O.Geyger Mauser 98 Captured WW1 Battle of Marne by 3rd Cold Stream/Irish Guards RARE

[malmartini]

Hi All,
This is my first thread, so please be gentle with me!
Looking for information on a rare Mauser in my collection. It has a Sterling Silver Plaque on the right hand side that states...

Taken from the Machine Gun Company of the Jaeger
The Guard at Boitron
Advance guard action during the Battle of the Marne
September 8th 1914

The rifle itself is an early 1898 Mauser made by O.Geyger, Berlin. Short rifle length (almost carbine), octagon to round barrel with 1/4 rib & early type 318" bore, spoon handle, adjustable double set triggers, cheek piece, Buffalo horn trigger gaurd, buttplate & else where. Lightly engraved, colour case hardened action. The odd thing with the rifle itself is the front part of the forewood can be removed to make a half stocked sporter. The steel plate that separates the two pieces of timber is engraved internally...only evident when the front section is removed.
I have located alot information on the rifle & what happened on that date. I would assume a wealthy German Officer was the owner of the rifle (what happened to standard issue?)?...& Jaeger means "Huntsman" & recall reading someplace that Jaeger refered to "German marksmen shock troops".
The village of Boitron is in France, & I have found the following reference to the Battle of the Marne on that date....

Nobel Prize winner in 1907 & famous poet, & novelist, Joseph Rudyard Kipling describes the action in his book "The Irish Guards In The Great War".

"On the 7th September the Battalion made a forced march from Tonquin to Rebais, where there was a German column, but the advance-guard of the Brigade was held up at St. Simeon till dark and the Battalion had to bivouac a couple of miles outside Rebais. The German force withdrew from Rebais on the afternoon of the 7th, and on the 8th the Brigade’s advance continued through Rebais northward in the direction of Boitron, which lay just across the Petit Morin River. Heavy machine-gun fire from some thick woods along the rolling ground, across the river, checked the advance-guard (the 3rd Coldstream) and the two companies of the Irish Guards who supported them. The woods, the river valley, and the village of Boitron were searched by our guns, and on the renewal of the attack the river was crossed and Boitron occupied, the enemy being heavily shelled as he retired. Here the Battalion re-formed and pressed forward in a heavy rainstorm, through a flank attack of machine-guns from woods on the left. These they charged, while a battery of our field-guns fired point-blank into the thickets, and captured a German machine-gun company of six guns (which seemed to them, at the time, a vast number), 3 officers, and 90 rank and file. Here, too, in the confusion of the fighting they came under fire of our own artillery, an experience that was to become familiar to them, and the C.O. ordered the companies to assemble at Ferme le Cas Rouge, a village near by where they bivouacked for the night. They proudly shut up in the farm-yard the first prisoners they had ever taken; told off two servants to wait upon a wounded major; took the parole of the two other officers and invited them to a dinner of chicken and red wine. The Battalion, it will be observed, knew nothing then except the observances of ordinary civilized warfare. 2nd Lieutenant A. Fitzgerald and a draft arrived that day.
This small affair of Boitron Wood was the Irish Guards’ share of the immense mixed Battle of the Marne, now raging along all the front. Its result and the capture of the machine-guns cheered them a little".

The Battle of the Marne shaped the entire war.
The Battle of the Marne was a WW1 battle fought from the 5 to the 12 September 1914. It resulted in an Allied victory against the German Army. The battle ended the month long German offensive that opened the war, reaching the outskirts of Paris. The counterattack by six French Armies & one British Army along the Marne River made the Germans abandon it's offensive & push towards Paris. The German retreat towards the northeast resulted in a lengthy four years of mud & blood trench warfare along the Western Front.

So, I have all this information, & a nice rifle on top.....but I have'nt been able to locate anything on the German side from that day....except, one of three German Officers captured & Machine Gun Company of the Jaeger. Can anyone help fill in the blanks? It's a pitty I can't read German!
Gotta go... the BEER is tasting SO good!
Cheers; Mal

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Badger]

Very nice ..

I fixed your pics for you ...

After you've uploaded them through the file manager within a post, use DONE button instead of INSERT INLINE button for better appearance ....

Thanks for posting them ...

Regards,
Doug

[rich v]

Don't know anything about the rifle; but i would think you have a very very valuable firearm in your possession, what caliber is it? Good informative history story, thanks for sharing the photos and the story.

[malmartini]

Hi Doug,
Thanks for fixing the pictures for me, much appreciated! Not sure if I should post more pictures of the rifle or not, as I have alot of other interesting rifles etc...I see there is a limit to the amount of pictures that can be uploaded to this website.
Cheers; Mal

[malmartini]

Hi Rich,
Caliber is 8 X57mm, bore is nice & shiny. The rifle is in good working condition, unmodified in anyway. I've used a few starting loads in it, not that I use it much, I've only fired 8 rounds through it. It shot accurately & I would'nt mind bumping off the Sambar Deer that was honking last night next to the house....it woke the entire familiy!
Thanks for the thanks....!
Cheers Mal

[Badger]

Hi Doug,
Thanks for fixing the pictures for me, much appreciated! Not sure if I should post more pictures of the rifle or not, as I have alot of other interesting rifles etc...I see there is a limit to the amount of pictures that can be uploaded to this website.
Cheers; Mal

You're welcome ...

