"Rosalie": Trench Art SMLE with a Most Improbable Story
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Henri Lecorre was a French immigrant to Canada who enlisted in the 22nd Regiment of the Canadian Army in April, 1915. He had a knack for carving things in his rifles, which he started right in basic training, with a Ross rifle he named "Josephine". That got him sternly rebuked by his Colonel, but he would take up the habit again in 1916 when he arrived in France and began to see combat. At this point the Canadians were issuing SMLE rifles, and Lecorre named his "Rosalie", after the French bayonet's nickname.
Lecorre served through 14 major campaigns, and carved each name into his rifle as the years of the war dragged on. He was twice caught and punished for destruction of government property and fined for the cost of the rifle, although he managed to avoid more serious punishment both times. He only embellished the left side of Rosalie, so that his work would be hidden against his leg when standing at attention. By the summer of 1918, Rosalie's service record included Vimy, Kemmel, St. Eloi, Hoodge, Zellebeck, Courcelette, Bully Grenay, Neuvilles Vaade, Mericour, Lievin, Lens, Cote 70, Passchendaele and Arras.
Fate eventually caught up to Private Lecorre, and in mid-1918 he was seriously wounded in an attack, and woke up in a military hospital in Dieppe. Rosalie was long gone, and Lecorre not return to combat again.
The story is far from over, however. Rosalie was recovered from the battlefield, and sent back to Enfield with a batch of damaged rifles for refurbishment and reissue. Someone in the factory noticed the carving on it, and it was set aside. The arsenal commander took a liking to it, and it was hung in his office - where it remained for some 30 years. A Canadian officer from the 22nd Regiment noticed it at Enfield - thanks to Lecorre carving his unit's name into it - during the Second World War, and thought it would be appropriate to return it to the unit's home town, where the Citadelle Museum was established in 1950, with Rosalie as one of its original exhibits.
In 1956, Lecorre himself happened to visit an exhibition near Quebec City where the museum had set up, and was shocked to see his own Rosalie on display. After some understandable difficulty convincing the officer on duty that it was actually his rifle (which Lecorre did by reciting back its serial number unseen), a remarkable reunion took place. The rifle remained with the museum, but now with its full story known. It remains there to this day, on permanent display.
The Citadelle Museum commissioned a reproduction of Rosalie to be used for demonstrations, and it is this rifle which was graciously made available to me for filming, as the original is inaccessible on short notice because of its display case. Many thanks to the Citadelle for the opportunity to present it to you! If you are in Quebec City, make sure to take time to visit them:
www.lacitadelle.qc.ca/en/
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
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"The sergeant major didn't like it."
Shocking.
The moment knife met rifle butt, thousands of senior NCOs across Europe felt a stirring in the force... a vague sense of anger, a need for paperwork, a desire to kick a Private's ass, but no details... an unsettling sensation. "Something has happened", the old Sergeant Major said. "Somewhere a Private is f**king up big time...I feel it."
This comment is underrated.
@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III lol
"There are many like it, but this one is mine. ..."
this is my rifle this is my gun!
This is for killing and this is for fun!
Telephone: Ring!
Joe Swanson: SHUT UP!!
Telephone: *Cowering* 'Ok'!
there is none like this one
There IS one like this one. They made a copy for people like Ian.
I'm glad all those people that had to handle the rifle's destruction didn't want it destroyed
It makes me so happy that it wasn’t destroyed. I would be so sad. It’s so beautiful and such a cool piece of history.
People like to recognize small glimmers of humanity in an inhuman death machine type of situation. Recognize somebody's attempt to scratch some individuality and beautiful craft in the midst of mechanized faceless slaughter.
It's a truly beautiful thing that this rifle survived against all odds
@@KrizpyKilla And that the carver did too ..
yep props to our Brit neighbour who had the discernment of rightfully considering it a piece of art!
"Soldier! You defaced your rifle!"
