Three “gentlemen adventurers” gather ’round a fire, enjoying after-dinner drinks in my painting, Campfire Cohorts. I posed for the hunter on the left, Chuck for the hunter in the center and on the right.
Some of these men returned safely, but many others who sought the “white gold” … would die in the process.
When the ruthless King Leopold II of Belgium died on December 17,1909, so did the severe restrictions on hunting the King’s elephants in the Lado Enclave of the Congo Free State (now southeast Sudan and northwest Uganda).
King Leopold had ruled from an annexed throne and made the Lado Enclave his own personal domain to do with as he wished. After his death, the district became a no-man’s land until the Belgian and British Royals could decide who should control it.
This meant the area was open to hunters who could bag as much ivory as they could carry out. The only obstacle was the large number of loyal Belgian askaris who remained. They were a disorganized bunch of dangerous savages who did not hesitate to shoot on sight.
Soon the “ivory rush” was on and, despite the risks, hunters from all corners of British and German East Africa raced to take advantage of it.
Even Theodore Roosevelt made a point of going to the Enclave that December (1909) before completing his safari. Although the President went there for white rhino, not elephant, it was really to meet the poachers.
TR referred to the men who flocked there as “a hard-bit set,” but affectionately called them “a company of gentleman adventurers.” In reality, they were nothing more than poachers raiding an unadopted territory of its ivory resources before some authority could put a stop to it.
The situation in the Lado Enclave would last only about nine months, until the district became a province of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan with the southern half being controlled by the British Colony of Uganda.
In the meantime, some of the most prominnt
hunters of the time went to the Enclave in search of the big prize: huge herds of elephants, some containing as many as 500 animals, and bulls carrying ivory up to 200 pounds per side.
Some of these men returned safely, but many others who sought the “white gold,” particularly the lesser known and inexperienced, would die in the process. One such hunter was William Pickering, who literally lost his head doing it.
A well-known poacher and extremely good shot, Pickering was charged and killed by a bull elephant. It seems that he froze with his gun raised as the elephant bore down on him. The huge beast ripped off Pickering’s head and then stomped the man’s lifeless body into the ground.
For most hunters, however, their biggest challenge was outwitting the Belgians and getting themselves and their ivory safely out of the country. The British were sympathetic to the poachers, as it wasn’t “their” ivory, and they benefited from a 25 percent tax on any ivory brought into the British Protectorate from the Belgian side.
One ingenious deception was orchestrated by famed elephant hunter Bill Judd when trying to get across the Nile with a huge haul of ivory. Local natives told him that a Belgian patrol was hidden atop a hill watching the swamp he had to cross to reach the Nile. His only chance was to create a diversion.
He arranged to have some wooden poles whitewashed with the clay used on the inside of native huts and then divided his pagazi into two teams.
He went with the group carrying the white poles, which drew the patrol down the hill while the real ivory went ’round the other side of the hill and made it safely across the Nile. It’s ironic that it was an elephant that would end Judd’s life years later (see “Last Safari”).
Robert Foran hatched another ingenious ruse. This was the same Foran who acted as correspondent for the Associated Press, while unofficially covering the Roosevelt safari a year earlier (see “Codename ‘Rex’”).
The former policeman decided to sneak ivory over to the British side under the cover of a moonless night. He hid his heavily laden canoes along the bank on the British side, then at daybreak he and his men paddled the ivory, as though being chased, back to the Belgian side where they pretended it had been poached in the British territory.
Happy to get one over on the British, Belgian officials agreed to buy the ivory from Foran, who made a handsome profit on the deal, all tax-free.
There is no doubt the activities that took place during the Congo’s transition did much to enhance the frontier atmosphere of early East Africa and the legends it spawned.
Prior to the First World War, the nations of Europe made Hiram Maxim a very wealthy man. Maxim accomplished this with his machine gun, which was adopted by numerous nations in Europe and beyond. However, one of the major powers on the European continent wasn’t convinced — namely Austria-Hungary.
