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Remembered Today:

TURKISH MACHINE GUNS AT GALLIPOLI


Chris Best

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Hi Pals

Duiring recent discussion with a Turkish academic the efficacy of Turkish MG fire on the landing beaches was challenged. He is not convinced the units in place on 25 Apr 15 had MGs. Most Allied historiography and memoirs comment on Turkish MGs so I am not seeking guidance toward British/AUS/NZ/French material.

Does anyone have access to Turkish or German papers which might support or refute my friend's doubts?

Cheers

Chris

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I had the same discussion, probably with the same man (was it Kenan?) and had to admit that he made good points based on Turkish documents. However, many allied reports mention machine guns at the landing and the distinctive sound they made, as opposed to rifle fire.

I'm also not sure now for how long it's been claimed no MGs covered the landing areas.

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Mates,

You pose aninteresting point.

When did the MG Companies as part of each Turkish regt get formed?

Surely they followed the German pratice in 1914 with a number of guns at regt/Bn level untill these companies were formed.

How long had Germany been suppling these weapons to Turkey pre war and did they use them in the Balkens war prior to the Great War?

Cheers

S.B

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I would have to look it up but as far as I know the Turkish did not have any (or very little) machine guns of their own.

At the beginning of the campaign the machineguns avaiable where those (operated by Germans) from the Goeben and Breslau.

There is even an account in which Mühlman mentiones about a machinegun crew (German) being taken prisoner and beaten up by the Turks !!

eric

PS : Chris, I was out for a day with Kenan earlier this week and he mentioned you would not be coming !! Everything ok ??

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Just to confirm Eric's point. Certainly German sailors had been detailed from the Goeben and Breslau with MG at a very early stage. I dont know for sure that this was by 25 April.

GHowever most accounts I have read have referred to MG emplacements in strategic positions at the time of the landings ie. at Sedd-ul-Bahr Fort, so it would be interesting to know the full argument put forward to refute the existence of MG.

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The Turkish machine gun debate is another of those that goes around and around. British accounts of the landings at Seddulbahir, especially V Beach, and Australian accounts of the landing at Ariburnu, state clearly there were machine guns there. However, this is strongly refuted by both Turkish historians and written records.

I have had this discussion with Kenan Celik and with another local expert, Sahin Akdogan, a number of times. Indeed Sahin and I were talking over this again only a week ago. He pulled out the Turkish official history and the order of battle for the units of the Ottoman 9th division that was defending the Peninsula. Of note is the fact that the battalion defending the beaches at the toe of the Peninsula was not equipped with a machine gun detachment, though the other two battalions of the 26th regiment were.

Interestingly, the local command removed the battalion that had been posted along the Helles beaches on the 24th of April, sending it into reserve and replacing it with the one that did not have machine guns. According to Sahin, there were a couple of quick firing Nordenfeld (sic) guns around V Beach.

Again according to Sahin, the Ottomans did get some machine guns to V later in the day and I have seen a photo of a Turkish machine gun kept in the storeroom of the regimental museum of one of the units that landed at V beach with a plaque saying it had been captured at Seddulbahir on April 26. (sorry, off hand I can’t remember which unit or which museum).

Most Turkish battalions had at least two machine guns by 1915, though according to Turkish records, the one at the toe of the Peninsula was not one of those so equipped.

The teams of machine gunners from the Breslau and Goeben were not detached until after the landings as I understand it.

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There are several refs to Turkish Pom-Poms above V-Beach, which I understand to refer to a quick-firing 1 pounder gun; does this match the Nordenfeld?

Von Sanders' book refers to the Turko-German fleet supplying ‘two machine-gun detachments with about 24 machine guns which were of great benefit’

And a little late he refers to the arrival of ‘the leader of the naval machine gun detachment, the brave Lieutenant Boltz,…..reaching the battlefield of Seddulbar on the evening of May 3rd’

Sorry lack of time precludes search for further ref to Turkish MGs

But I will keep an eye on this interesting thread

Regards

Michael D.R.