"No Sir! I'm Canadian and my mother was a beaver!"
It makes it so much funnier if you read this in the South Park Canadian voice
Sounds legit!
Possibly the most French-Canadian story ever, man turns his rifle into a work of art, gets arrested for it, breaks out of jail, steals the rifle back and continues to engrave it like nothing happened.
Not sure what'd get him into more trouble if he was caught for that one: breaking out or impersonating an MP in the process of getting the rifle back.
Tabernac!
When you could be buried alive, obliterated by a shell, gassed, or machine-gunned down at any second, you probably didn't care too much about getting trouble for carving your rifle.
That Passchendaele lettering gives me chills. That man has seen more horrors than any of us ever will.
Somme? Agincourt? Passchendaele? Fuckin crazy man.
The lettering is a detail of some of our worst fighting, and this man and his rifle survived all of those.
That we’ve seen yet.
Please let that remain true for the rest our lives, the lives of our children, our children's children & our children's children's children !!!
Just wait. Everything is going south pretty fast.
Engravings may not give any tactical advantage whatsoever, but it’s the closest a soldier can get to immortality.
"A veteran had to do that after the war, you'd get thrown in the brig for doing that during the war"
"I DID get thrown in the brig for that, TWICE."
"Had to pay for the cost of a replacement rifle too. Twice. "
As a French Canadian and a long time subscriber of Forgotten Weapons i am touched by this one. Rosalie was the rifle that sparked my curiosity about weapons. Thank you ian for this
Lexus 93 one day y’all will have better laws on the ownership of a fine tool such as a rifle. May god protect you all!
@@goforbroke4428 its really not that hard to own rifles in quebec
@@TheMegaspenny still have laws restricting certain things, which is not good.
@@TheMegaspenny depends on the rifle.
like wise man. living history is disappearing quick.
slainte mohr Iain.
Great story, glad he survived the war to be reunited with his lost love.
Yeah I was getting ready to brace my emotions as Ian carried on talking. I fully expected to hear he had died in battle as so many many Canadians did. But then hearing about how he woke up in the hospital was literally the best part of the story for me. I guess we always forget that while wars always have many casualties, even the worst combat losses usually mean 80 to 90 % of men do live to see the end of any war.
@@mikepette4422 He was the og canadian souvenir collector.
@Evan Hart, what exactly would the Spartans like to speak to them about?
@MrPitjoey best it rest in museum in my opinion than to be past down to his descendants until one of them sells it to pay rent. Nothing historic lasts forever in civilian hands, they either sell it to a private collector or can't store it properly.
Just the fact that he survived the Somme, Vimmy and Passchendaele, is amazing. It is a fine reminder of one soldiers dedication to such a great and terrible war. A treasure for sure.
Arras too, Canadians pushed further during Canada's 100 days than any other unit on the western front during the same period of time
The rifle emblazed more battle honors than some regiments.
Also Courcelette, he saw the first tanks.
"Bad decisions make a good story" - Niko
Corridor Niko?
Niko Belic?
Yellow car?
*Taxi Cab*
C o u s i n ?
"Private, in the middle of a war that's already stretching our supplies and logistics to the breaking point and we're forced to scavenge the battlefield for damaged weapons, you have completely ruined your rifle! Now we have no choice but to ship it all the way back to the factory in order to have it destroyed!"
That is conscripted officer promoted by family ties level logic and doesn't surprise me in the least.
Appearances are important! That's why I always say "an army marches on the crispness of its pleats!"
You have now fully grasped military logic.
@@moosemaimer shine of its boots and crispness of their drill you mean, drill is MUCH more important than actual shooting, tactics and manoeuvring you know. Strategy is best left to the politicians and possibly generals.
Equipment should be cheap and look impressive, working equipment is just accidental.
@@najroe Said no good General ever.....
