A kartouwe (plural: kartouwen) is a siege gun used in European warfare during the 16th and 17th centuries.[1] The name kartouwe is of Dutch origin, a corruption of Latin quartana[2] (quarter cannon).[3] In the Holy Roman Empire the gun was called Kartaune in German or cartouwe in contemporary Latin usage,[4] in the Swedish Empire Kartow,[4] spelling variants include kartouw, kartouve,[5] cartow,[3] cartaun,[3] courtaun,[3] and others.
Kartouwen were developed from bombards.[1] A kartouwe has a caliber of 8inches, weighs about 8000lb, and is designed to fire cannonballs weighing up to 52lb.[6] As a minimum, twenty horses or oxen were needed to move a kartouwe.[6]
In addition to "whole" ("hele") kartouwen, there were also double,[7] half ("halve")[8] and quarter kartouwen.[4] The barrel of a whole kartouwe has a length of 18 to 19 times the caliber, weighs 300kg (700lb) to 350kg (770lb) and was transported on a special wagon by 20 to 24 horses, another four to eight horses were needed to transport the mount (lafette).[9] The barrel length of a half-kartouwe is 32 to 34 times the caliber, which ranges between 105mm and 115mm.[9] Its barrel weighs 110kg (240lb) to 150kg (330lb), the whole gun 170kg (380lb) to 240kg (530lb).[9] Half-kartouwen fired cannonballs weighing between 8lb and 10lb, and for the transport of its barrel, 10 to 16 horses were needed.[9]
The huge size of the cannon and the weight of its 48-pound projectiles (standard value, though real projectiles could vary from 30 to 60 pounds) made it onerous to maneuver and reload. William P. Guthrie estimates that a single kartouwe averaged only 8 to 10 shots under sustained combat conditions, half to a third as much as the more common 3 to 6 pounder field guns, though in all cases "well-drilled troops could shave these times."[10]
Kartouwen were used for example in the Livonian War by the Russian[5] and Swedish forces.[7] During the Battle of Narva (1581), the besieging Swedish forces destroyed the walls of Narva, 5.5m (18feet) strong, within two days using twenty-four double and half-kartouwen.[7]
Kartouwen were also the characteristic of the Thirty Years' War.[11] As such, they were featured in contemporary poems,[11] e.g. in Am liebsten bey der Liebsten by Sibylla Schwarz ("grausame Kartaune", "gruesome kartouwe") and Tränen des Vaterlandes, anno 1636 by Andreas Gryphius ("donnernde Karthaun