More than 10,000 Ordnance QF 18-pounder MkI&II field guns were made by Armstrong, Vickers and the Royal Arsenal between 1903 and 1940 until they were phased out by the 25-pounder, though they remained in operation throughout WWII and in far-flung Commonwealth countries as late as the 1970s. The 2,800-pound light gun, with its 84mm 18.5-pound shell, could be fired 20 rounds per minute by a very well-trained crew out to about 6,500-yards and could be towed by a limber and six vanner draft horses.
Each British and Canadian division had 54 guns in 1914, but this one is special.
From the Canadian Army:
The City of Mons, in collaboration with the Government of Belgium, is sending an irreplaceable military artifact back to Canada in a gesture aimed at commemorating Canada’s role in the First World War.
The artifact is an 18-pound field gun which fired the last shots of the First World War in the region of the City of Mons as Canadian troops that liberated that city on 11 November 1918.
The gun is one of two given by Canadians to the City of Mons following the 1918 armistice; the second remains on display at the Mons Memorial Museum.
It is a symbol of the sacrifices and victories of Canadians during the First World War; a legacy that continues today with Canada’s participation in NATO and peace and security in Europe. It will be transported to Ottawa where King Philippe of Belgium will present it to the people of Canada in March during a ceremony at its future home, the Canadian War Museum.
The gun took the first step of its transatlantic journey on Friday, January 26th when it was prepared for transport before departing a local casern.
Warship Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018: The wandering Dutchman of the Baltic
NHHC Catalog #: 19-N-11-21-10
Here we see the Holland-class Pantser-dekschepen (protected cruiser) HMNLS Gelderland of the Royal Netherlands Navy (who else?) at the Jamestown Exposition Naval Review, Jamestown, Virginia, 12 June 1907– with her laundry out to dry as a schooner passes. Designed before the 20th Century, she would go on to have the longest life of her six pack of sisters and, modernized to fight a very different war than she was intended, suffer a curious fate.
The Hollands were the Dutch answer to the Royal Navy’s Apollo-class second-class protected cruisers (3,600-ton, 19.75 kts, 6×6-inch, 6×4.7-inch) and the class leader was ordered in 1894. The first flight of three cruisers (Holland, Zeeland, Friesland) had a displacement of 3,840-tons while the second batch (of which Gelderland was the lead followed by Noord Brabant and Utrecht) went 4,100-tons as they held 12 Yarrow boilers as opposed to 8 in the original design and went just a couple feet longer. Speed was 20-knots on the latter trio while the ships were armed with a pair of 149mm/37cal singles fore and aft and a half-dozen 120mm/37cal guns in broadside as well as smaller guns, all made by Krupp. The “protected” in their designation came from a thin coating of Harvey nickel armor.
They were handsome craft and could both show the Dutch flag in the Caribbean-protecting the Netherlands Antilles, the Pacific where Holland held the sprawling Netherlands East Indies, and of course in metropolitan waters in Europe.
Class leader HMNLS Holland colorized by Postales Navales
The subject of our tale, Gelderland, was laid down at Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij, Rotterdam in 1897. Commissioned 15 July 1900, our new cruiser, on the orders of Queen Wilhelmina herself, was dispatched to carry the former Transvaal president “Oom Paul” Kruger into exile from Portuguese Mozambique, through British sea lanes, to the French port of Marseille.
She left Africa with Kruger on board in October, arriving in France on 22 November where a crowd of 60,000 awaited.
President Paul Kruger of the South African Republic (left) leaving Delagoa Bay, Mozambique on 20 October 1900 aboard HNLMS Gelderland. Photo Nat. Cult. Hist. Museum”, presumably the National Cultural History Museum in Pretoria, South Africa.
From the Med, Gelderland proceeded to her first posting, the Dutch East Indies, where she served until rotating back to Europe in 1905.
She was off again in 1907 to represent the Netherlands at the Jamestown Exposition Naval Review in Hampton Roads.
GELDERLAND (Dutch cruiser, 1898) Caption: At the Jamestown Exposition Naval Review, Jamestown, Virginia, 12 June 1907. Description: Catalog #: 19-N-11-21-9
Then came a sortie to Curacao in 1908-09 along with her sister Friesland in response to a brush war from Venezuelan strongman Cipriano Castro who was pissed that his political rivals were being sheltered by the Dutch in their Caribbean colony offshore.
Castro sent his small naval forces to meet the much more imposing Dutch fleet and Gelderland promptly captured the Venezuelan coast guard ship Alix off Puerto Cabell on 12 December 1908. The Venezuelans offered no resistance and the Gelderland towed the Alix as a prize into Willemstad, making headlines around the world. The Dutch then proceeded to effect a naval blockade of the South American country’s coastline. The crisis only ended when vice president Juan Vicente Gómez, with U.S. help, seized power and Castro fled to Germany.
