Henri-Joseph Paixhans (; January 22, 1783,

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand ...

– August 22, 1854, Jouy-aux-Arches) was a French artillery officer of the beginning of the 19th century. Henri-Joseph Paixhans graduated from the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

. He fought in the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

, was the representative ( Député) for the Moselle department between 1830 and 1848, and became "General de Division" in 1848. In 1823, he invented the first shell guns, which came to be called Paixhans guns (or " canon-obusiers" in the French Navy). Paixhans guns became the first naval guns to combine explosive shells and a flat trajectory, thereby triggering the demise of wooden ships, and the iron hull revolution in

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to befo ...

. Paixhans also invented a "Mortier monstre" (" Monster Mortar"), using 500 kg bombs, which was used to terrible effect in the Siege of Antwerp in 1832. He was also a naval theorist claiming that a few aggressively armed small units could destroy the largest naval units of the time, making him a precursor of the French "

Jeune École The ''Jeune École'' ("Young School") was a strategic naval concept developed during the 19th century. It advocated the use of small, heavily armed vessels to combat larger battleships, and the use of commerce raiders to cripple the trade of the ...

" school of thought. The poet

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

wrote: :"Terre! l'obus est Dieu, Paixhans est son prophète." : ("Earth! the shell is God, Paixhans is his Prophet.")

Paixhans naval guns

Paixhans developed a delaying mechanism which, for the first time, allowed shells to be fired safely in high-powered flat-trajectory guns. The effect of explosive shells hitting wooden hulls and setting them aflame was devastating, and was demonstrated in trials against the two-decker ''Pacificateur'' in 1824. The first Paixhans guns were founded in 1841. The barrel of the guns weighed about 10,000 pounds, and proved accurate to about two miles. In the 1840s, France, England, Russia and the United States had adopted the new naval guns. The effect of the guns in an operational context was first demonstrated during the actions at Eckernförde in 1849 during the

First Schleswig war The First Schleswig War (german: Schleswig-Holsteinischer Krieg) was a military conflict in southern Denmark and northern Germany rooted in the Schleswig-Holstein Question, contesting the issue of who should control the Duchies of Schleswi ...

, and especially at the

Battle of Sinop The Battle of Sinop, or the Battle of Sinope, was a naval battle that took place on 30 November 1853 between Imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire, during the opening phase of the Crimean War (1853–1856). It took place at Sinop, a sea port o ...

in 1853 during the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

Legacy

Ironclad warships

Wooden boats became so vulnerable that the only possible response could come with the introduction of the iron-hulled

warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster ...

. The first of them was the French '' La Gloire'', which was a wooden ship with iron sheathing. She was soon followed by HMS ''Warrior'', which was iron-hulled with wooden backing.

Further developments

Paixhans's design was later improved by the American John A. Dahlgren, who wrote:

Floating batteries

A class of floating batteries named after Paixhans was developed by

Henri Dupuy de Lôme Stanislas Charles Henri Dupuy de Lôme (; 15 October 18161 February 1885) was a French naval architect. He was the son of a naval officer and was born in Ploemeur near Lorient, Brittany, in western France. He was educated at the École Polytechn ...

. Four of these ships were launched between 1861 and 1862. Originally designed for use in

Cochinchina Cochinchina or Cochin-China (, ; vi, Đàng Trong (17th century - 18th century, Việt Nam (1802-1831), Đại Nam (1831-1862), Nam Kỳ (1862-1945); km, កូសាំងស៊ីន, Kosăngsin; french: Cochinchine; ) is a historical exony ...

, they were built in wood and equipped with 4 ft batteries.

Writings

Paixhans wrote, among others: *''Considérations sur l'état actuel de l'artillerie des places'' (1815) *''Nouvelle force maritime'' (Paris 1822), in which he envisioned a fleet protected by armour and equipped with explosive shells.''World History of Warfare'' by Christon I. Archer p.417
/ref> *''Force et faiblesse militaires de la France'' (1830) *''Constitution militaire de la France'' (Paris 1849) *''Retraite de Moscou'' (Metz 1868)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paixhans 19th-century French inventors Military history of France 1783 births 1854 deaths French military personnel of the Napoleonic Wars École Polytechnique alumni