ZAR? Maybe? More PICs Cont
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Hi Ed,
VERY nice find, and maybe one that fills in a bit of previously unknown history. The design of the rear sight slide suggests that your rifle is Spanish, not Chilean or ZAR. The bolt, (which admittedly could have been added anytime) appears from your pictures to be a bolt correct for the Ludwig Loewe-made Spanish Modelo 1895 cavalry carbine (made in 1894 and 1896). The serial numbering of these bolts was applied in a shallow manner at the factory, so when these carbines show up (infrequently!) the serial numbers are often worn off. The same may be true for your bolt.
The serial number range, C.6631, of your rifle puts it outside what is believed to be the range for ex-ZAR Chilean C series rifles, which is C.1 through C.4000. From previous posts on this forum over the years, there have been several rifles identified outside this and the other Boer War serial number ranges, but none which had features, like your rear sight slide, which would explain their origin. If your Spanish Ovideo type slide is original, I would guess that your rifle was part of a rifle quick prurchase during or right after the Spanish American War intended to replace war losses, or to arm Spanish troops slated to go overseas. I might add that I have Loewe, DWM and FN 93 long rifles which have the Ovideo slide, just like yours.
Then there's that safety with the Chilean star on it. Hmm.....
Best Regards,
John
VERY nice find, and maybe one that fills in a bit of previously unknown history. The design of the rear sight slide suggests that your rifle is Spanish, not Chilean or ZAR. The bolt, (which admittedly could have been added anytime) appears from your pictures to be a bolt correct for the Ludwig Loewe-made Spanish Modelo 1895 cavalry carbine (made in 1894 and 1896). The serial numbering of these bolts was applied in a shallow manner at the factory, so when these carbines show up (infrequently!) the serial numbers are often worn off. The same may be true for your bolt.
The serial number range, C.6631, of your rifle puts it outside what is believed to be the range for ex-ZAR Chilean C series rifles, which is C.1 through C.4000. From previous posts on this forum over the years, there have been several rifles identified outside this and the other Boer War serial number ranges, but none which had features, like your rear sight slide, which would explain their origin. If your Spanish Ovideo type slide is original, I would guess that your rifle was part of a rifle quick prurchase during or right after the Spanish American War intended to replace war losses, or to arm Spanish troops slated to go overseas. I might add that I have Loewe, DWM and FN 93 long rifles which have the Ovideo slide, just like yours.
Then there's that safety with the Chilean star on it. Hmm.....
Best Regards,
John
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2,402 Posts
John,thank you old friend. When I first saw it at the gunshop I knew there was something different about it. The owner called it a Chilian Mauser. For $125 out the door I figured I could not get hurt. The stock carvings were the icing on the cake. Thanks again. I now know more than I did before. Ed
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Left side of wrist has FAI carved in--
Iberian Anarchist federation (FAI) Spanish Civil War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Spain
The flag on the ship on the wrist needs to be deciphered. With the slash through it..
And there's the flag--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federaci%C3%B3n_Anarquista_Ib%C3%A9rica
The background on this page is the flag--
http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/spain.html
mauserdad--- you need this poster:
http://cgi.ebay.com/%22CNT-FAI%22--1930's-Spanish-Civil-War-Poster-31x24_W0QQitemZ250165696965QQcmdZViewItem
I can see my work for the day is done
ZAR = South African Republic (Z= zuid = south in Dutch)
Dutchman
Iberian Anarchist federation (FAI) Spanish Civil War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Spain
The flag on the ship on the wrist needs to be deciphered. With the slash through it..
And there's the flag--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federaci%C3%B3n_Anarquista_Ib%C3%A9rica
The background on this page is the flag--
http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/spain.html
mauserdad--- you need this poster:
http://cgi.ebay.com/%22CNT-FAI%22--1930's-Spanish-Civil-War-Poster-31x24_W0QQitemZ250165696965QQcmdZViewItem
I can see my work for the day is done
ZAR = South African Republic (Z= zuid = south in Dutch)
Dutchman
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http://lacucaracha.info/scw/diary/1937/may/index.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPfai.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPanarchistbrigade.htm
Federación Anarquista Ibérica, statement (1927)
It is an inhuman injustice that a man should keep for himself wealth produced by others or even a part of the earth which is as sacred to humanity as life is for the individual; because it has its origin in a violent and criminal exploitation of the stronger against the weaker, creating the odious existence of parasites, living on the work of others; because it creates capitalism and the law of salaries which condemns man to a permanent economic slavery and to economic disequilibrium; because it is the cause of prostitution, the most infamous and degrading outrage that society inflicts on the human conscience, condemning woman to make the object of commerce an act which is both the purest and the most spiritual known to humans. We are against the state because it restrains the free unfolding and normal development of ethical, philosophical, and scientific activities of people and because it is the foundation of the principles of authority and property through the armed forces, police and judiciary.