Returning to Europe, Gelderland was rushed to the Bosporus in 1912 to protect Dutch interests during the Balkan Wars, and a 100-man landing force from her crew along with Korps Mariniers of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps defended the legation area in Constantinople.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands was a well-armed neutral during World War I, though the Germans occupied neighboring Belgium and the country absorbed a million refugees (as well as 30,000 escaped Belgian soldiers and the majority of the British 1st Royal Naval Brigade). Though spies from all sides swarmed across the country and German U-boats and mines sank numerous Dutch merchantmen and fishing craft, the Dutch Navy, though mobilized, escaped conflict.
Dutch protected cruiser Hr. MS. Gelderland at Vlissingen, the Netherlands in 1916, The photo was published in the Dutch magazine De Prins dated 23 September 1916 page 148. The Dutch queen Wilhelmina is visible while walking on the pontoon bridge. Source: http://warshipsresearch.blogspot.com/2011/10/dutch-protected-cruiser-hrms-gelderland_27.html
Gelderland 1917
After the war, the class was considered obsolete and whittled down. To be sure, two units, Friesland and Utrecht were decommissioned in 1913 before the conflict and had been scrapped already. Another pair, Holland, and Zeeland, were decommissioned in 1920 and 1924 respectively. Noord Brabant was disarmed in 1920 and used as a barracks ship and hulk at Vlissingen while only Gelderland was retained in service– as a gunnery training ship.
Pantserdekschip Hr.Ms. Gelderland, 1930, via Nederlands Instituut voor Militaire Historie
She undertook regular training missions and was often seen in warmer waters.
Gelderland well-lit during the night, a display in celebration of the birth of Princess Beatrix in January 1938. The photo was most likely taken at Curacao. (Collection J. Stolk via NetherlandsNavy.nl) http://www.netherlandsnavy.nl/index.html
In 1939, the pivotal year that the Netherlands would try to escape a Second World War, Gelderland was armed with some additional .50 cal and 8mm machine guns in preparation for the conflict.
When the Germans swarmed into the country in May 1940, the Dutch managed to scuttle Noord Brabant at her moorings, but Gelderland was captured at Den Helder. Renamed by the Germans as Niobe after the figure in Greek mythology, the nearly half-century-old cruiser was heavily modified to serve as an anti-aircraft cruiser (flakschiff), she was given a FUMO 213 Würzburg radar, searchlights, and outfitted with a mixed battery of eight 105mm, 4 40mm, and 16 20mm guns.
Via NetherlandsNavy.nl
The Germans sailed the old Dutchman (slowly) to the Baltic in 1941 where she served as a floating AAA battery to protect key coastal points from the Red Air Force.
Niobe notably fought off Soviet swarms at the Finnish city of Kotka where the Russians thought she was the Finnish coast defense ship and former Warship Wednesday alum Väinämöinen. At Kotka, she was attacked by waves of more than 150 Red A-20 and Pe-2 bombers on 16 July 1944, sending her to the bottom that night after 9 bomb hits.
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
This reminds me of Scottish poet Roderick Watson Kerr‘s piece, From the Line. Kerr himself was invalided out after picking up the MC while a junior officer in the 2nd Royal Tank Corps during the Great War.
From the Line
Have you seen men come from the Line,
Tottering, doddering, as if bad wine
Had drugged their very souls;
Their garments rent with holes
And caked with mud
And streaked with blood
Of others, or their own;
Haggard, weary-limbed and chilled to the bone,
Trudging aimless, hopeless, on
With listless eyes and faces drawn
Taut with woe?
Have you seen them aimless go
Bowed down with muddy pack
And muddy rifle slung on back,
And soaking overcoat,
Staring on with eyes that note
Nothing but the mire
Quenched of every fire?
Have you seen men when they come
From shell-holes filled with scum
Of mud and blood and flesh,
Where there’s nothing fresh
Like grass, or trees, or flowers,
And the numbing year-like hours
Lag on – drag on,
And the hopeless dawn
Brings naught but death, and rain –
The rain a fiend of pain
That scourges without end,
And Death, a smiling friend?
Have you seen men when they come from hell?
If not, – ah, well
Speak not with easy eloquence
That seems like sense
Of ‘War and its Necessity’!
And do not rant, I pray,
On ‘War’s Magnificent Nobility’!
If you’ve seen men come from the Line
You’ll know it’s Peace that is divine !
If you’ve not seen the things I’ve sung –
Let silence bind your tongue,
But, make all wars to cease,
And work, and work for Everlasting Peace !