Hungarian troops train with the water-cooled Schwarzlose machine gun. Image: József Horváth/Fortepan
The reasoning isn’t fully clear, but one factor could be that the empire had a robust arms industry in Bohemia (the modern-day Czech Republic). Also, the fact that a member of the royal family, Archduke Karl Salvator, helped Colonel von Dormus of the Austro-Hungarian Army develop an early competitor to the Maxim Gun may have certainly played a role.
Salvator-Dormus M1893 Machine Gun
Patented in 1888, it has become known as the Model 1893 as that was when the weapon was first adopted by the Austro-Hungarian Navy (a year after Salvator’s death). It also came to be known as the Skoda machine gun by virtue of being manufactured at the Skoda Works.
In this image from 1942, a Schwarzlose M.07/12 machine gun is mounted on a three-legged anti-aircraft stand. Image: Konok Tamás/Fortepan
With nearly a century and a half of hindsight in machine gun design looking back at it, the Salvator-Dormus 1893 machine gun is certainly an odd design — incorporating a mix of forward-looking elements with features that already seemed antiquated. It was chambered for the 8x50R smokeless cartridge and had an adjustable cyclic rate of fire, which could be set as low as 175 rpm or as high as 500 rpm.
It was fed from a unique fixed feed tower, which could be fed by an assistant gunner as the weapon was fired. The guns were reportedly reliable and could fire for upwards of nine minutes without stoppage. While it may have worked well as a naval gun, or in fixed positions, the Salvator-Dormus 1893 wasn’t considered ideal for infantry.
In this 1920 photograph, troops of the Second Polish Republic man a Schwarzlose heavy machine gun during the Polish-Soviet War. Image: National Digital Archives of Poland
At least one saw use in combat during the Boxer Rebellion as it fired from the Austro-Hungarian battlecruiser when the warship was deployed to Peking. The U.S. military was offered a chance to test the Salvator-Dormus 1893 machine gun in China after the Boxer Rebellion, but only 600 rounds of ammunition were provided. The U.S. assessment was that it was reliable, but not able to endure the rigors of field use.
Some sources suggest a limited number may have been employed during the First World War, but that cannot be confirmed. One of the few surviving examples is in the collection in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum — Militärhistorisches Institute (the Museum of Military History — Military History Institute) in Vienna, Austria.
Enter the Schwarzlose M.07/12 Heavy Machine Gun
The Austro-Hungarian military was far from satisfied with the Salvator-Dormus 1893 machine gun, but instead of adopting the Maxim, it again sought to forge its own path with help from the Prussian-born arms designer Andreas Wilhelm Schwarzlose.
Royal Hungarian Army soldiers sit for this 1924 unit photograph at the Batthyány barracks in Pécs. The machine guns are the Schwarzlose M.07/12. Image: Bakó Jenő/Fortepan
He began development of a new machine gun in 1902 that employed a toggle-delayed lock, using a concept he first developed for a toggle-delayed pistol concept. As Schwarzlose had primarily been a handgun designer, it took several years for his design to be finalized.
Unlike the Maxim, the water-cooled machine gun had a fixed barrel, few moving parts, and a breach that was at no time truly locked, while it had a straightforward blowback mechanism. When the weapon fired, the rearward thrust of the exploding gases started the action opening at the same instant as it caused the bullet to move down the barrel. As it employed a very short barrel and a combination of extremely heavy recoil parts and springs, the weapon could employ a rifle cartridge. It had a cyclic rate of 400 to 500 rounds per minute, and it fired from a 250-round fabric belt.
This 1916 photograph shows a Lohner B.VII version of the Austrian-developed, two-seat light bomber aircraft. It used a rear mounted Schwarzlose machine gun. Image: Saly Noémi/Fortepan
First introduced in 1907, it featured a lubricating pump to lubricate each cartridge for ease of extraction, but it was subsequently rebuilt and a time extraction issue was addressed. That removed the need for the pump, but the machine gun still relied on a heavy bolt and a very strong recoil spring. It was also determined that the short barrel would result in a significant muzzle flash that could blind the gunner at night, and a cone-shaped dedicated flash hider was introduced to suppress the flash.