Drill *is* important, but not for the reasons you think. It is about responding immdeiately to the commands of your NCO's and Officers. It is about getting men who have gone to ground and frozen to get up and move forward again. It is about discipline. You know what happens in No Mans Land during an attack in WWI? Its called a Defensive Barrage. The enemy throw a box around your front line and support trenches to stop the attacking troops being reinforced, then blow the utter shit out of No Mans Land. Sitting in a shell hole in No Mans Land during an attack was actually less safe than moving on.....
And those men WERE trained in the various weapons and tactics required on the Battlefield, that training however was generally undertaken in specialist Training Camps in France. It included small unit tactics that evolved from 1914 - 1918 to resemble modern infantry combat as we know it today. Modern Combined Arms was developed in the mud and the blood of those WWI battlefields.
Indeed, Sir Arthur Currie broke up the Cabadian 5th Division and rolled its manpower into the other 4 Canadian Divisions as Pioneers, thus giving each Canadian Division a full Pioneer Brigade (compared to a Battalion in British Divisions). This meant that Canadian troops actually had more time for training than their British counterparts. Especially as in 1918 due to manpower shortages a British Division was downsized from 12 Battalions to 9. Meaning even fewer hands to undertake all those endless fatigues that were the bane of the infantrymans life during his 'rest'.
My man just carved himself a legendary varient
Would have been cool to see this in BF1 I agree
@@ieatmice751 Good idea, but impractical. It would be difficult to see as carvings. They would have to make it like he painted the rifle instead, which is slightly less cool.
He killed 10 guys every battel 120 times
@@robertswitzer990 Beats the "Battledamaged" skins
@@KuK137 Genius. I’m not saying the actual act of making that in game is impossible. I’m saying that appreciating the end product would be as if I stood ten feet away from a watch and tried to see what time it was. Shit, I couldn’t even make out the etchings when he showed the real rifle through the glass.
Look at the names of places this rifle was in. Then add the Somme. He carried this rifle through just about every definition of hell we had at the time. It is not just respect that I have for this man. He has my deepest sympathy.
I can only imagine how emotional it was for Lecorre to see his Rosalie after all of those years.
I've seen that rifle. Every French-Canadian History nerd knows it's history.
That's genuinely one of the coolest examples of trench art I've ever seen.
If its new, its graffiti, defacing and it needs to be destroyed. But if it survives a few years it becomes history and its worth preserving
Imagine comparing middle class domesticated teenagers ruining other peoples properties with tags to a veteran of WW1 carving his rifle
The military considers it graffiti and defacing for a morbid reason. If you are a new recruit being handed a rifle with the previous (and now deceased) owners personalized carvings all over it is a rather stark reminder of the risks you are walking into.
@@slaughterround643 maybe in your country, not in the developed world though.
@@MrPanos2000 your forgetting that most of those men where just domesticated middle class teenagers when they where sent to go fight
@@smokythebear9711 domesticated urbanites in 1910s Canada? Stop coping
Such a cool story, and so glad the rifle was united with the artist.
Had a bit of a mental pause every time the unit was called the 22nd ... only ever remember them being called the Vandoo's when I was in.
Vandoos = Vingt-deux (22) :)
@@zyriab5797 is that an anglicism though?
@@Pakiu1306 largely, yes. I’ve never heard it pronounced like the French number, just the very English sounding « vandoos »
@@Pakiu1306 Yup. I don't know much about this topic, but going from what I've read in another comment above, at the time it was the only French-Canadian unit. So the English speaking would mispronounce it like that all the time and it just stuck.
You will also hear the term "Deuxième" but it is disappointing that Ian didn't use this opportunity to demonstrate his mastery of the French language. Maybe it's because they are "colonial troops". Great video.
Henri Lecorre could very truly say 'This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine'.
"You will be shot for this!"
Nah. I'll probably get chewed out. I've been chewed out before.
"Son, if you don't follow the rules, we won't allow you to get ripped to shreds going over the top! If I didn't know any better, I'd think you _didn't_ want to be ripped to shreds! Did you know that back in the brig you can't even _smell_ the poison gas any more? Think of how awful you'll feel, sitting there and not suffocating!"
