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The Graveyards of Gallipoli; A Digger History Associate Site |
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A Tribute to the Men of all the Nations that took part in the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915 |
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French weapons of WW1, at Gallipoli 1915 |
| Like other Colonial Powers the French equipped it's "home troops" with the latest gear and the older stuff was issued to it's Colonial troops. |
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French Model 1886 Lebel Infantry Bayonet made for the various WWI era "Lebel" and "Fusil" Infantry Rifles, with evolutionary modifications. |
| Overall length,in scabbard, is 25½; Hilt is 4-5/8" in length (including crossguard), 2 inch at widest point (crossguard); solid brass grip; cross-guard and latching mechanism are integrated together. The handle - or grip - is held in place by a screw-nut and is removable. The original Model 1886 was a silver-alloy handle (this one is brass) with a hooked cross-guard lower quillion (now arsenal removed). This blade is nothing more than a pig-sticker. It is a straight 4-edged-blade (cruciform) and is 20½ long, ½ inch wide at ricasso, 4 full-length fullers. No blade markings are apparent on this example. Scabbard is 21 inch in length; tubular steel with ball-finial. | |
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French De Gras bayonet. (St. Etienne 1878 pattern) |
| An original M 1866 pattern French Chassepot sword bayonet. The overall length of the bayonet is 27½ inch with a blade length of 22½ inch. Back edge of blade is marked Tulle October 1872. |  |
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Lebel M-1886 Rifle Notes: This weapon is notable since it is the first rifle to use both smokeless powder and (what was considered at the time) a small-caliber bullet. It was a technical advance, but rather strangely-implemented. It was mechanically behind the times, using a tubular magazine, but ahead of the times as far as the ammunition was concerned. It suffered from a marked practical design flaw. Its eight rounds were loaded, nose to tail fashion, in a tubular magazine placed under the barrel of the rifle. This resulted in slow loading since the operator had to avoid one round hitting the primer of the cartridge in front, thereby causing an explosion. The Lebel was also long and heavy, due to its tubular magazine and peculiar bolt mechanism. Despite its construction, it remained in service with the French until the end of World War 2 (in limited numbers). |
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Lebel-Berthier 1907/15 Notes: The tubular magazine of the Lebel M-1886 was far too slow and difficult to load, especially as the feed spring in the magazine was very stiff. The Berthier modification was a box magazine with a Mannlicher clip. The original Berthier modification gave it only a three-round magazine in order to avoid having to do heavy modifications to the stock, but later a 5-round magazine was adapted to it by adding a sheet-metal extension to the bottom of the stock. These rifles remained in service until the 1950s; many modified to fire 7.5mm MAS. |
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Gallipoli Peninsula,
Turkey. 6/7 May 1915. French 75mm gun in a battery near Sedd-el-Bahr.
AWM image & text |