Cyril Connolly, New Statesman (21st November 1936)
It is in Barcelona that the full force of the anarchist revolution becomes apparent.
Their initials, CNT and FAI, are everywhere.
Only foreigners wear a tie, for ties are now the sign that one is a "senorito." The letters U.G.T., C.N.T., U.H.P., F.A.I., and a good many more denoting the various parties are painted on walls, on cars and lorries, on trees, on any surface that will take them. One cannot buy a melon in the market-place that has not got some initials scratched on it. There are also a good many militia about, dressed in their new uniforms of blue cotton overalls with red armlets.
FAI = Communista
There is more to this ship than just graffiti on the wrist. Its significant for some other reason but I'm not quite grasping what it is.. yet. It may indicate a particular event or action concerning FAI. If nothing else I would think it isolates the rifle's geographic useage.
Dutchman - who is now a certifiable google junkie
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPfai.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPanarchistbrigade.htm
Federación Anarquista Ibérica, statement (1927)
It is an inhuman injustice that a man should keep for himself wealth produced by others or even a part of the earth which is as sacred to humanity as life is for the individual; because it has its origin in a violent and criminal exploitation of the stronger against the weaker, creating the odious existence of parasites, living on the work of others; because it creates capitalism and the law of salaries which condemns man to a permanent economic slavery and to economic disequilibrium; because it is the cause of prostitution, the most infamous and degrading outrage that society inflicts on the human conscience, condemning woman to make the object of commerce an act which is both the purest and the most spiritual known to humans. We are against the state because it restrains the free unfolding and normal development of ethical, philosophical, and scientific activities of people and because it is the foundation of the principles of authority and property through the armed forces, police and judiciary.
Cyril Connolly, New Statesman (21st November 1936)
It is in Barcelona that the full force of the anarchist revolution becomes apparent.
Their initials, CNT and FAI, are everywhere.
Only foreigners wear a tie, for ties are now the sign that one is a "senorito." The letters U.G.T., C.N.T., U.H.P., F.A.I., and a good many more denoting the various parties are painted on walls, on cars and lorries, on trees, on any surface that will take them. One cannot buy a melon in the market-place that has not got some initials scratched on it. There are also a good many militia about, dressed in their new uniforms of blue cotton overalls with red armlets.
FAI = Communista
There is more to this ship than just graffiti on the wrist. Its significant for some other reason but I'm not quite grasping what it is.. yet. It may indicate a particular event or action concerning FAI. If nothing else I would think it isolates the rifle's geographic useage.
Dutchman - who is now a certifiable google junkie
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http://struggle.ws/spain/pam_ch2.html
The major problem facing the militias was a lack of arms. The munitions industry been cut off and the workers in Barcelona went to great lengths to improvise. Arms were made and transported to the front but there were still not enough of them. George Orwell (who fought in one of the POUM militias) described the arms situation on the Aragon front. The infantry "were far worse armed than an English public school Officers Training Corps, with worn out Mauser rifles which usually jammed after five shots; approximately one machine gun to fifty men (sic) and one pistol or revolver to about thirty men (sic). These weapons, so necessary in trench warfare, were not issued by the government.... A government which sends boys of fifteen to the front with rifles forty years old and keeps its biggest men and newest weapons In the rear is manifestly more afraid of the revolution the fascists".
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell --
http://www.george-orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/2.html
Beyond this we had only rifles, and the majority of the rifles were scrap-iron. There were three types of rifle in use. The first was the long Mauser. These were seldom less
than twenty years old, their sights were about as much use as a broken speedometer, and in most of them the rifling was hopelessly corroded; about one rifle in ten was not bad, however. Then there was the short Mauser, or mousqueton, really a cavalry weapon. These were more popular than the others because they were lighter to carry and less nuisance in a trench, also because they were comparatively new and looked efficient. Actually they were almost useless. They were made out of reassembled parts, no bolt belonged to its rifle, and three-quarters of them could be counted on to jam after five shots.
**************************************************************
That rifle has some history.
As crude as the stock carvings are if we had to guess how old the artist was....? It looks like a 15 year old boy. I wonder if he lived to be 16.
