Forgotten Weapons
Published 23 Nov 2014The Gaulois (Gallic) was a compact squeeze-type palm pistol made by the Manufrance concern in St. Etienne in the 1890s. It held 5 rounds of 8mm ammunition (similar to the .32 Extra-Short used in other types of palm pistols) and was fired by squeezing the rear grip into the body of the gun.
As with the other weapons of this type that achieved some popularity in the 1880s through early 1900s, the Gaulois eventually faded from the market because of the improvements in conventional handguns. Something like a compact Iver Johnson revolver offered all the capabilities (if not more) of a Chicago Protector or My Friend or Gaulois, without the loading and aiming difficulties of those designs.
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September 28, 2023
Gaulois Palm Pistol
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September 22, 2023
MAS 49: A Universal Service Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published 20 May 2019As the MAS 44 saw combat service with French Marines in Indochina, some of its shortcomings began to reveal themselves. The rifle was reliable and durable, but it lacked some capabilities, most importantly rifle grenade launching and an optics mounting. After a test series of MAS 44A rifles, a new pattern was adopted as the MAS 49 and put into production in 1951.
A total of about 80,000 MAS 49 rifles were made, and they incorporated a scope mounting dovetail in the left side of the receiver and a grenade launching muzzle device and sight. In addition, the bayonet was left out, as it was no longer seen as necessary. Not all rifles were used with scopes or for launching grenades, but with the universal capability it was simple to adapt any rifle to whatever specialized role was required. Ultimately the MAS 49 would be replaced again in only a few year, by the MAS 49-56 iterative improvement — but that’s a subject for a future video.
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September 19, 2023
Jeremy Clarkson’s The Greatest Raid of All
North One
Published 4 May 2020Due to copyright restrictions, some music and scenes have been altered or removed in this upload. You can find the original unaltered documentary here: The Story Of The …
Jeremy Clarkson tells the story of the audacious commando raid on the German occupied dry dock at St Nazaire in France on March 28th 1942. Made for the BBC in 2007 by North One.
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September 17, 2023
The Ballad of Chiang and Vinegar Joe – WW2 – Week 264 – September 16, 1944
World War Two
Published 16 Sep 2023The Japanese attacks in Guangxi worry Joe Stilwell enough that he gets FDR to issue an ultimatum to Chiang Kai-Shek, in France the Allied invasion forces that hit the north and south coasts finally link up, the Warsaw Uprising continues, and the US Marines land on Peleliu and Angaur.
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September 16, 2023
France’s Vietnam War: Fighting Ho Chi Minh before the US
Real Time History
Published 15 Sept 2023After the Second World War multiple French colonies were pushing towards independence, among them Indochina. The Viet Minh movement under Ho Chi Minh was clashing with French aspirations to save their crumbling Empire.
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September 15, 2023
Brun-Latrige Model 1900
Forgotten Weapons
Published 14 Apr 2016Patented in 1896, this is one of several models of unique pocket pistols designed by Paul Brun-Latrige. He was a manager of the Manufrance company located in St. Etienne France, a large mail-order catalog company that produced a wide variety of products. Early versions of this pistol used a ring trigger mechanism and a 5mm cartridge, while this one uses a folding trigger and is chambered for an 8mm round (the same ammunition used in Manufrance’s Gaulois palm pistols, I suspect).
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September 13, 2023
At the end of the Axis’ Destiny – War Against Humanity 114
World War Two
Published 12 Sep 2023The imperial dreams of Germany and Japan are in tatters. But the expansionist beasts do their best to drag their enemies down with them. Across Europe the cycle of resistance and retaliation continues. Paris is free but Warsaw burns. V-1s rain down on innocent civilians in London. The Japanese cleanse West Borneo of opposition. The genocide of the Jews continues. For so many people, liberation is now so near yet so far away.
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September 10, 2023
Bulgaria at War with Everyone – WW2 – Week 263 – September 9, 1944
World War Two
Published 9 Sep 2023This week the USSR invades Bulgaria … who’ve also declared war on Germany, and who are still at war with the US and Britain, so Bulgaria is briefly technically at war with all four at once. Finland signs a ceasefire, the Germans are pulling out of Greece, the Warsaw and Slovak Uprisings continue, Belgium is mostly liberated, and across the world, the Japanese enter Guangxi, and there are American plans to liberate the Philippines.
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September 3, 2023
The War is Five Years Old – WW2 – Week 262 – September 2, 1944
World War Two
Published 2 Sep 2023Five years of war and no real end in sight, though the Allies sure seem to have the upper hand at the moment. Romania is coming under the Soviet thumb and Red Army troops are at Bulgaria’s borders, the Allies enter Belgium and also take ports in the south of France. A Slovak National Uprising begins against the Germans, and the Warsaw Uprising against them continues, but in China it is plans for defense being made against the advancing Japanese.