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One of the things that everyone " knew " when I was a child, is that Churchill had an interest in the company that sold machineguns to the Turks. This is only one of the reasons that I am wary of anecdotal evidence.

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Thanks, Pals.

Apologies for brevity in acknowledging your observations (due to 'outage' of site last night, pending departure for Istanbul and a sore head from supping Effes until 0100 hrs (thanks for that, Bill)).

Have had a cracking week here, much of it in Kenan's company during which this theory was discussed. The ex-infantry and sapper members of our group were singularly sceptical. One used [Frewster's] book [Gallipoli: The Turkish Story] to refute the idea, but on examination, sources quoted in the book were British.

Further discussion with Kenan and, later, with Bill, nurtures the seed of doubt - the staff (organizational) table argument is particularly useful. However, given the TU/GE threat analysis, it does seem remarkable that those southernmost beaches would remain machinegunless.

George Davidson, an MO with 89 Fd Amb aboard the RIVER CLYDE, upadting his diary on 26th Apr, wrote about the Clyde's approach, ". . . . they [barges towed by the Clyde] grounded too soon, then broke away from each other. The men then had to get ashore in open boats manned by the marines we had on board. This was at once pushed on, boat after boat left the ship's side for the beach, perhaps 30 yards off, terrific machine-gun fire sweeping each boat." ("The Incomparable 29th and the 'River Clyde'", George Davidson MA MD, Major RAMC, Aberdeen 1919, p 50).

So, how does that square with the theory? OK, quite probable that a 'light' unit was in situ. If it did not have MGs on establishment, then might not the TU regimental/divisional have arranged for MGs to be placed ubder operational control of the deployed unit?

Don't know when I'll next get the chance to follow up on this. I'll be back home tonight where we lost our internet connection at the end of June due to technical problems. Will catch up whenever I can get on the Community PC.

Good luck. Thanks a lot, Bill and Serpil, for your hospitality, enthusiasm, eagerness to share knowledge, and generosity. Sorry to have missed you, Eric. Kenan must have thought you were talking about Chris Pugsley (great shame he wasn't able to accompany us - good luck to his future venture).

Good bye Gallipoli, for another year or two.

Chris

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Whilst I can't comment on the Machine Gun debate I just thought I would post that if anyone is intrested this is a story I did for my webpage by a Sgt Reginald Bell of the 15th Bedfordshire Regiment, about his time in Gallipoli. The story was given to a reporter of what was my local towns newspaper in 1915, when the Sgt was recovering at the Fernhill Covalescent Home.

I typed this up when I first did the site and having just looked at again realise I could have done a better job and will do so when I get a minute. However the story may still intrest some of you..I hope.... :

Arggh tried to upload story but it is too big.

The story can be read on my website which is bacuptimes.co.uk

then go to Wartime, Fernhill Military Hospital

the story is on the right hand side.

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  • 1 year later...

The defence of W and V beach was in the AOR of 3 Bn of 26 Rg under command of Major Mahmut. Neither his Bn nor 26 Rgt had a machine guns in the structure. His Bn took over the AOR on 23. April from an other Bn, which could have had machine guns because 25 and 27 Rgt had a machine gun Coy with 4 weapons each. it is not unlikely, that the already installed machine guns stayed in positions. But in records I found, that 4 machine guns were used in 3 Bn AOR - see also the attached map.

The German contribution with machine guns started after General Liman von Sanders asked Admiral Souchon for support and to send a Landungsabteilung. From both battleships "Goeben" and "Breslau" they formed a machinegun Coy with 44 men and 8 machineguns under command of 1st Lt Boltz. They arrived on 3rd May 1915 and after reporting at the Krithia-front "Südgruppe" HQ they were used mainly to support the left wing in the AOR of 7 Div. Because there was not enough time to change from the navy uniform they were stopped and threatend by own Turkish troops and only Major Mühlmann, Generalstaffofficer of the Südgruppe could solve the problem, when he passed by and saw the scene. This first battle was firce and the Coy lost 3 men, 7 wounded and 1 machine gun. During the attacks of 7th May the Landungsabteilung was in the trenches forward Kerevisdere and had to fight against the French troops. Boltz wrote about this attack: "In thick colomns, between 50 and 60 each, they came forward, and gave the Turkish artillery and our machine guns a full target. We mowed them down - row by row but always new colomns were send to attack. When our machine guns run out of ammunition, our soldiers took the rifles from the fallen Turkish soldiers and continued fighting. No more than five o'clock the attack was defeated. The enemy must have had terrible losses that day. The red trousers and red hats of the French soldiers were wonderful targets."