The major problem facing the militias was a lack of arms. The munitions industry been cut off and the workers in Barcelona went to great lengths to improvise. Arms were made and transported to the front but there were still not enough of them. George Orwell (who fought in one of the POUM militias) described the arms situation on the Aragon front. The infantry "were far worse armed than an English public school Officers Training Corps, with worn out Mauser rifles which usually jammed after five shots; approximately one machine gun to fifty men (sic) and one pistol or revolver to about thirty men (sic). These weapons, so necessary in trench warfare, were not issued by the government.... A government which sends boys of fifteen to the front with rifles forty years old and keeps its biggest men and newest weapons In the rear is manifestly more afraid of the revolution the fascists".
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell --
http://www.george-orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/2.html
Beyond this we had only rifles, and the majority of the rifles were scrap-iron. There were three types of rifle in use. The first was the long Mauser. These were seldom less
than twenty years old, their sights were about as much use as a broken speedometer, and in most of them the rifling was hopelessly corroded; about one rifle in ten was not bad, however. Then there was the short Mauser, or mousqueton, really a cavalry weapon. These were more popular than the others because they were lighter to carry and less nuisance in a trench, also because they were comparatively new and looked efficient. Actually they were almost useless. They were made out of reassembled parts, no bolt belonged to its rifle, and three-quarters of them could be counted on to jam after five shots.
**************************************************************
That rifle has some history.
As crude as the stock carvings are if we had to guess how old the artist was....? It looks like a 15 year old boy. I wonder if he lived to be 16.
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Those dots along the hull of the ship carving aren't just random "things".
They look like gun ports. The gun ports of a gunboat.
http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/Texts/SpainBil.htm
www.international-communist-party.org
Was it really only a question of giving the international bourgeoisie a false impression? Of getting them, by this clever ruse, to arm the revolution? The sad epilogue of these "brilliant stratagems" occurred in May 1937 in Barcelona, when the glorious proletariat of that city, who had a year earlier speedily despatched the Francoist plot, would erect barricades against the intolerable capitalist/democratic dictatorship: in Barcelona, the proletariat found the strength to build barricades and resist behind them for three days. The legal power would then try to terrorise them by sending gunboats into the port, and some anarchist chiefs (Federica Montseny and Garcia Oliver, "State anarchists") in order to brutalize them. And the motorized column of 5,000 assault troops that was sent from the front to shoot the proletariat of Barcelona, would re-establish order not to cries of "Down with the revolution" but "Long live the FAI!".
A witness to ~gunboat diplomacy~.
This rifle has quadrupled in value since the beginning of this thread
They look like gun ports. The gun ports of a gunboat.
http://www.international-communist-party.org/English/Texts/SpainBil.htm
www.international-communist-party.org
Was it really only a question of giving the international bourgeoisie a false impression? Of getting them, by this clever ruse, to arm the revolution? The sad epilogue of these "brilliant stratagems" occurred in May 1937 in Barcelona, when the glorious proletariat of that city, who had a year earlier speedily despatched the Francoist plot, would erect barricades against the intolerable capitalist/democratic dictatorship: in Barcelona, the proletariat found the strength to build barricades and resist behind them for three days. The legal power would then try to terrorise them by sending gunboats into the port, and some anarchist chiefs (Federica Montseny and Garcia Oliver, "State anarchists") in order to brutalize them. And the motorized column of 5,000 assault troops that was sent from the front to shoot the proletariat of Barcelona, would re-establish order not to cries of "Down with the revolution" but "Long live the FAI!".
A witness to ~gunboat diplomacy~.
This rifle has quadrupled in value since the beginning of this thread
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Hi Dutchman,
Great research. Orwell has to be the classic Republican spin doctor of the Spanish Civil War! I love this line...
"They (short rifles) were made out of reassembled parts, no bolt belonged to its rifle, and three-quarters of them could be counted on to jam after five shots."
Duuuh...that's because after 5 shots, the gun is empty! That pesky magazine follower jams that bolt open everytime!
Regards,
John
Great research. Orwell has to be the classic Republican spin doctor of the Spanish Civil War! I love this line...
"They (short rifles) were made out of reassembled parts, no bolt belonged to its rifle, and three-quarters of them could be counted on to jam after five shots."
Duuuh...that's because after 5 shots, the gun is empty! That pesky magazine follower jams that bolt open everytime!
Regards,
John
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3,472 Posts
The phrase ZAR is the abbreviation for the Zuid Afrikansch Republik (No doubt spelled wrong) or South African Republic. Together with the Orange Free State (abbreviated "OVS" in Afrikaans (sp?), the ZAR was one of the two independent Boer republics who combined to battle the British Empire in the second Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902. Both republics had armed themselves with a small number of M1893 Mauser rifles before the start of hostilities. Today, ZAR and OVS Mausers in the Boer serial number ranges, are highly sought after by militaria and Mauser collectors alike.
