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In fall 1914, the British and French armies on the First World Wadustr’s Western Front were wrestling with a problem: unseen German riflemen were picking off any man who showed himself above the trench. Something had to be done about it – and the result was the birth of the modern sniper.
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» SOURCES
Campana, Michele. Perchè ho Ucciso. 1918.
Goya, Michel. “Une brève histoire des snipers 2e partie : les chasseurs industriels.”
https://lavoiedelepee.blogspot.com/2021/05/la-voie-de-lepee-une-breve-histoire-des.html
Pegler, Martin. Sniping in the Great War. 2008.
Plaster, John. The History of Sniping and Sharpshooting. 2008.
Schäfer, Robin. “‘The men behind the scope’: German snipers in the First World War, part 2.” https://irontime.substack.com/p/the-men-behind-the-scope-german-snipers
Schäfer, Robin. “’A Dirty Duty Well Performed: German Snipers in the First World War.’” https://irontime.substack.com/p/a-dirty-duty-well-performed-german
Uyar, Mesut. The Ottoman Army in the First World War. 2020
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Snipers are an integral part of today’s
armies, but it wasn’t always the case . In fall 1914, the British and French armies on
the First World Wadustr’s Western Front were wrestling with a problem: unseen German
riflemen were picking off any man who showed himself above the trench. Something had to be done about it – and
the result was the birth of the modern sniper. The First World War witnessed the evolution
of warfare in many areas: chemical weapons, aerial bombing, armour, combined arms oper
ations,
and infantry tactics. And the trench stalemate that set in on many
fronts also saw the birth of modern snipers. From September and October 1914, the British,
French, and German armies were faced with a new problem – how to observe and shoot
at an enemy that could barely be seen inside his trench. Going over the top in a big offensive was
rare, but that didn’t mean there was no combat – and that is where sniping came
in. To be successful, one had to dominate No Man’s
Land, which meant pre
cise rifle fire from a protected position – no easy task given
the new combat reality. What started as improvised private sniping
in the early days and ended with full-on sniping schools and refined tactics later in the war:
the story of sniping is a fascinating one, but it’s a hard one to tell. There are pretty big gaps in available literature
and primary sources, especially for armies other than the British. When primary sources do mention enemy snipers,
we often can’t be sure they weren’t sim
ply skilled riflemen. And, the definition of a sniper versus a sharpshooter,
Scharfschütze, or Tireur d’elite can be blurry. But let’s dive in with what we do know. The Central Powers started out with the upper
hand in the sniping war. The German and Austro-Hungarian armies had
a long tradition of sharpshooter and Jäger infantry units trained for precise shooting. They also had a widespread culture of hunting,
and the best optics industries in the world. This meant that when front line troops be
gan
to report that they needed accurate rifles with telescopic lenses to zoom in on hard-to-spot
targets, Germany had far more resources than Britain or France. The Duke of Ratibor quickly organized a public
campaign to send hunting rifles with telescopic sights to the front, which resulted in 5-10,000
reaching German units by the end of the year. Most ended up in the hands of experienced
hunters and gamekeepers. This had an immediate impact – the Germans
could now target Allied soldiers far mor
e effectively . At first the Allies didn’t
even realize what the problem was. The British often attributed casualties to
stray bullets, when in fact many of these were shots aimed by German sharpshooters . Sometimes
the Germans even used kites or signs in English to get curious Brits to expose themselves. Soon, the Allies realized what was going on,
but didn’t yet have the means to fight back. German snipers were well protected too, since
they had armored plates with loopholes to protect themsel
ves, and the Allies at first
didn’t . The desperate British even experimented with elephant guns to penetrate them. All this gave Germans lots of opportunities. Gefreiter Georg Herrnreiter, a poacher before
