Belgian 75mm Model 1905 Field Gun

In the beginning of the century, when the big European arms race was on, Belgian Army bought its field guns from Germany, from the most well-known firm of Krupp (who had a sort of standard design, which could be altered somewhat to suit the different buyers). The 75mm Model 1905 was first bought complete from Krupp, then in components for assembly by local Belgian firms, and in the end all components except the barrel came from Krupp: the barrel was manufactured in Belgium from material bought in Britain. It was a conventional design, using a hydro-spring recoil system, and a horizontal sliding block type breech. The gun weighed 1070kg when deployed, a elevation of –8° to +16° and could fire a 6.5kg shrapnel shell to a pretty impressive maximum range of 8.000m. In 1914 the Belgian Army had 18 Brigades Mixtes, and each of these had 3 batteries of 75mm Model 1905. Most of these guns were lost during the initial German advance, and from then on the Belgian Artillery consisted mostly of French-supplied “75”:s.

The gun below can be seen on display in the excellent Army Museum in Brussels. The gun and the uniforms are authentic enough, but notice that the white lettering was added after the war, commemorating the action the unit (or perhaps the gun) has participated in. The gun in the bottom row of photos can be seen in the Tøjhusmuseet in Copenhagen, and have been photographed by Knut Erik Hagen.