Regards,
John
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2,665 Posts
http://grognard.com/info1/mallorca.doc
MALLORCA 1936.
Official Scenario For the Battles of the Spanish Civil War System.
Naval Forces.
On any sea or coastal hex in the East Coast Naval Zone.
-Destroyers Almirante Miranda, Almirante Antequera.
-Gunboats Tetuán, Xauen.
-Torpedo Boat T-17.
I'm thinking the lad that carved the ship with its 2 stacks 1 mast and two rows of gun ports was probably looking at it while he was carving it. The rifle stood upright, vertical while he carved it. I'm also thinking that to take this further will require Spanish keyword searches.
Dutchman
MALLORCA 1936.
Official Scenario For the Battles of the Spanish Civil War System.
Naval Forces.
On any sea or coastal hex in the East Coast Naval Zone.
-Destroyers Almirante Miranda, Almirante Antequera.
-Gunboats Tetuán, Xauen.
-Torpedo Boat T-17.
I'm thinking the lad that carved the ship with its 2 stacks 1 mast and two rows of gun ports was probably looking at it while he was carving it. The rifle stood upright, vertical while he carved it. I'm also thinking that to take this further will require Spanish keyword searches.
Dutchman
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4,185 Posts
Dutchman. Great work on google...
Just my two cents... I was in barcelona this summer and walked in George Orwells footsteps. I took a republic national army belt buckle home with me as a souvenir. This is from the government controlled (in reality communist controlled) army, the CNT-FAI and POUM militias were much more poorly equipped and did not have such fancy stuff. Still it may have been carried by a militiaman as the militias were gradually included in the national army.
Just my two cents... I was in barcelona this summer and walked in George Orwells footsteps. I took a republic national army belt buckle home with me as a souvenir. This is from the government controlled (in reality communist controlled) army, the CNT-FAI and POUM militias were much more poorly equipped and did not have such fancy stuff. Still it may have been carried by a militiaman as the militias were gradually included in the national army.
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Here's an excert from one of the more interesting, touching and amusing parts of homage to catalonia. The source of the text is here http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/ an excellent resource...
Below are two photos of cafe Moka and the Poliorama, it was great to find the buildings still standing.
I had just found Kopp and was asking him what we were supposed to do when there was a series of appalling crashes down below. The din was so loud that I made sure someone must be firing at us with a field-gun. Actually it was only hand-grenades, which make double their usual noise when they burst among stone buildings.
Kopp glanced out of the window, cocked his stick behind his back, said: ‘Let us investigate,’ and strolled down the stairs in his usual unconcerned manner, I following. Just inside the doorway a group of Shock Troopers were bowling bombs down the pavement as though playing skittles. The bombs were bursting twenty yards away with a frightful, ear-splitting crash which was mixed up with the banging of rifles. Half across the street, from behind the newspaper kiosk, a head—it was the head of an American militiaman whom I knew well—was sticking up, for all the world like a coconut at a fair. It was only afterwards that I grasped what was really happening. Next door to the P.O.U.M. building there was a café with a hotel above it, called the Café Moka. The day before twenty or thirty armed Civil Guards had entered the café and then, when the fighting started, had suddenly seized the building and barricaded themselves in. Presumably they had been ordered to seize the café as a preliminary to attacking the P.O.U.M. offices later. Early in the morning they had attempted to come out, shots had been exchanged, and one Shock Trooper was badly wounded and a Civil Guard killed. The Civil Guards had fled back into the café, but when the American came down the street they had opened fire on him, though he was not armed. The American had flung himself behind the kiosk for cover, and the Shock Troopers were flinging bombs at the Civil Guards to drive them indoors again.
Kopp took in the scene at a glance, pushed his way forward and hauled back a red-haired German Shock Trooper who was just drawing the pin out of a bomb with his teeth. He shouted to everyone to stand back from the doorway, and told us in several languages that we had got to avoid bloodshed. Then he stepped out on to the pavement and, in sight of the Civil Guards, ostentatiously took off his pistol and laid it on the ground. Two Spanish militia officers did the same, and the three of them walked slowly up to the doorway where the Civil Guards were huddling. It was a thing I would not have done for twenty pounds. They were walking, unarmed, up to men who were frightened out of their wits and had loaded guns in their hands. A Civil Guard, in shirt-sleeves and livid with fright, came out of the door to parley with Kopp. He kept pointing in an agitated manner at two unexploded bombs that were lying on the pavement. Kopp came back and told us we had better touch the bombs off. Lying there, they were a danger to anyone who passed. A Shock Trooper fired his rifle at one of the bombs and burst it, then fired at the other and missed. I asked him to give me his rifle, knelt down and let fly at the second bomb. I also missed it, I am sorry to say.