@Dodd Rivers I just watched that a few days ago :) It had been a few years since my last viewing.
What film is that?
@@barryholt9564 Inglourious Basterds :P
@@crazyfvck Thanks for that, Pal.
The second most incredible part is that he was at all of those locations and didn't get injured seriously until 1918
That is quite an emotional story. Amazing that he saw his rifle again.
Just wanna call to attention a couple of the names on that rifle. VIMY: Vimy Ridge, the battle that made a nation, the first time all 4 canadian divisions fought together to take a ridge the British and French said was unassailable. The Canadians took most of it in about 4 hours.
Passchendaele: 3rd battle of Ypres, where a mostly Canadian led force took back the village of Passchendaele from the Germans. It had rained so much if you stepped off the duck boards you had a serious chance of drowning in mud.
Arras: the town below Vimy Ridge.
Just the ones I noticed
I'm French. Grew up in the North. Recognized a lot of these names ; visited some myself... It really feels different, to know this rifle went there.
If you haven't been to the Vimy Ridge war memorial, you should try to visit it. That battle is often regarded as the fight that unified the nation, being the first time all 4 Canadian divisions fought together. Just a couple months later the Canadian Corps were stuck in on the muddy hell of Passchendaele.
France has gifted Canada use of land surrounding the Vimy Ridge memorial for time eternal, and the nazi SS were given orders directly from Hitler to guard and protect it from vandalism during the occupation. His decision was made on account of it being a memorial not of war and soldiers, but of their mourning mothers at home.
@@wyattroncin941 My grandpa took me there a couple of times. Also my father, an archeologist, used to be in charge of security on dig sites, so when a team went digging around that area he was on site every day for a while.
This is pretty amazing. The Vimy really stands out and as Vimy Ridge was a huge part of Canada's history in the war it should make us all feel something anyway. The story of a simple soldiers war carved out on his rifle it's just very cool stuff.
I'd somewhat disagree. Vimy was not actually that important a battle, every strategic and tactical innovation associated with the battle had been at the very least attempted before, and it just happened to have all four Canadian divisions and came off like clockwork. Now, look a little bit further up the rifle, and you'll see Mericourt, Lens, and Cote 70. The person holding that rifle probably personally experienced the first use of Mustard Gas in the First World War.
@@JSheepherder Ya, we know, it was only important when the Brits did it. What Vimy and Hill 70 showed was that it was possible to dislodge the Hun from a position they would bleed for and hold it and still have an army to field.
The name of this SMLE (Rosalie) is in a song by M. Lecorre’s son who was a artist (painter, singer, humorist). The Royal 22e Régiment is nicknamed the « Vandoos ». 22 pronounced in English.
I think you mean french, right? Otherwise I just realized I don't know how to speak english XD (in french 22 = vingt-deux )
@@Fandartmartiaux , in french, we have the proper pronunciation of 22 😛. It’s just that been at the time the only french-Canadian unit, the anglophone pronounced “vandoos”. It’s stuck, even today.
Thank you for the history on the unit and Mr. Lecorre's son
@@Fandartmartiaux Yes Vandoos comes from an English mispronunciation of vingt-deux (22).
The Valdosta are semi famous for a few fine moments such as their 18 V 14,000 at Little Gibraltar in Korea
The love of one man and his service rifle... *Sniff*
In Finnish Army slang the rifle is referred to as "wife", I gave her a name and I will remember her serial number till the day I die
@@lukum55 hey that’s the same for us here in Singapore, although our rifles are called that more sarcastically...
''What do you think you are doing private?''
''Sir, adding value to this piece for a future collector, sir!''
actually defacing the king's rifle so it can be added to the collection of his granddaughter Beth
No collector is going to own this though. This is property of the museum of the Royal 22e Regiment, and they don't sell their weapons collection to private citizens.