With the amount of space you have available and because the pics are re-sized on uploading, I think it would be some time before you ran out of space ...

Regards,
Doug

[browningautorifle]

I just think it's a neat rifle. I would love to own something like that just for a sporter. It's timeless because it's a style that's still popular today. By the way, good luck with that deer.

[Patrick Chadwick]

The rifle shown is a commercial hunting rifle of the type known as a "Stutzen". Similar rifes, on Mauser 98 systems, are quite common here in Mauserland.

In fact, here is a link to its brother

http://forums.nitroexpress.com/showflat.php?Number=145122

"Stutzen" are carbine-sized hunting rifles with a full shaft, intended for use when stalking in the woods. The full shaft lets the hunter "beat around the bush" and rest the rifle on a brach or tree-trunk or whatever is lying around, without resting the rifle on the naked barrel. So effectively a brush rifle. I am at a loss to explain what it was doing anywhere near the front line in WWI.

Firstly, no ordinary soldier should have been carrying anything else but the rifle he was issued with. Especially in those very early days, before any "make do & mend" pressures had arisen.

Secondly, although offices provided their own arms, these were normally side-arms. Officers in those days were very concerned to give the impression that the dirty work of killing was something a gentlemen left to the troops. Hence the carrying of swords and handguns which were totally useless to attack enemies at rifle distances, but rather items with which to control one's own soldiers!


I can only surmise that the hypothetical officer took his Stutzer along to what was supposed to be "all over by Christmas", anticipating some pleasant hunting in the woods of a France that had been thoroughly defeated by the hammer of the Schlieffen Plan. As he found out, the hard way, and as we all know through hindsight, it didn't turn out that way at all...


Regardless of the story, that is certainly a most unusual rifle in that the divided front end woodwork allows it to be converted from a Stutzer to a short rifle.


Just one last point. For decades, German gunsmiths continued to make hunting rifles in the older chambering 8x57I, instead of the modified 8x57IS. They also made the barrels TIGHTER to match the 8x57I ammo, which was plentiful. So please check whether it has the S mark on the barrel or receiver ring, and if no such mark is visible, go cautiously. Use only 8.08mm / 0.318" bullets, and NOT the 8.20mm / 0.323" bullets of the S-chambering.


Patrick

[Calif-Steve]

In the peacetime Prussian Army, the main component of the Imperial German Army, there were one Imperial Guard Jäger battalion, the Garde-Jäger-Bataillon, and twelve line Jäger battalions. One Jäger battalion, the Großherzoglich Mecklenburgisches Jäger-Bataillon Nr. 14, was from the grand duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Another, Westfälisches Jäger-Bataillon Nr. 7, known as the "Bückeburg Jägers", was raised in the principality of Schaumburg-Lippe (whose capital was Bückeburg). The other ten were from Prussian lands. In addition, another Prussian Guard unit, the Garde-Schützen-Bataillon, though not designated Jäger, was a Jäger formation. Its origins were in a French chasseur battalion of the Napoleonic era, and its troops wore the shako and green tunic of Jäger.

The army of the Kingdom of Saxony added two Jäger battalions, which were included in the Imperial German Army order of battle as Kgl. Sächsisches 1. Jäger-Bataillon Nr. 12 and Kgl. Sächsisches 2. Jäger-Bataillon Nr. 13. The Saxon Jäger had a number of dress distinctions - notably tunics of a darker green than the Prussian colour, black facings instead of red and a black buffalo-hair plume buckled to the side of the shako. The autonomous Royal Bavarian Army provided a further two Jäger battalions, Kgl. Bayerisches 1. Jäger-Bataillon and Kgl. Bayerisches 2. Jäger-Bataillon, who wore the light blue of Bavarian infantry with green facings.

On mobilization in August 1914, each of these Prussian, Saxon and Bavarian Jäger battalions raised a reserve Jäger battalion. In September 1914, an additional 12 reserve Jäger battalions were raised (10 Prussian and 2 Saxon). In May 1915, the German Army began joining the Jäger battalions to form Jäger regiments, and in late 1917, the Deutsche Jäger-Division was formed.

During the early stages of World War I the German Jäger maintained their traditional role as skirmishers and scouts, often in conjunction with cavalry units. With the advent of trench warfare they were committed to an ordinary infantry role, integrated into divisions and losing their status as independent units
Wikipedia quote.

These German units were Light Infantry and well trained and well led. I would guess the German officer who carried his hunting rifle into combat was either killed or seriously wounded as he would not have lost his rifle. I am surprised that an British unit took that rifle back home. I didn't think the British took Greman rifles home. Nice historical piece, to say the least. I would guess a German collector would pay real money for that rifle.

[Patrick Chadwick]

would guess the German officer who carried his hunting rifle into combat

I must respectfully disagree with that opinion. For "officers and gentlemen" snobbery, the Prussians could make the British officers seem like socialists. An officer would not carry a rifle into battle ("gentlemen don't do that sort of thing, old boy"). And most certainly not a private hunting rifle. The function of an officer was to direct his troops, not to participate in the sordid business of killing. Don't forget - this was only a few weeks into the war, and the shine had not yet worn off these 19th century attitudes.

Patrick