There, under the Krinkov, is a German StG44 in exploded view, which would probably be OK on any monument except that of Mikhail Kalashnikov
As I covered over at Guns.com, the Russians spent 35 million rubles (about $580K US) on a sprawling monument to the late firearms engineer Mikhail Kalashnikov that was unveiled in Moscow last week. Besides a nearly 30-foot high statue of Kalashnikov, the base of a monument to St. Mikhail, the Orthodox patron of gunsmiths and warriors, contains a representation of several of the engineer’s designs including an AK42 sub gun, AK47, AKM and AK74 rifles, as well as RPK and PK machine guns.
However, as noted by some sharp-eyed firearms enthusiasts and reported by Russian-based Kalashnikov magazine, just under a Krinkov AKS-74U is what appears to be the parts diagram for a German StG-44 Sturmgewehr.
Which some (notably outside of the Motherland) have contended that the AK was based on for decades.
This has caused understandable heartburn in Russia, and, as Russian firearms wonks pile on to disagree with the lineage of the AK– noting it is as Russian as a Florida pirated movie salesman, the offending diagram has been torched out.
Common among snipers the world over today, the ghillie suit or bush suit, traces its origin to Scottish gamekeepers with a Scotland-raised yeoman regiment, the Lovat Scouts, using them for the first time in modern combat in the Boer War.
These Highlanders, drawn largely from outdoorsmen, were described as “half wolf and half jackrabbit” in their tactics when down in the veldt and the suit draws its name from the Gaelic faerie Gille Dubh, a forest character clad in moss and leaves that hides among the trees. The use of “scrim” often from repurposed potato sacks, helped break up their outline.
What is scrim?
Scrim is nothing but a basic fabric that has a light, almost gauzy weave to it. It’s used in bookbinding (that woven fabric in the back of hardcover books), theatre and photography (to reflect light), and in simple industrial applications like making burlap sacks.
“Robe loose-shaped single-breasted robe, made of linen, complete with a fitted hood that incorporates a face mask with apertures for the mouth and eyes. The smock is dabbed and smeared with various shades of paint to achieve a random (disruptive) camouflage finish.” Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30100483
The practice continues across MoD today, using low-IR fabric to keep down detection by modern optics, because if it ain’t broke…
Pictured are Snipers from 34 Squadron, The Royal Air Force Regiment based at RAF Leeming, undertaking Live Firing Tactical Training at the Otterburn Training Area. (MoD Crown Copyright)
This early Colt M1911 was used by an individual with the 27th Infantry Battalion (City of Winnipeg), Canadian Expeditionary Force, during the First World War.
If you note, there is a bullet or shrapnel hole from the right penetrating the left-hand side of the grip, meaning if the pistol was in a holster or hand, the owner likely had a very bad experience somewhere on the Western Front.
Canada placed orders for a total of 5,000 Colt Government Model pistols between August and October 1914, with officers, senior NCOs and machine gunners of early units heading to France so equipped with these .45ACP Connecticut-made guns.
The 27th Winnipeg was authorized on 7 November 1914 and disembarked in France as a fully trained and equipped unit on 18 September 1915, just in time to head to the front for the meat-grinder that was Somme the next year.
The 27th and a dozen other Manitoba-area Great War battalions are perpetuated today as the “Little Black Devils” of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles (R Wpg Rif).
As part of C&Rsenal’s new “Anvil” series, Mark gives a classic Remington 12 gauge trench gun an update to return some of its military utility.
A product of the mind of the great John Pedersen, best known for the original M51 pistol and the World War I Springfield 1903 firepower improvement device that carried his name, the Remington Model 10 was one of the original classes of early 20th Century pump action shotguns designed for smokeless powder shells. In all, some 275,000 were produced from 1908-1929 and some were adopted by both the Army and Marines during the Great War, remaining in use into the 1930s.
The ordnance-bomb marked trench gun Mark has was at some point repurposed to a sporter and is in pretty good condition considering its age– but after some updates to include a good cleaning, new trench gun handguard, new front metal, some bluing and the like, it’s ready to take on the Kaiser again.
Yup, the canne de marche or cannes de poilus was very popular with the average French soldier of the period. Going back to the time of the little Emperor, senior sergeants in the Grand Armee often carried their own thick canes for correcting disciplinary problems and there was evidence this practice continued through the 1870s.
By the time of the Great War, the elite “blue devils” of the French Chasseurs Alpins and les troupes alpine were issued long-handled walking sticks for use in skiing and mountaineering.
Nos diables bleus en reconnaissance
Carte Postale DESSIN JULLIAN – CHASSEUR ALPIN
Carte Postale DESSIN JULLIAN – CHASSEUR ALPIN
French blue devils Chasseurs alpins marching order uniforms by Hector Large
French blue devils Chasseurs alpins uniforms by Hector Large
Then came the average soldier, or poilus (bearded ones), who often carried their own non-standard walking sticks to help during marches–especially along muddy roads of the era– or to kill rats in bivouac. As imagery from the time shows, these sticks were widespread and varied from soldier to soldier. Functional trench art if you will.