@@EidolonSpecus But it could* have ended up in a private...and either way, it's still in a collection.
Merry Christmas Ian
"What's this weapon's name, private baguette?"
"Sir, the private's weapon's name is Rosalie, Sir!"
r. i. p. R. Lee Ermey
Sergeant. Not sir. Sergeant. Fucking Halo.
Me as a future socials teacher in Canada: "how can I incorporate this video in a class...?"
You'd be the best teacher ever imo.
I can only imagine this guy cried when he saw it again.
I nearly cried hearing that part of a story.
One word stood out on the stock ...Passchendaele ...3rd battle of Ypres. He had just carved " Vimy" on the stock behind the trigger a month before as the e.22 Francaise had just rotated to Passchendaele from Vimy
This was the battle he was injured in in November of '17....a lot of Canadiens died there from August to November .....4,000 of the 15,000 Canadiens present in the battle were killed outright ...+ 25% KIA.
Amazingly, he actually carved the name of the battlefield before he lost the rifle there.
The "Van-doos" are a famous regiment here in Canada, very cool to see!
Indeed! Famous accross the lands of Wainright for Water Buffalo... defecation. I kid of course (though that is true), a fine regiment!
That might be the coolest thing I've ever seen, in terms of rifles with cool histories
@@darwinism8181 you sir have no pride or patriotism!
@@darwinism8181 mate, it's about the fact where this rifle has been, what it has seen and the fact we know all of this.
99% of the rifles, we know that it served but noone knows exactly when it was where, and who used it.
to be able to tell all this is extremely rare, and keeping that story alive is definitly one of the museum's goals.
if you think this is all just bullcrap, then i for sure hope you never, ever get a historical firearms in your possession as you are totally unworthy of owning it
@@darwinism8181 Do the Boy Scouts calendar the battles they'd been in during a World War? the appeal of this rifle is lost on you.
Careful guys this one prefers shadow over sonic
@@darwinism8181 If you can't see the the historical value of this then you truly are a lost soul.
That's a lovely story!
I have some wooden climbing equipment of my great-grandfather (a kind of stick), which was an Italian Alpino in WWI, with an eagle and the words "Mom I'll come back to you" carved on it
I'm guessing it's Ian that is echo-y and the room is just minding it's own business
The voice of gun jebus would echo in a porta potty
@@justindunlap1235 Theory: it's his hearing echoing outside and not the shots
Ian : Hey, room! Give me some reverb!
Room: Sir! Yes sir!
I carved my initials into a part Of my M-16 a2 That I carried in Desert Storm. I’ve watched so many of your videos, and some of them have made me laugh, some of them have made me just sit in it awe. The china beach 40 mm pump made me envious
But none of them have made me cry. This is a fantastic story well told and You gave this 50-year-old Marine tears. I feel more connected to that trooper Then I have to almost anyone else in any story or movie.
Thanks for sharing this.
What part just curious handle?
Bienvenue au Québec, la belle province Ian, we are honoured with your visit! your great hard work is much appreciated.
the ''Van doos'' (Vingt-deux) are legendary heros. Cheers, MC
Must have been very emotional for the old soldier to see his friend after so many years.
Awesome that it has survived the way it did having gone through so many battles.
The Royal 22e Régiment is almost always referred to as “The Van-Doos” after an anglicisation of vingt-deux (22)
I sold several Yugo SKS rifles in the 2000's that had extensive carving on the stocks,girl's names,cities, and one with elaborate bas relief running horses.
Imagine his face after seeing his rifle again after 38 years
Thats an interesting story, really nice change instead of disassembling and stuff
I can't imagine the emotions he must of felt on seeing his rifle after all that time.
Now I could get behind a movie about this man and his rifle.
In an uncharacteristically French Dave Chapelle Voice: "I'm sorry... I didn't know I couldn't do that.."
"Well now ya knoooww! Get outta here, mah"
Said every private ever!