The Landungsabteilung continued on the 8 May the battle and 1st Ltn Boltz was wounded. After this week from the 44 soldiers only 7 were able to continue fighting - the rest was dead, wounded or ill.

12 May 1st Lt von Thomsen arrived with new personal and on 19 may also Boltz returned with new personel and weapons to Gallipoli. They now were used on the right flank on both banks of the Sigindere in the AOR of the 9 Div, which was under command of Col Kannengiesser. There the Landunsgabteilung again had heavy losses during the battles between 4 and 6 June. On 27 July the Landunsgabteilung was reinforced from Istanbul and had now a strength of 3 officers, 150 men an 12 machineguns. They were immedeately used in the defence of the 7 August landings, were they proved again their effectiveness but had heavy losses in particular on Hill 971.

After the withdrawel of the allied troops in January 1916 the Landungsabteilung stayed until the end of the war and secured from 5 observing posts the coastline. A special task was to show German submarines the way through the mine fields in the Dardanelles. For that reason the commander of the Landungsabteilung entered the submarine north of Kiretsch Tepe, north of Gallipoli. Then he guided the submarines around the coastline and left the boat in the bay of Maidos.

The Turkish troops used somes Vickers machine guns but mainly German build model 08/15 - also a water-cooled weapon. One original weapon from gallipoli is still in the entrance hall of the staff buildung of the 3rd Turkish Corps in Istanbul.

post-22005-1181245335.jpg

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Germany certainly appears to have been supplying Machine guns to Turkey since at least 1908 MG08 pattern Maxims were supplied (although this does not automatically mean that they turned up at Gallipoli) Most of guns were probably a little later beong Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken supplied 7.65 MG09 pattern Maxims on tripod mountings (these were specifically manufactured for export only). During WW1 German service 7.9 Maxims were also supplied (which must have done wonders for the ammunition supply <_< ). In 1915 a number of Dreyse Mgs were also supplied to Turkey. In addition there were still some Gatlings in service in 1914

John Walter says of Turkish machine guns "The guns were distinguished by the Toughra mark, prior to 1908, or by a star and crescent symbol. They bear makers marks, serial numbers and back sight graduations in Arabic.

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Germany certainly appears to have been supplying Machine guns to Turkey since at least 1908 MG08 pattern Maxims were supplied (although this does not automatically mean that they turned up at Gallipoli) Most of guns were probably a little later beong Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken supplied 7.65 MG09 pattern Maxims on tripod mountings (these were specifically manufactured for export only). During WW1 German service 7.9 Maxims were also supplied (which must have done wonders for the ammunition supply <_< ). In 1915 a number of Dreyse Mgs were also supplied to Turkey. In addition there were still some Gatlings in service in 1914

I have no information that speaks directly to the question, other than when the British, later in the campaign, did the "end run" and landed north of ANZAC (Sulva Bay?), the area was only occupied by one Turkish battalion, possibly gendarmes, and that battalion had only rifles, not a single MG.

Someone has mentioned the Germans supplying the MG 08/15. Although 1915 is in the model description, I cannot recall seeing mention of a MG of this model even in the German service before 1916. I am sure that the Turks did not have them at the time of the landing, relatively early in 1915, as probably none were distributed to German forces in Germany or France at that time.

