Ancient history

• Battle of Fetterman

  The Battle of Fetterman, also called the Fetterman Massacre or Fetterman Affair by Americans or Combat-Des-Cent-Dans-La-Main by Native Americans, was a clash of Red Clouds War that took place on December 21, 1866 on the Bozeman Trail, 4 miles (6 km) north of Fort Phil Kearny, in what is now upstate

• 1863 Sharps Carbine

  The Sharps military rifle 1863 Sharps Carbine Very popular with cavalry on both sides (less so than the 7-shot Spencer carbine, however, and far more common than the field rifle version) the single-shot Sharps carbine was a lightened and shortened version of the rifle. The brevity of the falling

• Model 1873 troop and 1874 officer revolvers

  We know the personal investment of Napoleon III to ensure that the French army was equipped with a truly modern rifle; it will be the rifle model 1866, said Chassepot. Unfortunately the effort stopped there and the handgun did not follow, as it is true that it had never had any real tactical value a

• Gendarmerie An IX T pistol

  FROM PISTOL DARÇON TO HALF-ARÇON It is the ordinance of 1769, concerning the Maréchaussées, which very precisely gives the origin of this new model of handgun unusual until then; thus creating an armament specific to the gendarmerie which previously was equipped like the rest of the cavalry.The te

• Gendarmerie officer pistol 1836

  Repeating the tradition of model 1770 pistols, the gendarmerie established a model particular for the use of its officers, it was the 1836 model.At that time it was a particularly modern weapon, the military weapon was still with the flintlock system and the smooth barrel; this pistol designed from

• Berthier spearguns and carabiners

  Design Berthier carabiners and rifles constitute a coherent set of armament based on the same Mannlicher loading mechanism developed for the French army from 1890 and which took part in the First and Second World Wars. When the Germans designed their Mle 1888 rifle, they added a carbine or carabin

• Whitworth Rifle

  The Secretary of State for War (War Department) commissioned Whitworth to find a successor to the Enfield 1853 carbine in caliber 14.66 mm, whose recent Crimean war had just shown the disadvantages. The Whitworth rifle had a lower bore (11 mm) and a hexagonal section; the bullets, elongated, had a s

• Sharps Rifle

  Sharps Rifle The single-shot, breech-loading Sharps rifle was designed in 1848 by North American gunsmith Christian Sharps. It is based on a very reliable and robust breech closing mechanism called falling block. Sharps rifles, which have existed in a wide variety of versions and calibers, have alw

• Rifle Model 1866 (Chassepot)

  Despite a very short career (only seven years, from 1867 to 1874), almost 150 years after its abandonment, the name Chassepot is still present in everyones mind:it alone evokes the bloody and heroic battles of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The Chassepot rifle (from the name of its creator) or mo

• Mini Rifle

  The Minié P1851 rifle of the French army Ammunition 18mm Weights and dimensions Mass (charged) 4 kgLength(s) 95.8cm Technical features Rate of fire 2 to 3 strokes per minute The Minié rifle is a type of rifle that played an important role in the 19th century. It belongs to the broad category of

• Bold Rifle

  Adopted in 1874, the Gras rifle was the first long gun adopted by the French army to use an 11 mm metallic cartridge which was made of brass and centerfired. The Model 1874 rifle was actually a relatively simple transformation of the Chassepot Model 1866 rifle into a metal cartridge weapon. This tra

• Spencer Rifle and Carbine

  The Spencer is a North American military rifle designed in 1860. It combines radical innovations for the time:breech loading and a quick reloading system with manual repetition by trigger lever. The reserve of seven metal cartridges (rimfire) is contained in a tubular magazine housed in the butt. T

• Colt Single Action Army (Peacemaker)

  The Colt Single Action Army (SAA), or Colt Peacemaker (the peacemaker), is a .45 caliber Colt revolver with a single action lock and a 6-round cylinder. It was developed for the United States Cavalry by the Colt Company in 1873 and was perhaps the most prolific weapon in the Wild West. This weapon w

• Minié Ball, 1855

  Minié ball, 1855 Different types of Minié balls. The four on the right have the Tamisier grooves to improve their aerodynamic stability The Minié bullet is a type of muzzle-loading rifle bullet. This projectile differs from the spherical bullet in its ogive shape and the fact that it embeds itself

• dumdum bullet

  Dum-dum ball The dum-dum bullet is a highly injurious projectile used as firearm ammunition since the end of the 19th century. It takes its name from Dum Dum, a suburb of Calcutta where there was an arms factory. History The dum-dum bullet is created due to insufficient effect of small caliber am

• Federated Wall

  The Communards Wall at Père Lachaise (Paris) symbolizes the struggle for freedom and ideals. There, on May 28, 1871, one hundred and forty-seven fédérés, combatants of the Commune were shot and thrown into an open pit at the foot of the wall. The Père-Lachaise cemetery was established in May 1804 i

• Chronology of the Paris Commune (1871)

  January * January 7:Publication of the Red Poster, which calls for the creation of a Commune in Paris. * January 19:in Buzenval (near Rueil) bloody failure of the offensive against the Germans, which General Trochu, military governor of Paris and president of the provisional government, imagined t

• The Paris Commune:Repression

  The Commune was finally defeated during the Bloody Week, which began with the entry of Versailles troops into Paris on May 21 and ended with the last fighting at the Père-Lachaise cemetery on May 28. The witnesses all evoke numerous summary executions on the part of the Versailles troops. There is t

• The Paris Commune:The second siege of Paris

  The Versaillais went on the attack first. On April 2 they occupied Mont-Valérien, where the Communards had neglected to settle, a considerable advantage, since this position dominated the entire western suburbs of Paris. On March 30, General de Galliffet dislodged the Communards from the Rond-Point

• The government of Versailles against the Commune of Paris

  A large part of the action of the Commune was to fight against the offensive led by the troops of the government of Thiers:the Versaillais. As evidenced by the telegraphic correspondence he had with Jules Favre, who was negotiating peace with the Germans, Thiers enjoyed the support of German Chance