As described in Speed's book, development of the autoloader began in 1898 and in 1901 Paul Mauser lost his left eye during test firing. His design worked great but required greased cartridges to function reliably and was rejected by the military for this reason. Development resulted in the Model 09 (1000 produced) and was used as an anti-aircraft weapon by the airship service at the beginning of WW1. It had a 25 round clip.