the war, earned the Bavarian Golden Bravery Medal in October 1914:
“Gefreiter Herrnreiter […] volunteered to take up a sentry position in a tree, from
which he successfully shot everything alive, whatever valuable target showed itself in
the trench ahead […], while at the same time delivering
valuable reports about the
proceedings on the French side […] Even though he was wounded [and] two rifles were
shot to pieces in his hands […] He shot down a mass of foes, reported enemy artillery
positions and guided our own artillery’s fire onto them.’” (Schäfer “The Men…”) Herrnreiter racked up 121 confirmed kills
before he was killed in early 1916. It’s hard to say exactly how much damage
German snipers were doing, but British units often complained about them and they did affect
morale . A
necdotal reports of 10-18 men killed per day in an infantry battalion are common
– although we can’t confirm if these deaths were all caused by snipers even if the British
reports thought so. The same goes for estimates of one German
sniper for every 750m of front line. The Allies slowly began to respond, but at
first, scoped rifles were in very short supply – British units had to turn theirs over
to the unit relieving them. While the Germans targeted Brits and Frenchmen
on the Western Front, th
e sniping war also developed independently on nearly all fronts. When the war began in the Alps in 1915, the
Austro-Hungarians generally overlooked Italian trenches, and had much better access to scoped
sights , a 1916 Italian manual specified that the observer had to bring the rifle back if
the sniper was killed or wounded at his post. French and Italian workshops began to produce
more telescopic sights based on German examples, but catching up took time . Soon, Italian
snipers were also active
, with the characteristic, disturbing experience of a very deliberate
way of killing: “I remember his very young face, pale, thin,
very large eyes, blond. I already had him well in my sights, without
trembling, in the middle of his chest. My temple was throbbing hard against the butt
of my rifle. I fired […] He arched his arms against the
sky, fell to his knees and sank down among the boulders with four or five spasms.” (Campana 63)
On Gallipoli, even though the Ottomans didn’t have sniper units
or telescopic sights, their
defensive positions on the high ground allowed their sharpshooters to wreak havoc on Allied
trenches. Allied units improvised responses, which led
to the fame of Australian sniper Billy “The Assassin” Sing. His alleged duel with the Ottoman marksman
nicknamed “Abdullah the Terrible” by Anzac troops is sometimes considered the first recorded
sniper duel , and his kill total is estimated at 150-300. There were also rumors of female Ottoman snipers,
but these have since
been debunked. On the Eastern Front, German accounts claim
that although the Russians had a few sharpshooters, they didn’t use telescopic sights. They weren’t prepared for Austro-Hungarian
or German sniping either, which gave snipers like Wilhelm Enz easy targets:
“I often lay there for half an hour with a telescopic sight at the ready until some
Siberian in a lambskin hat came across my sights. I put a bullet into three of those. You just start shooting as if you were looking
at a roebuck. The
thought that he is also a human being,
that he has a wife and child at home, always comes too late.” (Schäfer “The Men…”) Once the practice of sniping began, armies
began to improve and regulate it – not only terms of rifles, but the principles and supporting
tools of a new and deadly trade. As time passed, both sides professionalized
sniping, by creating official sniping sub-units, schools, and manuals. Again, the Germans were the pioneers, ordering
15,000 scoped Mauser rifles and designating
certain soldiers as sharpshooters in 1914. They probably formed the first teams of so-called
Abschusskommando snipers in spring 1915 – there are even reports of some units offering bounties
for kills, though others criticized the practice. There are also confirmed references to German
telescopic sight observer training and sniper schools from 1915. Most British accounts credit enthusiastic
officers, especially Vernon Hesketh-Prichard, for convincing army brass to develop formal
sniping schools.