This was the only shot I fired during the disturbances. The pavement was covered with broken glass from the sign over the Café Moka, and two cars that were parked outside, one of them Kopp’s official car, had been riddled with bullets and their windscreens smashed by bursting bombs.
Kopp took me upstairs again and explained the situation. We had got to defend the P.O.U.M. buildings if they were attacked, but the P.O.U.M. leaders had sent instructions that we were to stand on the defensive and not open fire if we could possibly avoid it. Immediately opposite there was a cinematograph, called the Poliorama, with a museum above it, and at the top, high above the general level of the roofs, a small observatory with twin domes. The domes commanded the street, and a few men posted up there with rifles could prevent any attack on the P.O.U.M. buildings. The caretakers at the cinema were C.N.T. members and would let us come and go. As for the Civil Guards in the Café Moka, there would be no trouble with them; they did not want to fight and would be only too glad to live and let live. Kopp repeated that our orders were not to fire unless we were fired on ourselves or our buildings attacked. I gathered, though he did not say so, that the P.O.U.M. leaders were furious at being dragged into this affair, but felt that they had got to stand by the C.N.T.
They had already placed guards in the observatory. The next three days and nights I spent continuously on the roof of the Poliorama, except for brief intervals when I slipped across to the hotel for meals. I was in no danger, I suffered from nothing worse than hunger and boredom, yet it was one of the most unbearable periods of my whole life. I think few experiences could be more sickening, more disillusioning, or, finally, more nerve-racking than those evil days of street warfare.
I used to sit on the roof marvelling at the folly of it all. From the little windows in the observatory you could see for miles around—vista after vista of tall slender buildings, glass domes, and fantastic curly roofs with brilliant green and copper tiles; over to eastward the glittering pale blue sea—the first glimpse of the sea that I had had since coming to Spain. And the whole huge town of a million people was locked in a sort of violent inertia, a nightmare of noise without movement. The sunlit streets were quite empty. Nothing was happening except the streaming of bullets from barricades and sand-bagged windows. Not a vehicle was stirring in the streets; here and there along the Ramblas the trams stood motionless where their drivers had jumped out of them when the fighting started. And all the while the devilish noise, echoing from thousands of stone buildings, went on and on and on, like a tropical rainstorm. Crack-crack, rattle-rattle, roar—sometimes it died away to a few shots, sometimes it quickened to a deafening fusillade, but it never stopped while daylight lasted, and punctually next dawn it started again.
What the devil was happening, who was fighting whom, and who was winning, was at first very difficult to discover. The people of Barcelona are so used to street-fighting and so familiar with the local geography that they knew by a kind of instinct which political party will hold which streets and which buildings. A foreigner is at a hopeless disadvantage. Looking out from the observatory, I could grasp that the Ramblas, which is one of the principal streets of the town, formed a dividing line. To the right of the Ramblas the working-class quarters were solidly Anarchist; to the left a confused fight was going on among the tortuous by-streets, but on that side the P.S.U.C. and the Civil Guards were more or less in control. Up at our end of the Ramblas, round the Plaza de Cataluña, the position was so complicated that it would have been quite unintelligible if every building had not flown a party flag. The principal landmark here was the Hotel Colón, the headquarters of the P.S.U.C., dominating the Plaza de Cataluña. In a window near the last O but one in the huge ‘Hotel Colón’ that sprawled across its face they had a machine-gun that could sweep the square with deadly effect. A hundred yards to the right of us, down the Ramblas, the J.S.U., the youth league of the P.S.U.C. (corresponding to the Young Communist League in England), were holding a big department store whose sandbagged side-windows fronted our observatory. They had hauled down their red flag and hoisted the Catalan national flag. On the Telephone Exchange, the starting-point of all the trouble, the Catalan national flag and the Anarchist flag were flying side by side. Some kind of temporary compromise had been arrived at there, the exchange was working uninterruptedly and there was no firing from the building. In our position it was strangely peaceful. The Civil Guards in the Café Moka had drawn down the steel curtains and piled up the café furniture to make a barricade. Later half a dozen of them came on to the roof, opposite to ourselves, and built another barricade of mattresses, over which they hung a Catalan national flag. But it was obvious that they had no wish to start a fight. Kopp had made a definite agreement with them: if they did not fire at us we would not fire at them. He had grown quite friendly with the Civil Guards by this time, and had been to visit them several times in the Café Moka. Naturally they had looted everything drinkable the café possessed, and they made Kopp a present of fifteen bottles of beer. In return Kopp had actually given them one of our rifles to make up for one they had somehow lost on the previous day. Nevertheless, it was a queer feeling sitting on that roof. Sometimes I was merely bored with the whole affair, paid no attention to the hellish noise, and spent hours reading a succession of Penguin Library books which, luckily, I had bought a few days earlier; sometimes I was very conscious of the armed men watching me fifty yards away. It was a little like being in the trenches again; several times I caught myself, from force of habit, speaking of the Civil Guards as ‘the Fascists’. There were generally about six of us up there. We placed a man on guard in each of the observatory towers, and the rest of us sat on the lead roof below, where there was no cover except a stone palisade. I was well aware that at any moment the Civil Guards might receive telephone orders to open fire. They had agreed to give us warning before doing so, but there was no certainty that they would keep to their agreement. Only once, however, did trouble look like starting. One of the Civil Guards opposite knelt down and began firing across the barricade. I was on guard in the observatory at the time. I trained my rifle on him and shouted across:
‘Hi! Don’t you shoot at us!’