Soldiers and sailors have long passed dead time with whittling and carving. Scrimshaw is the naval version, and it continues to this day, albeit no longer done in ivory or whalebone. Even today, soldiers pass time altering cartridge cases, or working on anything else they can lay hands on.
Rifles are pretty much a no-no these days, of course.
Imagine carving in a KP-15 polymer lower...
Depends on the country I know a few middle eastern countries allow them to carve their rifles.
My grandfather was a SeaBee in WWII. My dad has knifes that he made, including handles that if I recall correctly are made from stacked pieces of aircraft plexiglass around the tang.
@@patrickseaman in the submarines I sailed, we turned INCONEL nuts into patrol rings.
Surprisingly, Embroidery was popular with some members the British infantry, it was encouraged to prevent the soldier from drunkenness.
The carving is pretty crude but I gotta say, knowing the story makes this one of my favorite Forgotten Weapons ever.
Probably one of the most sergeant-majory things I've ever heard.
As a Sergeant Major I agree.
wow he survived some major battles
Even as a reproduction you’d have me fooled.
As a fun fact, a lot of museum artefacts are often times reproductions, that are just so well made that the difference is practically null. They don't do it for all of the objects, only for the extremely valuable ones. When they make a reproduction, they can seal away the original and protect it. Reproductions are also very handy when they try lend parts of a collection to other museums, it's much safer and much less costly in insurance. Even if in some cases the objects are not original, they are still extremely valuable because of how well they are made and reproduced.
SAME
@@cplmackinnon The skill of those people that work in the basements of places like this museum, toiling on restorations and dioramas are a notch above astounding.
@@charlieross-BRM that image is a bit off, pieces normally go to firms that specialized in restoration. rather than basements, they're restored or replicated in offices by experienced craftsmen.
I love how simple the carvings are. The fact that this was just some guy in the field doing this is really cool. It's easy to think back at wars and see ___,___,___ dead/injuried, but pieces like this rifle bring an incredible human element to someone who by all means was to be lost to history.
One person's defacement is another person's art.
When he recites the serial number to the museum..LOL
Army: Please don’t carve stuff into the rifle anymore.
Lecorre: I’ll fuckin do it again.
Haha
Somme, Passchendaele, Vimy Ridge... Roll of honor. This thing is, and ought to be, a Canadian national treasure.
Imagine finding your tool after you almost died beside it. I would burst into tears.
When l was a teen,l read a book by Ernie Pyle,the war correspondent telling a story of some rifles being stripped of usable parts and re-assembled to make whole weapons and one rifle stock had a plexiglass window with a man's family picture underneath. The gun was sent back out with the photo still in the stock. There were others who did the carving decorations and got barked at but at least they were alive to be yelled at.
cant imagine what an emotional rollercoaster the rediscovery of his long lost rifle must have been... Kinda reminds me of those Soldier reunited with doggo-videos...
What a great story, I just bought a 75 mm Cannon shell that was carved, fluted, and stippled, it has Ardonne embeleshed on it for the battle of Ardonne in 1918. It's quit the artifact, I found it today actually in a antique store in Stillwater Minnesota. It's a Vase, and has some very cool flowers on it. I found your video while looking up trench art, what a great story of Rosalie....thanks for sharing!
I’m sure this tickled every Francophile fiber of Ian. Also just a really cool story.
I never thought Ian would get his hands on this legend, even as a reproduction.
You know Ian was holding back how cool he thought that rifle was. Frenchman frenchifys an English rifle? ( visible heavy breathing )
I'm really glad some guys like this had the balls to do stuff like this. Its amazing.
The coolest thing that apparently isn't, would be some kind of hidden message in the barrel channel. Was waiting for the disassembly to show it.
P u t a i n
@@bigboi4269 ... What could you possibly mean?