The first British School of Sniping started
training men in July 1916. Training emphasized the purposes and skills
of sniping. The Scouting and Patrolling Manual eventually
formed the basis of sniper training until the present day, defined the goals of sniping
as to inflict casualties, gather intelligence, improve their comrades’ morale, and reduce
enemy morale. For the slightly more aggressive Canadian
school, sniping was to: shake enemy morale, cause casualties, stop the enemy from working,
an
d retaliate against enemy snipers. (Pegler 145)
Australian sniper Ion Idriess’ experience in Palestine confirmed why the training emphasized
counter-sniping: “The respect you gain for a (Turkish) sniper when a bullet smacks within
half an inch of your jaw is thrilling.” Pegler 151
Soldiers also perfected skills like judging range, and compensating for wind, and how
to deal with problems like enemy snipers, fog, overly sensitive or difficult to adjust
sights, or wooden stocks swelling and reducin
g rifle accuracy . Instructors emphasized that
dawn, dusk, and moonlit nights were the best times to snipe given how light conditions
affected the telescopic sights . Keeping a sensitive and valuable scoped rifle in good
shape and in the right hands was important, and training emphasized that the men were
not to tamper with optics themselves. The French took the lead in camouflage, and
an artist-led workshop began to churn out materials to make decoys, fake horse carcasses
or dead bodies to use
as hides, and material for camouflage suits. They also supplied British sniping schools,
as did the Royal Engineers Special Works Park. The Lovat Scouts, who played a key role in
the development of British sniping, created the first Ghillie suits based on Scottish
stalking camouflage. The Germans even developed an armor-piercing
bullet in 1915 that could penetrate most Allied plates for a time. British sniper teams in theory consisted of
8 men per battalion, but this varied widely. Usually, the
men were free to move around
a defined section of the front held by the unit they were attached to. Because of the dangerous and difficult nature
of their work, they also enjoyed some benefits. They were often relieved of trench duty, and
later in the war, didn’t join the infantry assaults going over the top. That’s why German soldier Ignaz Hautumm
was happy to become a sniper: “I have been assigned a wonderful job. I am now a sniper […] Whenever I feel like
it, I walk to the observing post […]
When I spot an Englishman who is bold enough to
raise his nose, it is my duty and obligation to shoot him. I do not need to do any sentry duty and am
allowed to sleep at night and that while everyone else is on their feet. I feel like I am in heaven!” (Schäfer “A Dirty…”) Once the armies had trained snipers, they
soon became a common sight in the trenches, and they refined their tactics. Trench warfare didn’t mean there wasn’t
any fighting – every day and night along the line, soldiers raided en
emy trenches,
called in artillery strikes, or fired on enemy working parties or scouts in No Man’s Land. And, they sniped at each other – usually
at ranges between 100 and 400 metres. As the trench stalemate continued, snipers
in all armies began to develop innovative tactics to achieve the objectives taught in
training. Sniper teams worked mostly in pairs, with
one observer and one shooter, although sometimes the German Abschusscommandos had two pairs
working together. The Germans also tried to
have their snipers
support each other, to immediately threaten any potential enemy counter-snipers. All armies developed periscope rifles with
mirrors attached to a wooden frame that allowed the shooter to fire without exposing himself
over the parapet as well. If an enemy sniper was causing a unit difficulty,
it might call in its own battalion snipers to counter-snipe. The most valuable targets were enemy officers,
snipers, artillery observers, machine gunners, and sometimes the machine guns t
hemselves. The logic was that another soldier might replace
a downed comrade behind a machine gun, but a shattered water-cooling drum neutralized
the threat. The Germans responded with metal jackets for
their Maxims, and a rarely used extra armour plate for machine gunners’ helmets. For regular soldiers in the trenches, snipers
were a double-edged sword. The men were glad if a sniper team arrived
to counter-snipe and enemy who had been picking off their comrades, but sometimes resented
their own
snipers’ presence, since they would provoke the enemy and leave, while the
regular infantry would still be there when the enemy retaliated:
“I never liked them [snipers] they would shoot some poor Hun and bugger off then we’d
get it in the neck. Our officer often used to chase them out,
telling them to ply their murderous bloody trade somewhere else.” (Pegler 179)
Aside from the daily grind of trench sniping, snipers and sharpshooters could help stop
enemy attacks. When enemy infantry began to
cross No Man’s
Land, snipers in protected positions just behind their own front line could take out
enemy officers and NCO’s, or small groups of enemy who had penetrated friendly trenches. The Germans complained that when they attacked
the French, locating enemy snipers pinning them down was “like fighting phantoms.” German sharpshooters tried to do the same
at Verdun: “We sharpshooters occupied the lines of
craters behind the main body of our men and as soon as the French advanced, we would sho
ot
the officers and leading ranks, our riflemen and machine guns dealing with the rest.” (Pegler 161)
Eventually, even though the British never matched the quality of German optics, they
gained the upper hand in the sniping game. A German report from mid-1917 indicated that:
“[The] number and quality [of scoped marksmen] on the English side have strongly increased
during the previous months […] The experiences since the start of the war have shown that
amongst our foes the English are the best p