‘What?’
‘Don’t you fire at us or we’ll fire back!’
‘No, no! I wasn’t firing at you. Look—down there!’
He motioned with his rifle towards the side-street that ran past the bottom of our building. Sure enough, a youth in blue overalls, with a rifle in his hand, was dodging round the corner. Evidently he had just taken a shot at the Civil Guards on the roof.
‘I was firing at him. He fired first.’ (I believe this was true.) ‘We don’t want to shoot you. We’re only workers, the same as you are.’
He made the anti-Fascist salute, which I returned. I shouted across:
‘Have you got any more beer left?’ ‘No, it’s all gone.’
Below are two photos of cafe Moka and the Poliorama, it was great to find the buildings still standing.
I had just found Kopp and was asking him what we were supposed to do when there was a series of appalling crashes down below. The din was so loud that I made sure someone must be firing at us with a field-gun. Actually it was only hand-grenades, which make double their usual noise when they burst among stone buildings.
Kopp glanced out of the window, cocked his stick behind his back, said: ‘Let us investigate,’ and strolled down the stairs in his usual unconcerned manner, I following. Just inside the doorway a group of Shock Troopers were bowling bombs down the pavement as though playing skittles. The bombs were bursting twenty yards away with a frightful, ear-splitting crash which was mixed up with the banging of rifles. Half across the street, from behind the newspaper kiosk, a head—it was the head of an American militiaman whom I knew well—was sticking up, for all the world like a coconut at a fair. It was only afterwards that I grasped what was really happening. Next door to the P.O.U.M. building there was a café with a hotel above it, called the Café Moka. The day before twenty or thirty armed Civil Guards had entered the café and then, when the fighting started, had suddenly seized the building and barricaded themselves in. Presumably they had been ordered to seize the café as a preliminary to attacking the P.O.U.M. offices later. Early in the morning they had attempted to come out, shots had been exchanged, and one Shock Trooper was badly wounded and a Civil Guard killed. The Civil Guards had fled back into the café, but when the American came down the street they had opened fire on him, though he was not armed. The American had flung himself behind the kiosk for cover, and the Shock Troopers were flinging bombs at the Civil Guards to drive them indoors again.
Kopp took in the scene at a glance, pushed his way forward and hauled back a red-haired German Shock Trooper who was just drawing the pin out of a bomb with his teeth. He shouted to everyone to stand back from the doorway, and told us in several languages that we had got to avoid bloodshed. Then he stepped out on to the pavement and, in sight of the Civil Guards, ostentatiously took off his pistol and laid it on the ground. Two Spanish militia officers did the same, and the three of them walked slowly up to the doorway where the Civil Guards were huddling. It was a thing I would not have done for twenty pounds. They were walking, unarmed, up to men who were frightened out of their wits and had loaded guns in their hands. A Civil Guard, in shirt-sleeves and livid with fright, came out of the door to parley with Kopp. He kept pointing in an agitated manner at two unexploded bombs that were lying on the pavement. Kopp came back and told us we had better touch the bombs off. Lying there, they were a danger to anyone who passed. A Shock Trooper fired his rifle at one of the bombs and burst it, then fired at the other and missed. I asked him to give me his rifle, knelt down and let fly at the second bomb. I also missed it, I am sorry to say.
This was the only shot I fired during the disturbances. The pavement was covered with broken glass from the sign over the Café Moka, and two cars that were parked outside, one of them Kopp’s official car, had been riddled with bullets and their windscreens smashed by bursting bombs.