Designated the Schwarzlose M.07/12, it was employed by the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War, and like most of the machine guns of the era, it was used with a mount that weighed more than the actual weapon. However, that helped stabilize the weapon.
In 1939, Hungarian soldiers practice with a Schwarzlose M.07/12 in the vicinity of Honvéd Street in Budapest, Hungary. Image: Kókány Jenő/Fortepan
The M.07/12 was typically operated by a crew of three that included an NCO, a gunner who carried the weapon, and a third soldier who served as the ammunition carrier and loader. In practice, a fourth soldier was also employed to carry the tripod.
At the start of the war, the Austro-Hungarian Army fielded more than 100 infantry regiments, and each company included four platoons and a complement of 267 soldiers. However, the M.07/12 was relatively scarce as machine gun detachments were organized at the battalion level.
In 1941, these soldiers man a Schwarzlose machine gun mounted in a rail car in the Pécs railway station. Image: Lissák Tivadar/Fortepan
Austro-Hungarian Aviation Troops (k.u.k. Luftfahrtruppen) were equipped with the modified M.07/12/R16, an air-cooled variant. Due to a time delay between the trigger movement and the moment the bullet leaves the barrel, the weapon presented challenges in synchronizing it for use with fighters — and while the issues were eventually overcome, it was subsequently phased out of service as more suitable aircraft weapons became available.
Used by Austria and Beyond
The Schwarzlose M.07/12 was produced by Österreichische Waffenfabriks-Gesellschaft (OeWG), Steyr, and from 1914 to 1918 FGGY in Budapest. During World War I, Austria-Hungary also exported the M.07/12 to its Bulgarian and Ottoman Empire allies.
A Royal Hungarian Air Force officer administers an oath at a Kecskemét airport. In the foreground is a Schwarzlose machine gun. Also shown is a Heinkel He-70K reconnaissance aircraft. Image: Fortepan
After the First World War, The Schwarzlose saw use with the militaries of the newly independent Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland — as well as with the Austrian Army. The Netherlands and Sweden also acquired a number of the Austrian-designed machine guns, while a plethora of nations including Brazil, China, Colombia, Greece and Spain also adopted it in small numbers.
Beginning in 1924, the Czechoslovakian military converted the M.07/12 to 7.92x57mm and redesignated it the MG-7/24. Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, those weapons were subsequently employed by the German Wehrmacht and issued to the infantry divisions of the 5th and 6th Aufstellungswelle, which were mainly equipped with Czech weapons. At the end of the Second World War, the reserve stocks were issued to the Volksstrum (People’s Militia) forces.
These Polish soldiers stand in a trench during the Polish-Soviet War in 1919. Visible is the Schwarzlose M.07/12 machine gun. Image: National Digital Archives of Poland
The M.07/12 remained in service beyond the Second World War and was used to equip the early Czechoslovakian Army in the early stages of the Cold War.
In 1931, the M.07/12s in service with Austria were modified to use the new 8x56R cartridge, which provided a significantly higher muzzle velocity (2,300 fps, instead of about 1,900-2,000 with the 8x50R). In addition, the Hungarian Army’s Schwarzlose machine guns were modified to use the 8x56mm 31.M “Hegyes” cartridge around the same time.
During the Second World War, the Schwarzlose M.07/12 was adopted by the same armies that it had been employed against during the First World War — namely Italy and Romania. The former adopted a number and used them in the campaign in North Africa.
In 1938, Polish troops train with Schwarzlose machine guns using a road as a defensive position. Image: National Digital Archives of Poland
The Romanian versions were converted to 7.62x54mmR — the same cartridge used by the Mosin-Nagant rifle. These also were fitted with a longer barrel and lengthened water jacket. However, those firearms appear to have seen little use in World War II — but according to some sources, the machine guns were used against German and Hungarian forces after the Kingdom of Romania left the Axis and joined the Allies as a co-belligerent. Thus some Romanian forces used an Austro-Hungarian machine gun against the Hungarians!
