. In Henchard's somewhat lonely life he evidently found the young man as desirable for comradeship as he was useful for consultations. Donald's brightness of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... said Gentz, smiling, "we would be fools not to do so; and you are right, too, as to the perils of the country. Germany is in danger. The new century will dawn upon her with a bloody morning sun, and it will arouse us from our sleep by a terrific cannonade. But as for ourselves, we will not wait until the roar of the strife awakens us; we will be up and doing now and work on the lightning-rod with which we will meet the approaching thunderstorm, in order that its bolts may glance ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... opposition was made by the enemy, nor was the movement disturbed, except by the attempt to place batteries on the points from which our bridges could be reached, and to command which I had already posted the necessary batteries on my own responsibility. A cannonade ensued, and they were driven off with loss, and one of their caissons exploded: we lost three or four men killed, and a few horses, in this affair. That is about all that ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... it would be a duel of life and death between Germany and France this time. If you and Mrs. Seeley visit the Continent in the spring you may perhaps witness a battle. I have seen just one, and heard the cannonade of another—sensations ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... account of my feelings when hearing for the first time a great cannonade, or seeing shells burst, or catching a glimpse of the German line. Of all such things none were or could afford an experience so terrible as the sight I saw at Bailleul. A number of men still in the agonies of gas-poisoning, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... metallic bang rings out from the woods immediately behind him. It is of the unmistakable voice of a French 75 starting the day's artillery duel. By the time the sentinel is relieved, in broad daylight, the cannonade is general all along the line. He surrenders his post to a comrade, and crawls down into his bombproof dugout almost reluctantly, for the long day of inactive ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... the assembly was in the greatest alarm. The first cannonade filled them with consternation. As the firing became more frequent, the agitation increased. At one moment, the members considered themselves lost. An officer entering the hall, hastily exclaimed: ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... Francois," laden with supplies for a fort lately re-established by the French, at the mouth of the River St. John, on ground claimed by both nations. Captain Rous, a New England officer commanding a frigate in the Royal Navy, opened fire on the "St. Francois," took her after a short cannonade, and carried her into Halifax, where she was condemned by the court. Several captures of small craft, accused of illegal acts, were also made by the English. These proceedings, being all of an overt nature, gave the officers of Louis XV. precisely what they wanted,—an occasion ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... ship, seeing that the fight was going against their friends, cut the ropes of the grapnels, and the ships drifted apart, some of the last to leave the deck of the Henrietta being forced to jump into the sea. The cannonade was at once renewed on both sides, but the Dutch had had enough of it—having lost very heavily in men—and drew off from ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... of that stream, it was necessary to drive Shelby away at once, hence our movement. We arrived at Clarendon on the morning of the 26th. Some of our gunboats were with us, in advance, and as soon as they came within range of the town began shelling it, and the woods beyond. The cannonade elicited no reply, and it was soon ascertained that the enemy had fallen back from the river. The transports thereupon landed, the men marched on shore, formed in line of battle, and advanced. The Confederates were found in force about two miles northeast of town, and some lively skirmishing ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... they are not yet men. Half-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music that can be brought to disengage him. If Love, red Love, with tears and joy,—if Want with his scourge,—if War with his cannonade,—if Christianity with its charity,—if Trade with its money,—if Art with its portfolios,—if Science with her telegraphs through the deeps of space and time, can set his dull nerves throbbing, and by loud taps on the tough chrysalis can break ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... made for the debris heaps on the Reservoir side—whence, through a glass, the shells could be seen bursting in rapid succession at Spytfontein. Strong though the position admittedly was, its defenders could never resist a cannonade so awful. It was the famous, disastrous battle of Magersfontein that was in progress. But of that we then knew nothing. We knew not that hundreds of the Highland Brigade lay dead, nor that while Kimberley was brimming over with enthusiasm at the prospect of ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... obviously involved them in formidable difficulty. But, even in the universal tumult, the importance of my seizure was not forgotten; and I was ordered to the rear in charge of a guard. The action now began on all sides; the cannonade rapidly deepening on the flank and centre of the French position, and the musketry already beginning to rattle on various points of the line. From the height on which I stood, the whole scene lay beneath my eye; and nothing could have been better worth the speculation of any man—who was not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... the action, as usual, with a cannonade which lasted three hours, when they made their attack, advancing in eight lines, four of foot and four of horse, upon the allied troops in the wood where we were posted. Their infantry behaved ill; they were ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... place four cannons of 8 L. to cannonade any ships that might attack it. The chief difficulty of the situation was the scarcity of water. The fort was quite indispensable for if the French were to abandon the lower part of the St. John river the English would immediately take possession. ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... severity throughout October 8, 1914. As the Germans drew nearer to the city all the inner forts on the south and east sides of the circle took part in replying to the cannonade. Some of these forts—notably two, three, four, and five—were badly battered. By afternoon the city seemed deserted—nothing but debris of fallen buildings and wreckage met the eyes, and a small remnant of the population was still ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... the crushing superiority of the Germans, vainly hoping that the report of the cannonade would attract assistance from a corps stationed in the neighbourhood of the battle-field; but in this heroic fight their lines were sadly decimated. At first they fought in the village, then they were ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... splendour, and at such brief intervals that the illumination might almost be said to be continuous; while the deep, hollow rumble of the thunder might very well have been mistaken for the booming of a distant cannonade. The effect of the incessant flicker of the lightning was very weird; the tremulous greenish-blue glare illuminating the ponderous masses and contorted shapes of the black clouds overhead, the surface of the ink-black sea around us, the distant proas, and the ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood |
