The Austro-Hungarian Standschutze Hellriegel debuted in 1915. Today the automatic, light firearm is something of a mystery. The prototype blended pistol-caliber ammunition with the firepower of a machine gun, making it one of the first weapons which could be considered a “submachine gun.” That much, we know. The rest is … conjecture. The images in this…
Category: World War One
Historical Study: The Making of the Modern Middle East
Dr. Neil Faulkner gives a short interview on his new book Lawrence of Arabia’s War: The Arabs, The British and the Remaking of The Middle East in WW1. Below is an article discussing the Sykes-Picot Deal, a very important key aspect in Understanding the Making of the Modern Middle East as it exist today….
World War I History: The Liberators!
This is a pretty widely-published photo, but it sure is a good one. It also shows very clearly the US’ horrible excuse for a backpack of the time. For the record, the soldier on the left has a Chauchat in 8mm Lebel (sans magazine) and the soldier on the right has an M1903 Springfield rifle….
Military Naval History: The Last Battle of CPO 1st Class George Palmer Saunders
Offshore where sea and skyline blend In rain, the daylight dies; The sullen, shouldering swells attend Night and our sacrifice — The Destroyers, by Rudyard Kipling In 1988 I was invited to give a lecture on AIDS and surgery in the city of Örebro, Sweden. I knew that my grandfather, Chief Petty Officer 1st…
World War I History: The Battles That Remade Europe
From the Balkans to Britain, these battles 100 years ago transformed a continent The centenary commemorations of World War I will undoubtedly concentrate on a trio of well-known battles; Verdun, the Somme and Jutland. All three ended inconclusively, and all witnessed tremendous bloodshed. Verdun and the Somme etched themselves into the national consciousness of France…
Obscure Weapons: The 1898 Schwarzlose Pistol
A Pistol So Far Ahead of it’s Time Most Customers Rejected It Schwarzlose is a name that most will associate with the M1907 medium machine gun that the Austro-Hungarian army used in World War I. But there’s another Schwarzlose gun. In 1898, Andreas Wilhelm Schwarzlose completed a truly advanced pistol design that was well ahead…
Military Weapons From The Past: The WWI Flammenwerfer
Note how this, like many early flamethrowers, The WWI German Flammenwerfer was a two-man affair. One carried the tanks and the other aimed and fired the projector. Read the Original Article at Forgotten Weapons
Military History: Dowsett’s War
DOWSETT’S WAR It is a story common to many Australian families – a history of military service that spans generations and decades. It is the story of the soldiers of the Dowsett family of the Bexley-Hurstville area of Sydney, New South Wales and their time serving with the First Australian Imperial Force (1st AIF) in…
World War I History: Gallipoli
With the war along the Western Front at a standstill in early 1915, allied leaders were looking for ways to break the stalemate. Many were worried that the deadlock might be permanent. Lord Kitchener, the British secretary of state for war, reluctantly conceded that operations needed to be established elsewhere. Breaking the Stalemate That “elsewhere,”…
Brush-Up On Your History: The Legacy of the “Sisters-In-Arms”; History’s Famous Female Fighting Units
“There have been a number of women’s brigades that have served in wartime. Here are a few of them.” IT WAS 100 years ago this week that a coalition of armed republican factions seized the city of Dublin and proclaimed Ireland’s independence from Great Britain. The disturbance, which began on April 24, 1916, would go…