The Romanian versions had been sold as parts kits in the early 2000s, and a number were offered for sale as deactivated “dummy” or display guns. Yet, even these non-firing examples have become extremely rare in recent years.
Schwarzlose Machine Gun in Popular Culture
The M.07/12 has only been seen in a handful of films over the years, first appearing in the 1931 French-German film Mountains of Fire, which chronicled the fighting in the Alps during the First World War. More recently, it is among the firearms seen in a weapons museum in John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum.
The Czech M.07/24 has also appeared in several movies, in some cases standing in for the M.07/12.
The M.07/12 remains an innovative firearm that saw use in the First World War and beyond.
This is Walter Summerford. This poor schmuck got struck by lightning four times, once after he was already dead.
It’s an old wives’ tale that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place. Lightning is completely random. In the US alone, there are an average of 40 million lightning strikes per year. The odds of being hit by lightning in America are about one in a million in a given year. However, those numbers are, curiously, not consistent around the globe.
In the UK, there are only around 300,000 lightning strikes per annum. The United Kingdom is markedly smaller than the US, but its weather is way crappier. As a result, the odds of getting struck over there are closer to 1-in-15,300.
Lightning is some seriously nasty stuff. It’s basically just a big honking spark. Electrostatic energy builds up in the atmosphere and can discharge either from cloud to cloud or from a cloud into the ground. A typical lightning bolt runs about 50,000 degrees F, or five times the temperature of the surface of the sun. They pack millions of joules of energy. That stuff is undeniably pretty to look upon. However, you really don’t want to get any of it on you.
Around the globe, there are roughly 6,000 lightning strikes each and every minute. Nearly a quarter million people are struck by lightning every year. Roughly ten percent of those are killed.
On a certain level, those seem like pretty decent odds. If only one in every million Americans gets struck by lightning every year and, of those, nine out of ten live to tell the tale, that doesn’t sound so bad.
Those are indeed reassuring numbers, unless you happen to be Walter Summerford. Walter Summerford has been described as the unluckiest man in the universe. He was struck by lightning four times. One of those strikes was actually after he was already dead.
Background
Walter Summerford served as a British officer in World War I. In 1918, Major Summerford was riding a horse through a Belgian field when he caught a bolt of lightning.
This massive electrical shock rendered the poor man paralyzed from the waist down. However, he gradually recovered. With the war over and his recovery nearly complete, Summerford was demobilized and sent to Vancouver for further rehabilitation.
Six years later, in 1924, Summerford was enjoying a little quiet time out fishing by a river. A storm came up, so the man took refuge underneath a nearby tree. A bolt of lightning struck the tree and tracked down his body and into the ground. The strike left Summerford almost completely paralyzed on his right side.
After two long years, Summerford finally regained the use of his legs. The man was an inveterate outdoorsman and loved wandering about the wilderness hiking, hunting, and fishing.
However, in 1930, whilst taking a stroll in a public park, he was struck by lightning a third time. This bolt rendered him completely paralyzed. It was also markedly worse than the previous two. Summerford was destined to spend the rest of his natural life in a hospital bed.
Summerford’s physicians were amazed the man had survived this third blow. He fought valiantly for another two years before finally succumbing to the cumulative effects of these three lightning strikes in 1932.
As to whether he enjoyed some kind of unique body chemistry or had somehow offended his Maker, no one will ever know. Regardless, it was undoubtedly the cumulative effect of these three lightning strikes that ultimately did Walter Summerford in.
Four years after he was buried in a public cemetery in Vancouver, Canada, Walther Summerford’s gravestone was itself struck by lightning and split into pieces.
I’m not much into conspiracy theories myself. However, it is tough not to believe that there was something supernatural and spooky going on with that unfortunate guy.