What no one has mentioned was the difficulty of supplying any sort of materiel to the Turks from Germany. When my father traveled to Gallipoli from Brandenburg, he and his companions had to turn in their uniforms, weapons, etc.; they were given a small sum of money to purchase a set of civilian clothes. They were replacements, I believe, for the German volunteer Pionier=Kompagnie that served at Gallipoli; the unit immediately suffered 80% casualties, mostly illness, and they received replacements, probably including my father; he joined the army too late to make the original deployment. I am sure that the Romanian border guards realized that the body of say 100 men, traveling together, were German soldiers, but they must have been paid off. The Romanians, although officially neutral, leant towards the Allies, and German officers complained that they had to pay larger bribes for favors than the Allies had to. (It may be non-PC to say this, but at this time Romania had a reputation for Olympic-scale corruption, and I myself have experienced border corruption in the 1970's. Stalin made a famous comment on this.)

I have heard that the Germans managed to get a few artillery shells thru hidden in sealed beer barrels supposedly traveling as a civilian export. The Turks, with German help, made satisfactory rifle ammunition, but the manufacture of shell fuzes was deficient, and I believe that Turkish shells of the period would usually fire, but were of debatable likeliness to explode at the other end. The Germans attempted to get some shells thru by submarine, but of course this only could supply a tiny number of shells.

When the Germans finally defeated the Serbs (the Austro-Hungarians having failed earlier) the way was open, but the Serbs had made a heroic effort to really destroy the rail lines thru the area, and the first Berlin to Istanbul train only got thru in February 1916, I believe. But the Central Powers finally got some materiel stuff thru earlier, I am sure with considerable effort, and in September 1915 it was managed to supply one battery of German 15 cm howitzers (four guns), which were sent to the beachhead at the tip of the penninsula, and one battery of Austrian 24 cm mortars (two guns), which were sent to ANZAC, and were seen there by my father. Additionally, some good German artillery ammunition got thru, and I have a quote somewhere by a British commander, possibly Birdwood, and possibly commented to Bean, that he was afraid that the Allies were going to be blasted off the beaches due to these new arrivals.

A lot of the above comments seem to reflect an assumption that the Germans were able to supply the Turks with lots of materiel at this phase of the war. This simply was not true. (It also has to be remembered that the Turkish Army was severely mauled in the several Balkan wars only a few years before.) When you add the fact that, I believe, that at most phases of Gallipoli the Turks were outnumbered, as well as terribly short of weapons and reliable shells, the accomplishments of the Turks in holding their own at Gallipoli against very effective Allied forces supported by heavy naval fire support is all the more remarkable.

This lack of weapons is also reflected in the information previously posted that the Turkish MG companies, if there were some, had four MGs per MG company. At this time, while German Jaeger companies had 12 MGs in a Jaeger MG company, German infantry companies has six MGs at the start of the war, but were being up-armed to 12 MGs per company. (This was the 140 pound heavy MG 08. When lighter MGs were provided the number of MGs in units tended to go up, while the MG 08s were still retained, often fired from far behind the front line with the use of telescopic sights.)

Based on the above supporting information I would doubt that the Turks had many MGs in the front lines during the opening phases of the battle. Why was it necessary to send German sailors armed with a few MGs from the armories of the Goeben and the Breslau to the front? I would bet that the Turks had less MGs than artillery pieces.

Bob Lembke

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If anyone has any information on the activities of the German volunteer pioneer company at Gallipoli, please speak up. In some years of research on this (and many other WW I topics) I have only collected a few sentences of information, and this includes reading the obvious German and French sources, and an extremely painful attempt to translate a bit of Modern Turkish. The volunteer company was probably organized by Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 3 (von Rauch) from the III. Armeekorps.

My father was not wounded, but like many others contracted malaria at Gallipoli.

Bob Lembke

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Hi Bob - as you said, the supply from Germany with ammo was less than poor until Serbia was beaten and the railway could be used. Anyway, the solution was to produce ammunition in Turkey.