recision shooters and come before the French.” (Schäfer “A Dirty…”) This was partly due to the skills of Dominion
troops from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Many had experience as hunters, trappers,
or outdoorsmen, and they put their skills to good use hunting enemy soldiers instead
of big game . The privately raised Bailey’s South African Sharpshooters even claimed its
24 members racked up a kill total of some 3000 enemy, though this optimistic figure
cannot be proven . (Pegl
er 158) Indigenous Canadian snipers proved among the best, making
up 6 of the top 12 snipers in the British army. Metis Henry Louis Norwest was a rodeo performer
before the war, but as a soldier killed 115 Germans before he fell victim to a sniper
. Ojibwe Francis Binasswi Pegahmagabow had the highest confirmed total kills of any sniper
in the war with 378. German sniper Mannfried Gossen experienced
the skill of his Canadian enemies: “[…] we had the Canadians in front of
us, who were the very de
vil. Our snipers could not shoot without retribution
and we lost many good men […] we did little sniping there as even for us old trench veterans
it was too dangerous.” (Pegler 150)
But British success didn’t mean the Germans weren’t still a menace. British Lieutenant Bernard Montgomery was
hit and trapped in No Man’s Land: “A soldier ran to me and began to put a
field dressing on my wound. He was shot through the head by a sniper and
collapsed on top of me. The sniper continued to fire […] the
dead
man received many bullets intended for me.” (Plaster 307)
SEGUE So the British had eclipsed the Germans as
the dominant snipers in the trenches, but once the war dramatically changed in 1918,
sniping did too. In the last year of the war, US snipers joined
the ranks of the Allies. Many of them brought the same hunting and
backwoods skills that had led the Dominion troops to success as well. The US Army did have a designated sniper rifle,
the Springfield, but no training program or official s
nipers. This soon changed as commanders like Colonel
F. Wise created ad-hoc sniping units who learned on the fly in summer and fall 1918. Two of the most famous were Herman Davis,
reported to have killed four Germans at the extreme range of 1000 yards, and Medal of
Honor recipient Sergeant Alvin York, who used a British Lee Enfield’s iron sights to kill
25 Germans and capture 132 more. With the return of limited movement in 1917,
and full-on mobile war in 1918, snipers adapted their tactics. Now
, they joined the attack alongside advanced
infantry teams to take out enemy snipers and machine guns holding up the regular infantry
units, as well as locating enemy artillery batteries that had displaced. The British Training and Employment of Platoons
manual, for example, recommended that leading infantry sections should have two snipers
on their flanks doubling as scouts. The French began to use snipers in assaults
against German strongpoints: first artillery and gas would blind the defender
s while the
infantry moved closer . Then, French snipers would target German snipers and MG teams inside
pillboxes through the firing slits, giving time for bombing teams to lob grenades from
close range. A German soldier recalled the effect of US
snipers on his unit’s defences: “We had great trouble from the [American]
riflemen who were very accurate shots. Three of our top four machine gunners were
shot down one after the other and no one was prepared to take their place. With no fire support
from the machine guns
we were soon overrun and forced to surrender.” (Pegler 190)
Of course, as the Allies advanced, the Germans used snipers working in tandem with machine
guns to delay the enemy to buy time for German units to retreat to new positions. One Canadian regiment recorded a costly action:
“At Le Quesnel, one Boche sniper did more damage than four machine guns which were firing
from the same locality. The guns were located, the sniper was not.” (Pegler 192) The overall impact of snip
ing in the First
World War is difficult to judge given the state of research. Its proponents often make optimistic claims
about high numbers of casualties inflicted, but evidence is mostly anecdotal, and its
critics dismiss it as a tactical sideshow. There is no doubt though, that snipers and
sharpshooters killed tens of thousands of men over four years of war, often when the
target least expected it. Their presence added significantly to the
unrelenting tension men experienced while on the fron
t line – and deeply affected
many snipers as well: “For years after the war I used to wake
in the early hours and go walking, to forget some of the things I’d seen and done. […] I never, never told anyone I had been
a sniper, not even my wife. They wouldn’t have understood.” (Pegler 194)
The First World War marked the birth of modern sniping, and the principles and tactics of
the snipers of 1914-1918 still influence snipers in armies across the world today. Military innovation often changes warf
are
in unforeseen ways. 30 Years after the trenches were dug on the
Western Front, the atomic bomb was used for the first time against Japan in the Second
World War. This also marked the beginning of the nuclear
arms race between the West and the Soviet Union – and the Soviets also saw the potential
in nuclear energy for their vision of atomic powered communism. If you are interested to learn more about
the Soviet nuclear program from its origins even before the Second World War to the Chernobyl
disaster and the nuclear legacy of the USSR, you can watch our new documentary series Red
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Comments
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With modern day understanding of PTSD this war must have utterly destroyed a whole generation of young men on an emotional level. You can’t be the same person after this
So much of modern warfare was pioneered in the Great War. It’s crazy to think there’s probably somewhere right now where a soldier is afraid to look over his trench because a sniper might be watching.