The truly curious bit was that Walther Summerford was struck every six years starting in 1918, just like clockwork. Even after he died, when his six years were up, that’s when lightning struck his tombstone. The cyclical nature of the thing strains credulity, but his tale is well-documented.
The brother of one of the soldiers with whom I served was actually struck three times. Once the poor guy was in the shower. I can only imagine what that might do to somebody’s emotional well-being, not to mention your perspective on general hygiene.
My colleague was from rural Texas. He said that every time it got a little bit stormy out, his brother would retreat to the living room away from the television and read a book. Who can blame him?
Walter Summerford got struck by lightning once after he was already dead. This is his shattered tombstone. Image: Public domain.
Ruminations
As kind of an amateur science guy myself, I always gravitated toward basic physics. I can get my head around the way things move. However, chemistry and electricity always kind of made me itch. I struggled to visualize these disciplines, so they held little fascination for me.
However, I have long appreciated that electricity is best appreciated at a distance. If Walter Summerford has taught me anything, it is that I’d really sooner not get struck by lightning.
In the late 1950s, there were basically two camps in the U.S. military on what the next service rifle should be — those who thought a service rifle should be made of wood and blued steel and wanted a modified version of the M1 Garand, and those who thought the future of the modern service rifle was with forged aluminum and polymer furniture.
The Vietnam War was a pivotal time of change for the U.S. military’s primary rifle. The country moved from big, heavy rifles firing big, heavy bullets to easier-to-carry rifles firing light, fast rounds. Image: U.S. Navy
While the 5.56mm AR-15 today is so common and accepted that it’s viewed as the “standard” in self-loading rifle design, it is easy to forget how revolutionary it was in its day. In the 1950s (and before the AR-15 was introduced), there was the AR-10 battle rifle.
This radical approach to military rifle design used forged aluminum receivers — an upper and a lower — that were mated with a stock made of polymer — essentially plastic. The caliber was 7.62×51 mm NATO, the same as the M14, but it used a gas-operated, straight-line rotating-bolt system, which offered less recoil than the M14. In addition, it employed a direct gas-impingement system. While it might have come from the same era as the M14, it seemed like it was from a different planet in those days. [Read more about the M14 history.]
Pfc. Michael J. Mendoza uses his M16A1 rifle to recon by fire. Earlier, the company received sniper fire from a valley in the Quang Ngai Province, Republic of Vietnam. Image: NARA
The military bureaucracy was at a stalemate with its heels dug in. A lot was at stake, especially the lucrative government contract. Adding more drama to an already tense and passionate situation, the U.S. military saw the potential benefits of a high-velocity .22-caliber cartridge rather than the more ponderous — but capable — 7.62x51mm round.
To address this, the AR-10 was scaled down to the .223 cartridge and the AR-15 was born. However, the M14 community was still not budging. The M14 had the benefit of a proven design based on the Garand, as well as truly capable, if somewhat traditional, chambering. Despite the fact that the AR-15 and the 5.56×46 mm NATO cartridge had shown great promise in initial testing, the U.S. military’s choice of the M14 over the AR-10 (as well as the FAL) had solidified the wood and steel rifle in the role of primary service rifle for the United States military — for now.
A U.S. soldier armed with an M16A1 rifle in 1972. Mounted on the rifle is an AN/PVS-2 starlight scope. Image: NARA
However, the “aluminum and plastic” upstart would soon gain the upper hand. As is well known, the AR-15 platform eventually prevailed. So, let’s consider that journey.
In hindsight, it was easy to see that the AR-15 would ultimately prevail. Prior to the AR-15 becoming the M16, other factors shaped the evolution of our approach to warfare and the tools used to fight. Let’s take a 10,000-foot view of defense policy in the post-WWII era.
Cold War, Nuclear War, or Guerrilla Warfare?
After WWII and the first use of nuclear weapons, the role of the infantry soldier was thought to be played out in a nuclear battlefield. The nuclear arms race post-WWII had both sides rethinking what a post-nuclear war landscape would look like.
