The great weapons of modern warfare are the gun and the bayonet. There are, of course, many kinds of guns, small and large. Formerly it was the fashion to call the big guns by the name of _cannon_, but in the great European war this word has hardly been used at all. They are all "guns," from the rifles carried by the foot soldiers to the Maxims and the great howitzers which each require a company of men to serve them. The word _cannon_ comes from the French _canon_, and is sometimes spelt in this way in English too. It means "great tube."
The derivation of the word _gun_ is more interesting. Gunpowder was not really discovered until the fifteenth century, but long before this a kind of machine, or gun, for hurling great stones, or sometimes arrows, had been used. These instruments were called by the Latin word _ballista_ (for the Romans had also had machines of this sort), which comes from the Greek word _ballo_, meaning "throw." In the Middle Ages weapons of this sort were called by proper names, just as ships are now. A common name for them was the woman's name _Gunhilda_, which would be turned into _Gunna_ for short. It is probably from this that we get the word _gun_. The most interesting of all the guns used in the Great War has only a number for its name. It is the famous French '75, and takes this name merely from a measurement.
The special weapon of the foot soldier, or infantryman, is the bayonet. This is a short blade which the foot soldier fixes on the muzzle of his rifle before he advances to an attack. In the trenches his weapon is the rifle; before the order is given to go "over the parapet"--that is, to climb out of the trenches, to run forward and attack the enemy at close quarters--he "fixes his bayonet." The word _bayonet_ probably comes from _Bayonne_, the name of a town in France.
The word _infantry_ itself, now used to describe regiments of foot soldiers armed with the ordinary weapons, comes to us, like most of our words connected with war, from the French. We have already seen that the words of this sort which we borrowed in the Middle Ages were Norman-French words descended from Latin. But after the use of gunpowder in war became general there were many new terms; and as at this time the Italians were the people who fought most, and wrote most about fighting, many words relating to the methods of war after the close of the Middle Ages were Italian words. It is true that we learned them from the French, for the great writers on military matters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were Frenchmen. But they borrowed many words from the Italian writers of the fifteenth century. One of these words is _infantry_, which means a number of junior soldiers or "infants"--the regiments of foot soldiers being made up of young men, while the older and more experienced soldiers made up the cavalry.