Kopp took me upstairs again and explained the situation. We had got to defend the P.O.U.M. buildings if they were attacked, but the P.O.U.M. leaders had sent instructions that we were to stand on the defensive and not open fire if we could possibly avoid it. Immediately opposite there was a cinematograph, called the Poliorama, with a museum above it, and at the top, high above the general level of the roofs, a small observatory with twin domes. The domes commanded the street, and a few men posted up there with rifles could prevent any attack on the P.O.U.M. buildings. The caretakers at the cinema were C.N.T. members and would let us come and go. As for the Civil Guards in the Café Moka, there would be no trouble with them; they did not want to fight and would be only too glad to live and let live. Kopp repeated that our orders were not to fire unless we were fired on ourselves or our buildings attacked. I gathered, though he did not say so, that the P.O.U.M. leaders were furious at being dragged into this affair, but felt that they had got to stand by the C.N.T.
They had already placed guards in the observatory. The next three days and nights I spent continuously on the roof of the Poliorama, except for brief intervals when I slipped across to the hotel for meals. I was in no danger, I suffered from nothing worse than hunger and boredom, yet it was one of the most unbearable periods of my whole life. I think few experiences could be more sickening, more disillusioning, or, finally, more nerve-racking than those evil days of street warfare.
I used to sit on the roof marvelling at the folly of it all. From the little windows in the observatory you could see for miles around—vista after vista of tall slender buildings, glass domes, and fantastic curly roofs with brilliant green and copper tiles; over to eastward the glittering pale blue sea—the first glimpse of the sea that I had had since coming to Spain. And the whole huge town of a million people was locked in a sort of violent inertia, a nightmare of noise without movement. The sunlit streets were quite empty. Nothing was happening except the streaming of bullets from barricades and sand-bagged windows. Not a vehicle was stirring in the streets; here and there along the Ramblas the trams stood motionless where their drivers had jumped out of them when the fighting started. And all the while the devilish noise, echoing from thousands of stone buildings, went on and on and on, like a tropical rainstorm. Crack-crack, rattle-rattle, roar—sometimes it died away to a few shots, sometimes it quickened to a deafening fusillade, but it never stopped while daylight lasted, and punctually next dawn it started again.
What the devil was happening, who was fighting whom, and who was winning, was at first very difficult to discover. The people of Barcelona are so used to street-fighting and so familiar with the local geography that they knew by a kind of instinct which political party will hold which streets and which buildings. A foreigner is at a hopeless disadvantage. Looking out from the observatory, I could grasp that the Ramblas, which is one of the principal streets of the town, formed a dividing line. To the right of the Ramblas the working-class quarters were solidly Anarchist; to the left a confused fight was going on among the tortuous by-streets, but on that side the P.S.U.C. and the Civil Guards were more or less in control. Up at our end of the Ramblas, round the Plaza de Cataluña, the position was so complicated that it would have been quite unintelligible if every building had not flown a party flag. The principal landmark here was the Hotel Colón, the headquarters of the P.S.U.C., dominating the Plaza de Cataluña. In a window near the last O but one in the huge ‘Hotel Colón’ that sprawled across its face they had a machine-gun that could sweep the square with deadly effect. A hundred yards to the right of us, down the Ramblas, the J.S.U., the youth league of the P.S.U.C. (corresponding to the Young Communist League in England), were holding a big department store whose sandbagged side-windows fronted our observatory. They had hauled down their red flag and hoisted the Catalan national flag. On the Telephone Exchange, the starting-point of all the trouble, the Catalan national flag and the Anarchist flag were flying side by side. Some kind of temporary compromise had been arrived at there, the exchange was working uninterruptedly and there was no firing from the building. In our position it was strangely peaceful. The Civil Guards in the Café Moka had drawn down the steel curtains and piled up the café furniture to make a barricade. Later half a dozen of them came on to the roof, opposite to ourselves, and built another barricade of mattresses, over which they hung a Catalan national flag. But it was obvious that they had no wish to start a fight. Kopp had made a definite agreement with them: if they did not fire at us we would not fire at them. He had grown quite friendly with the Civil Guards by this time, and had been to visit them several times in the Café Moka. Naturally they had looted everything drinkable the café possessed, and they made Kopp a present of fifteen bottles of beer. In return Kopp had actually given them one of our rifles to make up for one they had somehow lost on the previous day. Nevertheless, it was a queer feeling sitting on that roof. Sometimes I was merely bored with the whole affair, paid no attention to the hellish noise, and spent hours reading a succession of Penguin Library books which, luckily, I had bought a few days earlier; sometimes I was very conscious of the armed men watching me fifty yards away. It was a little like being in the trenches again; several times I caught myself, from force of habit, speaking of the Civil Guards as ‘the Fascists’. There were generally about six of us up there. We placed a man on guard in each of the observatory towers, and the rest of us sat on the lead roof below, where there was no cover except a stone palisade. I was well aware that at any moment the Civil Guards might receive telephone orders to open fire. They had agreed to give us warning before doing so, but there was no certainty that they would keep to their agreement. Only once, however, did trouble look like starting. One of the Civil Guards opposite knelt down and began firing across the barricade. I was on guard in the observatory at the time. I trained my rifle on him and shouted across:
‘Hi! Don’t you shoot at us!’