French soldiers and officers outside of Fort Vaux, Verdun, December 1916– with canes
There is some evidence that the practice outlived the trenches of the Great War.
This image from 1919 portrays a soldier on occupation duty in Germany, his kit carried by a local German boy.
Here is a set of French soldiers in 1939 with their own very well-made walking sticks:
WWII Free French icon Gen. Philippe de Hauteclocque (aka Leclerc) was often seen with a cane, though he may have used it honestly– as he broke his leg in two places in a fall from his horse in 1936– although in this 1947 image, he seems to get along just fine without it.
Further, tributes such as postage stamps and monuments across France all show Leclerc with his ever-present canne, though rarely showing him actually using it, giving even more credence to the fact that it was his own marshal baton throwback to the time when he commanded First World War veteran poilus as a young sous-lieutenant with the 5e Régiment de Cuirassiers on occupation duty in the Ruhr.
French General Leclerc, canne in hand, with a group of captured Waffen-SS Frenchmen of the Waffen-Grenadier-Brigade der SS “Charlemagne”, May 1945. The unit, made up largely of anti-Bolshevik French collaborationists, many of whom were already serving in various other German units, was all but annihilated in Berlin in April 1945. A dozen survivors, captured by the Soviets in the ruins of the German capital, were handed over to the Free French. “How could you wear someone else’s uniform?” the general was reported to have asked. One of them replied by asking why Leclerc wore an American one. The prisoners were executed the next day without trial.
He wasn’t the only one.
With “le canne” in hand, Maj. Gen. Claude Philippe Armand Chaillet inspects the citadel of Belfort on 25 November 1944 after the 1ère Armée française retook the city from the Germans. Born in 1893, he was in the last pre-1914 St.Cyr class and had risen to the rank of colonel in the professional army by 1938, when he retired to a desk in the Ministry of War after 25 years of service. He joined De Gaulle in 1941, led a West African Division, then the artillery of the Corps Expéditionnaire Français in Italy before his promotion to the staff of the 1st French Army late in the war, and rejoined the reserve list in 1946.
The cane even appeared in Indochina in the 1950s
2e BEP Plaine des Jarres, Laos 1953 opération Muguet
And in Algeria, after that, possibly its last hurrah.
I’m not sure the origin of these layouts of 1916 military infantryman’s gear, but they are great.
The kit of a French Private Soldier in the Battle of Verdun, 1916, collection provided by Paul Bristow, Croix de Guerre Living History Group, photographed by Thom Atkinson. Note this is well after the war began as the red trousers have been replaced and the extensive grenade collection. The non-standard walking cane is great
Equipment of a British Sergeant in the Battle of the Somme, 1916. Supplied by Nigel Bristow, The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment. photographed by Thom Atkinson. Note the SMLE .303 with bayonet and wire-cutting accessory just off the muzzle. Also the extensive field mess kit. To the left there is the classic non-standard trench mace and the E-tool handle with pike/shovel blade. The canvas cover on the Brodie helmet is rare.
Equipment of a German Private in the Battle of the Somme, 1916, collection provided by Paul Bristow, Croix de Guerre Living History Group, photographed by Thom Atkinson. Note the camouflaged Stalhelm at the top right and the rifle grenade near the muzzle of the Gew 98 Mauser.
Equipment from the 1st Russian Women’s Battalion of Death, collection supplied by Bruce Chopping, Ian Skinner and Laura Whitehouse of the 1914-21 Society, photographed by Thom Atkinson. They spent a lot of effort on this one as you can tell from the ushanka fur cap (left) Shinel greatcoat (right) Gymnastiorka selection, Bashlyk Circassian hood and gloves. Also note the M1912 “Lantern Head” Grenade. Curiously, the Russians, widely believed by many to be backward militarily at the time, was one of the first to adopt and issue hand grenades before the War to include the M1912 and the hex-shaped design of Col. Stender– having gained experience in field expedient ones in the 1904-05 Siege of Port Arthur. This particular model was redesigned and lived on as the M1914/30 which was only totally withdrawn from Warsaw Pact service in the 1980s. The only thing I have to throw rocks at on this one is that I think the rifle is a 91/30 and not a Mosin 91 (and many images of the Women’s Battalion show them with Japanese Arisakas, but I digress), but close enough. Also, the Adrian helmets were only used by the Russian Expeditionary Brigade sent to the Western Front.
US Infantryman (Doughboy), arrival in France, 1917. Equipment provided by: Lee Martin, historical adviser, collector and living historian, photographed by Thom Atkinson. Note the cleanest campaign hat ever! Also keep in mind that, while the “Regulars” showed up in France with M1903 Springfields, most of the new Yanks came over with Enfields. The dominoes are a nice touch
If anyone knows the source, please let me know so I can link back. Thanks