@@JW...-oj5iw the message carved into the internals would probably be “Putain”
5years in the brig is a better sentence than being in the trenches at that point
I was literally just looking up pictures of this rifle today. It is such an impressive work of field art and the story of how it traveled around and was rediscovered by the artist is just amazing.
What an amazing story, and a great piece of history.
As someone who consumes nearly all the content that Ian puts out, this has to be the most heartwarming and compelling piece to date. This is the antithesis of gun store apocrypha. Thank you!
Real life legendary weapon.
My wife's paternal grandfather's family has farms on those battle fields. Have visited them often on our trips from the US. To have survived all those battles is fantastic.
Just a gorgeous Mk. III with a beautiful story! Thanks for another great video Ian!
This is gorgeous rifle. And the history behind is heart touching.
I like this story, it probably kept him sane in the trenches.
I can't tell you how cool this is. Any more guns like this that have stories attached to them I'd love to see you present those stories!
😃 *LOVE* the story! Sometimes when you're trying to sell an object, and it has a great story behind it, it makes the object far more valuable. 😊 *That's* history. 😁 And in the case of this SMLE, the story incredibly, comes full circle. Fantastic!
This story made me shed a tear
That's cool, the video sounds like I'm in a church and being lectured by a priest on some sacred gun escriture
Not a priest, it's GunJesus himself giving the lecture.
He is our Lord GunJesus
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
The denim backround is an absolute ringer for church.
they were called the "van-doos" - english [sort of ;)] for the french vingt-deuxs regiment, the royal 22nd regiment
Un-be-bloody-lievable, tears in my eyes - magic stuff!
That guy did an amazing job with the carvings on his rifle
Many people in the comments say that even though they knew the regiment, they never heard it being called "22nd Regiment". Here's why :
During the First WW, the unit was called the 22nd Batallion, but it was always called the "Vingt-deuxième bataillon" by its members, French-Canadians, and they called themselves "Vingt-deux" (=Twenty-twos).
Anglophones would hear it and then pronounce it "Vandoos"and this nickname stayed.
In the 1920s, it became the Royal 22e Régiment and the Canadian Army decided that it would always be pronounced in French during ceremonies, speeches, etc. to truly represent the French-Canadian identity of the Regiment.
So during ceremonies in English it is called "Royal Vandoosième Regiment" 😉
“You’re as beautiful as the day I lost you.”
Back in the '70s, I took the family up to Canada to visit the Exposition. We stopped in Quebec's Citadel and saw that rifle on display, and was thoroughly taken by it's history. IIRC, part of the information was that the owner was docked $1.43 for the price of a new stock. To see that part of history, and then find out that the guy survived some pretty horrific battles was one thing, but for him to run across it years later was a mind-blowing event.
Any WW1 soldier lucky enough to survive that many battles...
Holy shit lmao this is my home town I’ve seen this rifle
This is one of my favorite “Forgotten Weapons”videos! Thank you for the great story.
My great great grandfather is buried in the heilly station mericourt cemetery, makes me wonder if they had ever met at the time. Thought of this when I saw the mericourt carving
The commander didnt think it was a big deal, but the SgtM did... yep.
welcome in my town, The small chapel inside of this fort is VERY impressive, i attended to some ceremonies there.
Man when you see this rifle irl it's just wow.
just driving through the fort's small roads to reach the inner center is an experience by itself!!
Thank you for finding these stories and sharing them.
This is the best video I’ve seen in the history of forgotten weapons thank you Ian!!
We had Maori who often carved Tiki into their furniture, for obvious reasons
Amazing story, it's not often if at all we get the story behind the firearm from the original owner. Who carved the replica?
@Merc Kitsuné My thoughts too, or having him make a copy in the 50's would be another cool addition to this story
The two replicas were engraved by the regiment woodworking shop in the Citadelle. The Museum of the Royal 22e Regiment needed them for their Nightfall Tours.
I have watched almost all of your videos and this is such a cool story thanks for sharing.
What a wonderful story - thank you for bringing this to us Ian!