#balkans front

[yugoslavfub]

NOVJ handmade officer’s belt. The belt buckle reads “ Workers of the world, unite!”

[historicalfirearms]

In Action: Lewis Gun

The Lewis Gun became the British Army’s mainstay light machine gun in 1915, it proved a highly effective weapon. The British purchased their first Lewis Guns in the autumn of 1914 and major orders were place by 1915. The number of Lewis guns increasing rapidly during the course of the war. By the summer of 1916 two guns per company were issued but by 1917 at least one per platoon became the norm. 

Invented by an American inventor, Colonel Isaac Lewis, a number of nations issued the Lewis Gun during the war including Belgium, the Russian Empire, the US Marine Corps and most famously by the British & Commonwealth forces. Gas-operated, air-cool and firing from a 47-round pan magazine the Lewis weighed in at a weighty 26 lbs. 

The photograph above shows a Lewis Gun team in action, probably during training, on the Balkan Front, in May 1917. A Corporal looks through binoculars at where the gun’s fire is aimed. The Lewis Gunner’s number two looks on ready to change the pan magazine. 

Read more about the Lewis Gun here

Sources:

Images: 1 2

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[yugoslavfub]

The Serbian Army in October 1915, against the German, Bulgarian, and AH invasion. 

[yugoslavfub]

Regular Bulgarian infantry operating with Stug of Armoured Brigade, 1944

[yugoslavfub]

Bulgarian soldiers, WW2.

[yugoslavfub]

Royal Serbian Army uniform and items from the Great War. 

[yugoslavfub]

The Navy of the Independent State of Croatia, was the navy of the NDH established by the Law on the Establishment of the Army and Navy issued on 10 April 1941 by retired Austro-Hungarian Lieutenant Colonel (later Marshal and Commander-in-chief of the armed forces) Slavko Kvaternik, with the approval of the Germans. The navy was always a small part of the armed forces, numbering only 1,262 in September 1943. 

At the end of December 1944, the navy consisted of a flotilla of small craft stationed at Rijeka. The entire flotilla tried to desert to the Partisans in December 1944, but all but one craft (carrying the commander of the flotilla) was prevented from deserting by the Germans. The Germans disarmed the remaining vessels and sent the crews to Zagreb where they formed a special unit for service on land.

[yugoslavfub]

This small publication was edited by Italian army during WW2 to give support to the “Independent Government of Croatia” (10 April 1941)  under the leadership of the dictator Ante Pavelic the ‘Poglanik ‘.