"British Soldiers in Afganistan Discover British Rifles ... " Topic

…Lost In 1880 Maiwand Massacre.
Old… but still interesting…

"Imagine slogging through the Afghan sands and sun with your fellow military men and women. There are many hidden dangers to come across – and, surprisingly, weapons that you might recognize from your military history books. That's right; even thousands of miles away from your homeland, there's a chance that you might stumble upon weapons left behind by your ancestors.

This is what happened a few years ago, in the desert landscape of Afghanistan. British troops stumbled across an unexpected find: their nation's very own weapons long left abandoned.

128 years after British forces faced crushing defeat at Maiwand in July of 1880, soldiers from the very same nation returned to the site of the conflict and found these long-lost weapons…"

From here
link

Question: From the serial number… you can identiy to whom belongs?

Amicalement
Armand

I think that serial numbers would only reveal which unit had them, not individuals.

That would be an un-nerving omen to find.

It is my understanding that they technically belong to this lady:

link

As far as identifying the soldiers that carried them, maybe. The unit armorer's (armourer?) records would have had to survive. The weapons were accounted for as lost in some record book or other, along with the circumstances. So it may be locked away in some dusty Ordnance Department filing cabinet.

On the other hand, the Pathans have a long history of copying captured weapons by hand (including Vickers MGs), often at higher quality than the mass-produced originals. And complete with serial numbers. So the provenance is not certain.

My father told me of finding a cache of pattern 1853, (I believe) 2-band Enfield Rifle-Muskets in Vietnam when he was there in 1965.

Neat how these things turn up from time to time. Interesting article.

Glad you enjoyed the article my friend…

Thanks for the answers…

Amicalement
Armand

Not to be a Victorian Grognard, but the historical inaccuracies contained in that otherwise very interesting article are a bit surprising, in this day of easy instant access to online historical reference. There were twenty-five THOUSAND Afghans at the battleof Maiwand, not twenty-five hundred, and they outnumbered the Anglo-Indians by about ten-to-one. I would think it was just a one digit typo, but then the article goes on to give the wrong year for the battle (1879 instead of 1880) and says that after the battle, the war itself was ended by the Treaty of Gandamak, while the Treaty of Gandamak was actually signed in May, 1879 -- more than a year BEFORE the battle of Maiwand -- ending what would turn out to be only the first phase of the Second Anglo-Afghan war.

Re: the battle of Maiwand itself, it was indeed a crushing defeat… and yet, by engaging Yakub Khan's massive army and inflicting substantial casulaties on it, the arguably incompetent General Burrows and his ill-fated force still managed to prevent the Afghan leader from ever taking Kandahar.

I was expecting the Afghans to be still using them in combat.

I was expecting the Afghans to be still using them in combat.

No kidding.

Friend of mine said he found some old Lee-Enfields and I think a Martini-Henry lurking in a weapons cache his troops uncovered in Afghanistan.

Incredible!…

Amicalement
Armand

In skilled hands a Lee Enfield is still a pretty reliable bit of kit.

That is not a Martini-Henry from 1879. It a Martini-Enfield. From 1889 onwards thousands of Martinis (neither shaken or stirred), were converted to fire .303 by having them rechambered and the .45 barrels replaced with .303 barrels. The first batches were done with Lee-Metford barrels, then Lee-Enfield / Long Lee barrels. Still it is a piece of kit to find.