Mauser

“ Fortunately, for the most part the wielders of the Mauser were not calmly lying down behind stones, with rests for their rifles, but were crowded together, nervous, agitated, and breathless with running, so that their bullets were badly aimed during the first minute or two. Directly after, they were startled by the hail poured upon them from the whole line of men behind the great wall—a hail of lead beneath which many fell never to rise again, while the greater part devoted themselves to seeking cover, crawling anywhere to get under the shelter of some stone. ”

“ Idly we followed the movements of this little party, evidently a patrol, and we watched five of them, out in front of a few others, riding in extended order across a level space of grass, when suddenly we heard the ping-boom of the Mauser: instantly the patrol wheeled about and galloped back at speed, the firing of the enemy continuing for some moments. After a while we saw some of the enemy riding away and disappearing behind a rise in the ground, to reappear once more and ride off in the distance, a little clump of men, say twenty-five at the outside. ”

“ Is the army service breech-loading rifle used since 1874 by the German infantry. It was invented in 1871, and derives its name from Mauser, a gunsmith of Würtemberg, who modified and greatly improved it. Its advantages over the needle-gun, the weapon used in the Franco-German war, are numerous. It is lighter, weighing about two pounds less, and carrying a heavier charge of powder and a lighter ball, is of longer range, being effective at 1300 yards; the manner of loading it is simpler, and it can be fired with greater rapidity. ”

“ It is true that the modern Lee-Enfield and Mauser claim to be the most precise and deadly weapons of destruction ever devised. But they were intended for proper, gentlemanly warfare, with the opposing sides set out in straight lines, a convenient distance apart. In the hand-to-hand butchery which calls itself war to-day, the rifle is rapidly becoming démodé. For long ranges you require machine-guns; for short, bombs and hand-grenades. Can you empty a cottage by firing a single rifle-shot in at the door? ”

“ And what a wonderful bit of mechanism this Mauser rifle is. How wretchedly badly off they were in 1870-71 with their rattletrap needle guns. A single feeble bullet at a time, and after you had fired it came the long, complicated business of reloading.
And yet the war accounted for well over a hundred thousand French and German dead.
I wonder how many dead this war will ac count for? If only every fifth man is left on the field, and if another fifth comes home invalided ... ”

“ Then at once above the average fusillade and cannonade rose the extraordinary rattling roll of Mauser musketry in great volume. If the reader wishes to know exactly what this is like he must drum the fingers of both his hands on a wooden table, one after the other as quickly and as hard as he can. I turned my telescope on the Dutch defences. They were no longer deserted. All along the rim of the trenches, clear cut and jet black, against the sky stood a crowded line of slouch-hatted men, visible as far as their shoulders, and wielding what looked like thin sticks. ”

“ A Mauser had hit him squarely between the eyes.
A short time later a sergeant of one of the companies of the same regiment moved a few yards forward, trying to get a pot-shot at some Spanish sharpshooters who were snugly perched in the spreading tops of some royal palm trees, and were hitting some of our [95] men. He sighted one and had his rifle to his shoulder, taking a fine bead, when all at once the rifle fell to the ground and his hands dropped helplessly by his side. He coolly faced about and walked toward the rear, his arms dangling like pendulums, not even so much as muttering a word. ”

“ At the present time each War Department has its own special service weapon. The German Mauser magazine-pistol for officer’s use fires ten shots in ten seconds, a slight pressure of the trigger setting the full machinery in motion; the pressure of gas at each explosion does all the rest of the work—extracts and ejects the cartridge case, cocks the hammer, and presses springs which reload and close the weapon, all in a fraction of a second. ”

“ With a thousand rifles rattling; with the field-guns booming in your ears; with the diabolic Colt automatics clacking; with the roar of the Marblehead coming from the bay, and, last, with Mauser bullets sneering always in the air a few inches over one's head, and with this enduring from dusk to dawn, it is extremely doubtful if any one who was there will be able to forget it easily. The noise; the impenetrable darkness; the knowledge from the sound of the bullets that the enemy was on three sides of the camp ”

“ The German rifle has a long guardless sword bayonet, fixed to the fore-end only and not connected with the barrel, and a peculiar form of back-sight, which bears some resemblance to the slide and bed arrangement of the British “short” rifle. The special feature of the Belgian Mauser is a thin steel casing for the barrel, which is supposed to act as a hand-guard or cooler and to free the barrel from disturbing influences due to its connexion with the fore-end; but it is expensive, and if strong adds unduly to the weight of the weapon. ”

“ The story that the Boers only used those they had captured from the English is quite inadmissible, for the Mauser rifles, which were used exclusively in the Transvaal, were largely provided with them.
I will try to describe the patterns chiefly used:
1. Section in the nickel casing, leaving the extremity of the leaden bullet exposed; the lead, getting very hot, emerges partly from the casing, flattens at the slightest resistance, and expands. ”

“ It was soon seen that battles would resolve themselves into artillery duels, since no human beings could stand up against the hail of shot and shell hurled incessantly from repeating machines such as the Mauser, Nordenfelt and Maxim. ”

“ The means of communication and military progress have put an end to mountain warfare. The Mauser, which is the arm of the day, requires well-provided parks of ammunition to follow it, cartridge magazines at its back, and all this is incompatible with party fighting. ”

“ However, one good effect it had was that everyone, except myself, roared with laughter, and then when even I began to see the humour of it I spotted a mischievous devil calmly jabbing his spear through our priceless waterproof ground sheet. This would not do, so I drew my Mauser pistol. Now these natives were then at a most dangerous stage of ignorance with regard to firearms. Their experience of them had been gathered on raids with the Swahilis, and they all firmly held the conviction that all you had to do to avoid being struck by the bullet was to duck when you saw the smoke. ”