After the battles in spring 1915 ammunition for infanterie and mainly artillery was almost finished. In this unfavourable situation Admiral Souchon recommended to the minister of war, Enver Pascha, to take care for the production and to hand over the lead of the Waffenamt to Captain Pieper. Pieper knew the weaknesses of the Turkish ammunition production and reorganized the whole production. In a couple of months from Germany 74 specialized officers (Feuerwerker), ingeneurs and chemists, 47 master craftmen and 659 spezialized workers travelled to Istanbul. The factories came all under German command and were mainly located in Istanbul and its suburbs, but also in Izmir, Eskischehir, Ismid, Tuzla, Aleppo, Jerusalem, Bagdad, Konia, Isparta, Ajasma. The number of Turkish workers in the factories rised up to 15.000 men - many women as well.

For the battles around Gallipoli those factories produced mainly rifles, rifle ammo, and artillerie ammo for the calibres between 7,5cm and 21cm. Production series were tested on a own shooting and test range. A further challenge were the production of fuzes, which fit to the trench warfare on the peninsula. The re-organization for that kind of production was also responsible for the material for ammo and weapons, the material for the Nitrier-process for the powder but also the machines and coal for the factories.

For the close battle of the trench warfare the factories produced special weapons. The documents are shows rockets.."which heads were filled with ingredienz to produce venomous gases.." - it would be interesting, if those weapons were really used in Gallipoli?

Further they build bombs in calibre 3,8 and 5cm, several hundret minethrouwers for calibre 8,5 and different ammo also with gasmines, fire- and shrapnell mines, heavy bombthrouwers, which were able to fire 50kg bombs, which could fire arond 800m, mortars and handgrenades.

For that reson ammunition was not a real problem, even if the quality of this products was not always like required...

I read a very detailed report about this work in the German Military Archiv in Freiburg as well as the memories of Capt Pieper.

Capt Pieper came begin 1915 to Istanbul because he was accused for being responsible of the sinking of the battleship "York". The time in Turkey saved him to continue his time in a military prison. First nobody wanted to have him in his staff - neither Souchon nor von Usedom. After his success the German Kaiser Wilhelm II stated 8. Dec 1915: "in acknowledgement of his outstanding duties in the weapon and ammunition production in Turkey, which contributed significantely to the victory of the Turkish forces, I reprieve him and he must not finish his detainment as stated in the judgement of the military court from 28. Dec 1914."

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Hi, El Shahin;

I had heard of Captain Pieper but not so much interesting detail. I had not known that the operation was so big. Are Capt. Pieper's memoirs in book form, or did you find them in manuscript form or in an archive? Does it have a title? Could you suggest other possible sources on the freiwilliger Pionier=Kompagnie? I have, of course, read Liman von Sanders and Kannengiesser.

I have seen several estimates of how many Turkish-produced shells exploded when expected, and they vary, but clearly there was a real problem. Producing good fuzes is not an easy process.

My grand-father was a Feuerwerk=Hauptmann, retired as a Major a. D..

Bob Lembke

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I was NOT refering to the Mg 08/15 but the earlier Maschinengewehr Modell 1909 which was itself the export version of the Maschinengewehr Modell 1908 (MG08) Numbers of these were sold privately to Bulgaria, China, Roumania and Turkey before the outbrak of war (so no transport problems - put 'em on a ship and sail them there) How many Turkey bought (and what was done with them) remains unclear but John Walters in 'Central Powers' Small Arms of WW1' suggests that "sales were good"

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These two links may be of use - the first takes you to a site with a photo of a Turkish Machine Gun position, gun and gunner captured by the Australians at Galipolli whilt the second has a photo of a crest on a Turkish machine gun capured at ditto

http://www.diggerz.org/~anzacs/id285.htm

http://cas.awm.gov.au/PROD/cst.acct_master...r&bos=Win32

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centurion, your second link doesn't work. It points to a timed out session at the AWM. The crest you're referring to is the photo numbered H02301 at the AWM. Anyone wanting to see it, just copy the number into the search field on the AWM website.

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I was NOT refering to the Mg 08/15 but the earlier Maschinengewehr Modell 1909 which was itself the export version of the Maschinengewehr Modell 1908 (MG08)

Centurion, I did say that "someone" mentioned that the Germans supplied the Turks with MG 08/15, not that you did, in your interesting information. I looked thru and indeed someone did say that. Due to the topic of the thread, this could be taken to imply that the Turks at Gallipoli had MG 08/15. I thought it was useful to point out that this was, IMHO, impossible, at that point in time. But quite likely this model was supplied later.