Pfc. John R. Hofstrand, armed with an M16A1, follows a trail during a search and clear operation south of the Da Nang airfield. Image: U.S. Marine Corps
Thankfully, the Cold War-era struggle did not take the form of an atomic mushroom cloud. Counterinsurgency was the new strategy in the unique form of warfare that developed with two opponents armed to the teeth with nukes. Since direct combat was not feasible (as it would effectively end our civilizations), proxy warfare became the norm in hotspots worldwide.
America’s approach was to help these countries fight communism by arming, teaching, and supporting our allies in limited wars in their own nations. Hence, rather than atomic stockpiles of weapons, an old-fashioned arsenal of specialized small arms became the focus. Throw in a few advisors for training, and you have a recipe for the Vietnam War.
Project Agile Is Approved
While the Advanced Research Projects Agency (or “ARPA”), tucked under the broader Defense Department umbrella, was originally organized to research ballistic missiles, in 1961, the Kennedy administration — with an interest in supporting our foreign allies in limited wars to stop communist aggression — approved Project Agile.
Lance Cpl. C. Clements rests with his M16A1 after a patrol through flooded rice patties south of Da Nang during the Vietnam War. Image: U.S. Marine Corps
Project Agile was designed to help remote areas of the world with counterinsurgency action against communist insurgents. Two areas, both in Indochina, were identified as under threat to Communist aggression. One was in Bangkok, and the other was in Saigon.
The average height of a Vietnamese soldier was five feet, and he weighed about 90 pounds. The ARPA was convinced by the original manufacturer of the AR-15 that the gun had a great deal of potential as a rifle for Vietnamese fighters since it was lightweight, capable and soft recoiling.
A U.S. Marine cautiously checks an enemy bunker with his M16A1. The Marines encountered the bunker while on patrol south of Da Nang. Image: U.S. Marine Corps
ARPA requested AR-15s for this effort, only to be denied because there were plenty of M2 Carbines in storage that could be issued without spending budget on new guns.
The M2 Carbine was also lightweight and ideal for operators with small statures. The ARPA reintroduced its request and suggested that a limited number of AR-15s be used. They settled on asking for 1,000 rifles to only be used in Vietnam (and not Thailand), and the rifles would be tested against the M2 Carbine.
There were many other subprojects under Project Agile, such as ones that dealt with communications and logistics, as well as planning. However, the ARPA report for the AR-15 was titled “Task 13A” and compared the M2 Carbine to the AR-15 “to determine which is more suitable replacement for other shoulder weapons in selected units of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF).”
The Result
I don’t need to tell you the outcome. You already know the AR-15 performed best with the “small stature of the Vietnamese soldier…”. We all know that the taller U.S. advisors liked how the new rifle performed, too. While the test helped ARPA in one of its many projects assist counterinsurgents by confirming the superiority of the AR-15 to the M2 Carbine, it also proved the readiness of the AR-15.
Sailor Lawrence W. Overton loads M16 magazines using stripper clips aboard the USS Harnett County (LST-821) on the Vàm Cỏ Đông in Vietnam. Image: U.S. Navy
Analysis of the AR-15 from both U.S. Advisors and Vietnamese commanders reported the AR-15 as “extremely favorable.” The lethality of the .223 round proved to be extraordinary. Users had a high respect for the AR-15 and preferred it to all other firearms available.
The M16A1 continued to serve the U.S. military for many years. One is shown here in the hands of a Marine at the Beirut International Airport in Lebanon during 1983. Image: NARA
The first AR-15s in country did not have a forward assist, which is how the Air Force (the first adopter of the design) wanted the gun. The Army, however, insisted on a forward assist and originally designated the rifle the XM16E1; after the details were worked out, it was designated the M16A1.
Conclusion
The testing under Project Agile was the first time the rifle was used in Vietnam. In 1964, America’s broader involvement in Vietnam was officially begun with Congress passing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized direct U.S. military involvement in the nation. The rest is history.
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