“ They were not Mauser bullets, they were not expanding bullets, they were explosive bullets pure and simple, and the Boers have confessed to their use. Therefore, I think it would only have been fair had Mr. Baillie Grohmann waited to know on what grounds people out here have made these assertions, before writing a somewhat conclusive letter in which the main point appeared to be that there was no such thing as an explosive Mauser bullet. ”

“ As the tender is rather a small craft in which to meet stormy winds a search for a harbor of refuge was among the first things to be undertaken. In going within Mauser rifle range of shore in the steam launch to take soundings and find a proper anchorage a sharp fusillade was opened. ”

“ I think that, as you say, it is only fair to give the man a chance, though I don't suppose it will be of much use to him, for he is not likely to be a good shot even with an ordinary rifle, and he would know nothing of the working of a Mauser. ”

“ The Mauser bullets themselves made a small clean hole, with the result that the wound healed in a most astonishing manner. One or two of our men who were shot in the head had the skull blown open, but elsewhere the wounds from the minute steel-coated bullet, with its very high velocity, were certainly nothing like as serious as those made by the old large-calibre, low-power rifle. If a man was shot through the heart, spine, or brain he was, of course, killed instantly ”

“ Machine-guns and shrapnel did the damage mostly, but the [Pg 129] Mausers took their share. Only in one thing had we the advantage—the bayonet. When we got to hand grips with them the Turks couldn't stand up to our chaps, who went for them with the cold steel like devils red-hot from hell.
No man who took part in that retirement will ever forget it. Overhead burst the shells, underfoot the dust rose and the twigs snapped as the unending rain of rifle, machine-gun, and shrapnel bullets zipped! and spattered around. Men fell fast, killed and wounded ”

“ As far as the eye could see from the North Sea, away past Bethune and death-stricken La Bassee, streamed the meteor flares like a great Milky Way, the flares crossing and recrossing each other. In front of us the German Mausers sound with their constant "to-ho," "to-ho," for the Mauser has a double report. On the right the wicked bark of the English Lee-Enfield rifles, and along our front and to our left the "chop, chop" of the Ross rifle of the Canadian Division. The Ross has a sound at a distance, for all the world like a lot of [143] men chopping wood in a hardwood forest. ”

“ Several men in each company carried wire-cutters with them, but to stand up and snip through lines of barbed wire when the Mauser bullets and the deadly shells of the Pom-Pom gun are tearing up the soil around is perilous work. ”

“ All of us who are big game hunters, however, know how greatly the average of hits has advanced since the introduction of the small-bore high-velocity rifles. In 1895 came the British ·303, the German ·275 Mauser, and the Roumanian ·256 Mannlicher, and these weapons possess such accuracy and flatness of trajectory that a poor shot becomes a moderate one, a good shot a first-class one, and a first-class performer something remarkable. ”

“ Each of us partially undressed and slung a rifle over the left shoulder, the butt under the armpit, the barrel down the trouser-leg. It was unfortunate that they were long Mausers. Even a man as tall as I am cannot wear a long Mauser down his trouser-leg without discomfort. It was an intolerable job getting down the corkscrew staircase of the observatory with a completely rigid left leg. Once in the street, we found that the only way to move was with extreme slowness, so slowly that you did not have to bend your knees. ”

“ He carried a218 Mauser, and over his shoulder was slung a bandolier of cartridges; these, with his belt and canteen, made up his entire equipment. His pockets were his haversack, his big tweed coat was his blanket. He gave me the first idea of the real bitterness of the struggle, for he said he would rather die many times over than give up to the British. He was fighting against men of his own blood, perhaps his very relatives ”

“ A weekly illustration appears in the advertisement sheet of the 'Field,' showing the deformity of some of them shot into animals, which bear a strong resemblance to the Mauser figured earlier (fig. 31) , and which we have seen can be produced in the human body by contact of a regulation fully cased bullet with a bone like the malar. A tendency on the part of the longitudinal slits to become caught in the rifling of the barrel militates against the use of this bullet. ”

“ At the time of her capture, she was on a voyage from New York to Havana, and had on board two breech-loading Hontoria guns of 9 centimeter bore, one mounted on each side of the ship, one Maxim rapidfiring gun on the bridge, twenty Remington rifles and ten Mauser rifles, with ammunition for all the guns and rifles, and thirty or forty cutlasses. ”

“ Fig. 33. Grooved Mauser removed from anterior abdominal wall after crossing the ribs. I saw several such removed from the thoracic wall, and am inclined to attribute the grooving to impact with the margin of the ribs
Lastly, the question of actual spluttering or breaking up of the bullets must be considered. It is extraordinary into how many fragments either a Lee-Metford or a Mauser bullet may break up if it strike a hard body while travelling at a high rate of velocity. Fragmentation is exhibited in the skiagram forming the subject of plate XI. p. ”

“ As President Steyn wrote to the Transvaal Government: "After every fight we had enough ammunition to commence another with." Towards the end of the war one seldom saw burghers armed with Mausers. The enemy were fought with their own rifles and their own ammunition. Has this often happened in the history of the world? Sunday, 15th of September, was the day fixed by Lord Kitchener on which the officers and men were given a last opportunity to lay down their arms without (p. 209) detriment to themselves. ”

“ I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears;
And caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts;
And buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts;
And rusted every bayonet with His tears. ”

“ But would it not be well to consider, whether the new musket should not be considerably longer in the barrel and smaller in the bore; and that the bayonet should be much reduced in size; and I would also arm the soldiers, I have in view, with a sword, of the shape and size used by the ancient Romans; for we may depend upon it, that our brave, powerful men, would follow their officers, sword in hand, into the midst of their enemies. The musket could be then carried either in the left hand or slung upon the soldier's shoulder, and the bayonet could be fixed to it if preferred. ”