Bob Lembke

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Try this one

http://nla.gov.au/nla.cs-pa-HTTP%253A%252F...TYPE%253DBOTTOM

The crest does not look German to me. This would imply that this was a gun made for the Turks and therefore probably one of the pre war imports. This would mean that either the Turks did have guns at Gallipoli at the begining or thay had the guns available but did not deploy them until after the landing (which would seem a very odd way of doing things and not what one would expect from General Kemal)

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The crest does not look German to me. This would imply that this was a gun made for the Turks and therefore probably one of the pre war imports. This would mean that either the Turks did have guns at Gallipoli at the begining or thay had the guns available but did not deploy them until after the landing (which would seem a very odd way of doing things and not what one would expect from General Kemal)

Certainly not German, almost certainly Turkish. The lower of the two roundelles contains an Arabic letter or short word written in a decorative, cursive style; Ottoman Turkish was of course written in the Arabic alphabet, although that alphabet is quite ill-suited to represent Turkish, a much more complicated language. Turkish has, amazingly, been written in about 8 or 10 alphabets. Can't help with what it says; I have a bit of spoken Arabic in four dialects (but not Iraq Arabic - amazingly the US Army wrote me asking that I sign up as a translator and ship out to Iraq; as my father fought at Gallipoli, you figure out how old I must be), but my wife does not have a word of vocabilary but has a fair grasp of the alphabet. We each only have a miniscule bit of spoken Turkish. I have a tenant, a young lady Ph.D., who has four dialects down very well, as well as other languages. I have repeatedly avocated that the Pals should get together and identify and pay some young or old Turks to do translations from Ottoman Turkish, many Pals seem to be interested. We will do ourselves a favor if we help organizing and supporting this exotic skill. There are 14 universities in Istanbul.

I doubt that a war-time supplied MG would have such an elaborate stamp; it looks like its complexity is equal to the task of making the MG!

The MG in the other link photo is, 99% sure, a MG 08 or a close derivative, like the export model you mentioned, based on the MG 08.

Bob Lembke

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I wonder if this is the Toughra mark that John Walter states was used on machine guns Germany supplied to Turkey prior to 1908? After that he says that the guns had a star and crescent symbol. It certainly looks as if Turkey did have machine guns availble at the start of the Gallipoli campaign. Any that were pre 1908 would presumably be MG03s, somewhat heavier than the MG08 (basically a licence built Vickers Maxim)

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I will provide some photos from Turkish machine guns after I return from Istanbul mid July. I will take some detailed pictures in the HQ of 3rd TU Corps as well in the Turkish army museum in Harbiye/Istanbul. I am not sure how many machine guns were supplied by Germany before 1914.

In 1906 the Ottoman government wanted to buy 50 machine guns from France, which was cancelled by the intervention from the German ambassador. Those 50 machine guns were supplied but in the same year the ottomans ordered 70 machine guns from France. I have many information about the supply of guns and rifles but couldn't find any lists of numbers and typs of German machine guns so far.

Bob, the information about Capt. Pieper is just from the military archiv - as far as I know, there is no book about him and his work. Would be a nice research to bring all the facts together.

The attached picture is from the Landungsabteilung - a machine gun crew and two officers at Gallipoli - unfortunately the gun is just a shadow behind the bush.

post-22005-1181390033.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

Hi Folks, Thankyou for the information on the German Naval MG Detachments that fought at Gallipoli.

I've just read by JH Patterson (CO of the Zionist Mule Corps) "With the Zionists in Gallipoli" and taking a paragraph from page 201:

"Among the prisoners taken in one of these battles were some German sailors from the Goeben, who had been working the machine-guns. When taken they had no more ammunition left, their officer and many others had been killed, and their position was quite hopeless, so they gladly surrendered. They looked crestfallen and sullen when Isaw them as prisoners on their way to the beach."

God Bless

Helen

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