'L' Battery, Royal Horse Artillery. 'How our gunners won the VC and silenced the fire of the German guns in face of overwhelming odds' Retreat from Mons, 1st September 1914. Fortunino Matania, Ri (1881-1963). One of the most accomplished realistic illustrators and artists of his time, his wartime work was immensely popular and appeared in nearly every major news magazine, Allied, Neutral and Central Powers alike. Literally tens of millions of readers saw wartime events through the medium of Matania's weekly illustrations and, as such, he played an important role in defining people's mental image of what Great War battlefield scenes and soldiers looked like