Quite frankly I am quite often annoyed about the never ending jokes about the French, portraying them as cowards and bad soldiers. Things like “French rifle for sale, never fired, dropped once.” Is very unfair to a nation whose soldiers fought so hard, endured so much and sacrificed their lives and health during WWI. They simply don’t deserve that kind of slander.
And, anyway, there are so many real stories about the French and their pride and conviction that whatever they did or made was the best, that one can rightfully point to things that are truly parodic and funny without resorting to the unfair jokes circulated these days.
There is the much ridiculed Chauchat machine gun, that really wasn’t so bad in skilled hands, really the version that did not work well was the 30-06 version for the Americans. The St. Etienne machine gun, on the other hand, is a crazy story about national pride leading to the development of the most excellent machine gun in history. Its only flaw was that it did not work. Remind me to tell that story in detail one day. The top brass insistence on going to war in bright red trousers that are easy to aim at and led to them setting the dubious record of having the most wounds to the nether regions of soldiers in the early war… There is more than enough craziness in reality…
One thing that puzzles me is what they did to the soldiers rate of fire. The British Lee-Enfield No1 MkIII had a magazine that took ten rounds. The German Gewehr 98 took five rounds. The French Berthier 07/15… Three rounds! In other words the soldiers had to reload much more often than others, significantly slowing their rate of fire.
The old 1886 Lebel rifle was by WWI already obsolete, with it’s tubular magazine it could take up to ten rounds at a time, including one in the chamber. What did they start replacing it with? The three round Berthier rifles and carbines. It was not until the models introduced in 1916 that they took to their senses and introduced a magazine that took five rounds.
Pictured is the Lee-Enfield. The Gewehr98, Berthier 07/15 and the Mle 1916 carbine.
So, a few kind words to the French soldiers who fought like lions, though their proud and stiff necked leaders often did not make things easy for them.