Count Antoine Hector Thésée Treuille de Beaulieu (7 May 1809 – 24 July 1885) was a French General of the 19th century, who developed the concept of

rifled gun In firearms, rifling is machining helical grooves into the internal (bore) surface of a gun's barrel for the purpose of exerting torque and thus imparting a spin to a projectile around its longitudinal axis during shooting to stabilize the ...

s in the French Army. He studied the subject of rifling between 1840, particularly in the famous

Manufacture d'armes de Châtellerault The ''Manufacture d'Armes de Châtellerault'' ("Châtellerault Weapons Factory"), often abbreviated to MAC, was a French state-owned weapons manufacturer in the town of Châtellerault, Vienne. It was created by a royal decree of 14 July 1819 ...

, and 1852. Following a request by Napoleon III in 1854 to develop such a weapon, the de Beaulieu system was adopted by the

French Army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed For ...

. It consisted in cutting six grooves inside the bore of a muzzle-loading cannon, and to use shells equipped with six lugs which would engage the grooves.''A Dictionary of Military History and the Art of War'' by André Corvisier, p.4

/ref> This development was paralleled by that of the

Armstrong gun An Armstrong gun was a uniquely designed type of Rifled breech-loader, rifled breech-loading field and heavy gun designed by William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, Sir William Armstrong and manufactured in England beginning in 1855 by the ...

in Great Britain (adopted in 1858 by the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

). About the same time he developed a

pinfire A pinfire cartridge is an obsolete type of metallic firearm cartridge in which the priming compound is ignited by striking a small pin which protrudes radially from just above the base of the cartridge. Invented by Frenchman Casimir Lefaucheux in ...

falling-block A falling-block action (also known as a sliding-block or dropping-block action) is a single-shot firearm action in which a solid metal breechblock slides vertically in grooves cut into the breech of the weapon and is actuated by a lever. Descri ...

breech-loading carbine (''mousqueton'') for the

Cent-gardes Squadron The Cent-gardes Squadron, ( French: L'Escadron des Cent-gardes), also called ''Cent Gardes à Cheval'' (Hundred Guardsmen on Horseback), was an elite cavalry squadron of the Second French Empire primarily responsible for protecting the person of t ...

which was a bit ahead of its time in using a metallic cartridge and is very unusual (for a single-shot weapon) in that it fires from an

open bolt A firearm is said to fire from an open bolt if, when ready to fire, the bolt and working parts are held to the rear of the receiver, with no round in the chamber. When the trigger is actuated, the bolt travels forward, feeds a cartridge from t ...

. These developments led to the introduction of the

La Hitte system LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...

in 1858, a fully integrated system of muzzle-loading rifled guns. The Beaulieu 4-pounder rifled field-gun was adopted by the French Army in 1858, where it replaced the

canon-obusier de 12 The Canon obusier de 12 (officially the "Canon obusier de campagne de 12 livres, modèle 1853"), also known as the "Canon de l’Empereur" ("emperor's cannon"), was a type of canon-obusier (literally "shell-gun cannon", "gun-howitzer") developed b ...

, a

smoothbore A smoothbore weapon is one that has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars. History Early firearms had smoothly bored barrels that fired projectiles without signi ...

cannon using

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

s which was much less accurate and shorter-ranged. The Beaulieu rifled artillery was first used in Algeria, and then in the

Franco-Austrian War The Second Italian War of Independence, also called the Franco-Austrian War, the Austro-Sardinian War or Italian War of 1859 ( it, Seconda guerra d'indipendenza italiana; french: Campagne d'Italie), was fought by the Second French Empire and t ...

in Italy in 1859."Beaulieu rifled artillery was first tentatively used in Algeria but received great acclaim only during the Italian War of 1859." in ''The Bloody Crucible of Courage'' by Brent Nosworthy p.644

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beaulieu, Antoine Treuille De École Polytechnique alumni French generals 1809 births 1885 deaths People from Lunéville