16:13 Sgt York used an American M1917 rifle, nicknamed the "American Enfield". It was an entirely different rifle from the British Lee-Enfield. The M1917 was an American conversion of the British P14 rifle, originally intended to replace the Lee-Enfield, that was being manufactured in the US for Britain.
McBride’s A Rifleman Went To War, is an excellent read if interested in sniping in the early years of the war.
My grampa served in the Canadian infantry regiments till 1917 then he became a sniper.He fought at Ypres the Somme,Vimy ridge as a sniper.He targeted machine gun nests in particular.The same tactics as the American snipers.Gramps liked the American troops,that's why he moved to the states in the twenties for about 10 years.I have the utmost respect for all our soldiers in the wars.Gone but not forgotten
As a Metis Canadian, with Ojibwe ancestry, I was surprised and elated to learn more about their service and impact in the war! Even though WW1 is commonly portrayed as a defining moment in Canadian identity (with Vimy being the most important) I never knew Canadian Aboriginals made up 6 of the 12 top snipers in the British army! Thanks for another amazing documentary!! :D
This is a phenomenal channel. I don't know who is controlling the design, quality, information or delivery artistically, but you are 100 percent in your element. It's not just the matter of quality, but the topics always seem to address those extremely important but less talked-about and covered events (such as" World War Zero" with the Ottoman empire). Fantastic all around, and I'll be linking others to get them subscribed for certain. Truly, you have my gratitude.
You didn't need telescopic sites to be a sniper. The famous Finn in the winter war and continuation war never used a scope. He is considered the most prolific sniper of all time. I can't recall the name but his nickname was the white death
Everyone thinks that sniping is a game. It’s more than that. Sniping requires patience, willpower, resourcefulness, and much more. Not only that but many snipers from the First World War, Second World War, Korean War, various conflicts in the Cold War, the gulf war, and the war on terror. Many snipers describe that the one thing that stays in their minds is the face of the enemy. Seeing their facial expressions, seeing them talk with other soldiers, laughter, etc. Then squeezing the trigger to end them. War is harsh and sniping is brutal. Godspeed.
Billy sing the ANZAC did not use an enhanced sight on his rifle in Gallipoli and still got an estimated 250 kills
Excellent work as usual. Thanks.
Jesse, I appreciate and admire your narration more and more with each episode. My compliments.
Great documentary full of fascinating information.
If memory serves, there was an article I read in the 1914 Jane's Fighting Ships (reprinted from the 1906/7 edition) which talked about the Russo-Japanese war. A European observer at the siege of Port Arthur, saw a Japanese soldier being carried to the rear having been shot through the eye. The Japanese officer with him explained that the trench had a forward outpost faced with heavy planks, one of which had a knothole which allowed the forward observer to view the enemy. The officer added that the dead soldier was the third one they'd lost to Russian snipers. It kind of sounds like The Great War introduced the telescopic sights to sniping.
Snipers were one of the few people that were not taken as POWs because they specifically targeted officers and leaders of soldiers to cause dissent and terror.
artillerymen aim at map cordinates, Machinegunners aim at a area. riflemen aim at something that moves. Snipers aim at a person. // former soldier.
Italian word for sniper is "cecchino", it means "little Frank" in some dialects. It's supposed Italians used to call early Austrian snipers as "little Franz" just like Franz Joseph.
Are you planning to do the Philippine-American War documentary after you finish the Spanish-American War documentary a few months ago?
Excellent insights. I dint't realise that the Germans were such great pioneers in the field of sniping. Thanks a lot for sharing, always glad to see the channel return to its roots with content from the great war period!