‘What?’
‘Don’t you fire at us or we’ll fire back!’
‘No, no! I wasn’t firing at you. Look—down there!’
He motioned with his rifle towards the side-street that ran past the bottom of our building. Sure enough, a youth in blue overalls, with a rifle in his hand, was dodging round the corner. Evidently he had just taken a shot at the Civil Guards on the roof.
‘I was firing at him. He fired first.’ (I believe this was true.) ‘We don’t want to shoot you. We’re only workers, the same as you are.’
He made the anti-Fascist salute, which I returned. I shouted across:
‘Have you got any more beer left?’ ‘No, it’s all gone.’
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2,402 Posts
WOW,Gents,this is great. What a history this old rifle seems to have. Dutchman,GREAT WORK and thank you very much. I guess I am fortunate to find this one in this good of shape especially for $125 OTD. I am also very fortunate to have fellow collectors and a board/forum like this to take a interest to help. I have repeatedly said this over the years "What a great hobby this is". John and Bayonet collector,thank you very much. Ed
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4,185 Posts
No prob, Mauserdad. This is a great forum and a place where every question I've asked has always gotten a better answer than I expected.
As for your rifle I'd gladly have paid several times the amount for a rifle so definitely confirmed as a CNT-FAI rifle. You have a really unique item there, I'm green with envy...
I higly recommend reading George Orwells "Homage to Catalonia" as that will really give you insight into your rifles history, and it is a great book written close to the events and so better than most eyewitness accounts. Whether you buy the book or read it online, read it.
I really wanted to take a rifle home from Barcelona, but it would have been very difficult to export from spain so I had to settle for the belt buckle and my photos of the interesting sites mentioned by Orwell. I really would have loved to take the generalite marked mauser I found there home, though, but no way to do that.
As for your rifle I'd gladly have paid several times the amount for a rifle so definitely confirmed as a CNT-FAI rifle. You have a really unique item there, I'm green with envy...
I higly recommend reading George Orwells "Homage to Catalonia" as that will really give you insight into your rifles history, and it is a great book written close to the events and so better than most eyewitness accounts. Whether you buy the book or read it online, read it.
I really wanted to take a rifle home from Barcelona, but it would have been very difficult to export from spain so I had to settle for the belt buckle and my photos of the interesting sites mentioned by Orwell. I really would have loved to take the generalite marked mauser I found there home, though, but no way to do that.
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2,665 Posts
I'm still working on the ship.
It appears to have two anchor lines, one at each end. I thought that interesting to have such a detail as that. It would mean the ship was moored in a harbor. As yet I've not found a ship with that profile, two stacks one mast and two rows of gun ports. Its pretty hard to google such things so I'm stumbling. But I'm convinced its a significant detail worthy of further research. I'm more convinced now that the ship can isolate the rifle's use geographically, at least an episode of it's life.
Dutchman
It appears to have two anchor lines, one at each end. I thought that interesting to have such a detail as that. It would mean the ship was moored in a harbor. As yet I've not found a ship with that profile, two stacks one mast and two rows of gun ports. Its pretty hard to google such things so I'm stumbling. But I'm convinced its a significant detail worthy of further research. I'm more convinced now that the ship can isolate the rifle's use geographically, at least an episode of it's life.
Dutchman
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4,185 Posts
Try checking the ships first that Antony Beevor mentions in "the battle for spain." I'll find their names tomorrow (requires a bit of reading). They resisted the fascist uprising and refused the fascists an easy way to ferry troops from morocco, forcing them to establish an air bridge to seville which would not have worked without help from Hitlers Germany...
General Queipo de Llano earned a terrible reputation in seville when he "secured" the city for the fascists...
I would not be surprised if that carving represented a ship that stayed loyal to the republic and fought its own officers. It seems probable that the carving might reflect that first fervor of resistance.
But, this is all speculation of course, but perhaps an avenue worth looking closer at???
General Queipo de Llano earned a terrible reputation in seville when he "secured" the city for the fascists...
I would not be surprised if that carving represented a ship that stayed loyal to the republic and fought its own officers. It seems probable that the carving might reflect that first fervor of resistance.
But, this is all speculation of course, but perhaps an avenue worth looking closer at???
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