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September 1, 2023
Will the Resistance Smash Nazism or Build Communism? – War Against Humanity 112
World War Two
Published 31 Aug 2023The hour of resistance is here. Across Western Europe, armies of resistance fighters rise up to meet the Allied armies and sabotage the Axis war machine. In Slovakia, a secret army fights to restore Czechoslovak independence. But against this hopeful backdrop, the Axis forces strike back hard. And, all around, the spectre of communism strikes fear in the Western Powers.
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August 30, 2023
QotD: Hairstyles of the late Ancien Régime
… you get things like the massive and bizarre hairstyles of the nobility (and to be fair the rich bourgeois, but that’s because they aped the nobility) in France just before the French revolution.
As the industrial revolution and various other shifts (including truly disastrous harvests) robbed those whose income came from hereditary landholding of their ancient riches and prominence, even while the court demanded a complex set of “dancing attendance” for royal favor (A policy started and encouraged by Louis XIV in part to rob the nobility of wealth and prominence, not to mention keeping their minds off rebellion) the nobility felt insecure. The fact that its ranks were being penetrated by people from the bourgeoisie, who married their children or “simply” franked the nobility’s lavish lifestyles, made the nobles feel they were losing control. Even though rank remained a thing of birth, they were in fact, in the real world, losing rank.
The response were fashions so extravagant that they make us go “Wait, what?” and must have given people headaches.
You can see where wigs came from and were fashionable, in a society without running water and/or decent shampoos. It was easier to keep your hair ridiculously short and wear wigs, which is why they’ve been part of human fashion since ever.
But it took the French revolution to come up with wigs on armatures (or hair extensions, ditto) and hairstyles that incorporated ships and, at one point, bird cages with live, singing birds.
To look at drawings or read descriptions is to go “uh, what? who ever thought that was attractive?” and also “Boy their heads must have hurt”.
Yet the competition for the most elaborate and showy hairstyle, no matter how insane, did not stop until those heads fell to Madame Guillotine thereby stilling forever their status anxiety.
Sarah Hoyt, “Is That A Ship On Your Head?”, Libertarian Enterprise, 2019-09-01.
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August 29, 2023
A Rare World War One Sniper’s Rifle: Model 1916 Lebel
Forgotten Weapons
Published 28 Feb 2018Unlike Great Britain and Germany, the French military never developed a formal sniper doctrine during World War One — they had no dedicated schools or instruction manuals for that specialty. The three major arsenals did produce scoped sniping rifles, however, with models of 1915, 1916, and 1917 (and a post-war 1921 pattern). We have a model 1916 example here today.
The rifles were completely ordinary off-the-rack Lebels, modified simply to add scope mounts. The 1916 pattern mount used a round peg on the side of the rear sight and a bracket wrapped around the front of the receiver, which allowed the scope to be quickly and easily detached for carry in a separate pouch (similar to what other nations did, to protect the optic from damage when not in use). The rifles were issued only in small numbers (2 per company, or even 2 per battalion) and it was left to the unit commander to decide how to employ them.
This particular scope has some neat provenance of being brought home by a US soldier after the war — it came back wrapped in a period copy of Stars and Stripes magazine. The rifle is of the appropriate type, but the “N” marks on the barrel and receiver indicated French overhaul in the 1930s, precluding it from being the original rifle this scope was mounted on.
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August 27, 2023
The Liberation of Paris – WW2 – Week 261 – August 26, 1944
World War Two
Published 26 Aug 2023Paris is liberated by the Allies, a symbolic act that causes the world to rejoice. Something far more important to the course of the war, though, happens this week in Romania. The Allies continue to advance in the south of France and begin a new offensive in Italy, though the Pacific War has quietened down once again.
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August 20, 2023
Hitler Has a Bad Day – WW2 – Week 260 – August 19 – 1944
World War Two
Published 19 Aug 2023This week the Allies invade Southern France, and do so very successfully. They’re also successful in the north, closing the Falaise gap and trapping huge numbers of Germans. In the East, however, the Germans manage to stop the Soviet drive on Riga with a counter attack, and in Warsaw they continue to brutally put down the Warsaw Uprising.
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August 19, 2023
One Day in August – Dieppe Anniversary Battlefield Event (Operation Jubilee)
WW2TV
Published 19 Aug 2021One Day in August — Dieppe Anniversary Battlefield Event (Operation Jubilee) With David O’Keefe, Part 3 — Anniversary Battlefield Event.
David O’Keefe joins us for a third and final show about Operation Jubilee to explain how the plan unravelled and how the nearly 1,000 British, Canadian and American commandos died. We will use aerial footage, HD footage taken in Dieppe last week and maps, photos, and graphics.
In Part 1 David O’Keefe talked about the real reason for the raid on Dieppe in August 1942. In Part 2 David talked about the plan for Operation Jubilee. The intentions of the raid and how it was supposed to unfold.
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