When the Germans faced the well-trained riflemen of the British Expeditionary Force at Mons during the opening battles of the Great War on the eastern Front, they mistook British rifle fire (musketry) for machine-gun fire. The rifle that was used by the “Old Contemptibles” was the .303 Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield. Another rifle used to oppose the Germans was the French Berthier in 8 mm Lebel, a gun that started out with a three-shot clip. In the East, troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire used their Model 19895 straight-pull Steyr-Mannlicher rifle as they faced the legions of Imperial Russia armed with the “three-line” Model of 1891 Mosin-Nagant in 7.62x54 mm.
For more American Rifleman TV segments, go to americanrifleman.org/artv.
Infantry Rifles of The Great War: Enfields, Berthiers, Mannlichers and Mosin-Nagants
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