NitroX
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| (.700 member) |
| 25/05/11 05:44 PM |
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Re: In Peace and in War
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On enlarging the photo to study the Mauser rifle, I noticed these features: a short military front sight base, a long tangent sight, a rather small, rounded trigger guard set well forward, a round pistol grip, a stock cutout below the bolthandle and a "Schnabel"-foreend tip. IMHO it is a typical post WW1 sporterized Karabiner 98AZ. Commercial Mauser C-type (army-hunting) rifles usually featured a bigger triggerguard, a shorter tangent sight and no cutout under the bolthandle.
BTW, when I was a boy of about 10, my grandfather took me to a relative's hunting party to learn the job of a beater. There also was a very old gentleman, much respected and addressed as "Herr General" by everyone. Only later I learned this was v. Lettow-Vorbeck.
My Goodness. Personally meeting one of the Legends of Africa. Even if you were young and didn't know anything about it at the time.
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My uncle was Hauptmann/Captain Erich Müller, who fought WW1 in east Africa to the end November 14, 1918 near Abercorn. I was told later Erich Müller, as an avid hunter and fine shot, also did some sniping in the African bush. For the rest of his life he deeply regretted he shot a British officer who later turned out to have been the famous hunter he had respected so much… But a war was going on at that time…
True, there are literary accounts of the regrets expressed at the time. A time when sometimes war was still sometimes conducted by gentlemen, though soon to change.
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OOPS, for British parlance I should not write "hunting party", as no horses, red coats and hounds were involved. It was a typical German drive for hare (a larger relative to rabbits living in the open, no burrows), a social event also.
Only in England and the British Isles, my friend. In Australia, USA, Canada, South Africa, hunting is hunting ... I had many a trouble living in England and talking about hunting deer at home, or hunting ducks. Ha ha, riding after ducks, might get the old horse bogged.
In England, if I remember rightly, one hunts on horseback, one shoots pheasant or grouse, and one stalks deer ...Of course it is all part of enjoying different cultures.