Lebel Model 1886
The Lebel Model 1886 was the first military rifle to fire smokeless powder, and it made every other army's rifle obsolete overnight. Its 8mm Lebel cartridge, loaded with Paul Vieille's Poudre B, drove a small bullet faster and flatter than any black-powder round and without a betraying cloud of smoke. The rifle itself kept an old-fashioned tubular magazine under the barrel, slow to reload, but it remained the main French infantry rifle through the First World War and served in the colonies and in 1940. Nearly three million were made.
Also known as Lebel rifle, Fusil Modèle 1886, Mle 1886, Mle 1886/93, Fusil Lebel, 8mm Lebel
Origins
Defeat in the Franco-Prussian War made the French army hungry for any technical advantage, and in 1884 the chemist Paul Vieille gave it one: Poudre B, a nitrocellulose propellant that burned without smoke and with about three times the power of black powder. A commission under General Tramond hurried a rifle into production to use it. Lieutenant-Colonel Nicolas Lebel, the commander of the infantry musketry school, contributed the small-caliber jacketed bullet and gave the rifle his name, while the action drew on the existing Gras and Kropatschek designs. Adopted in 1886 and slightly improved in 1893, it was being issued before any other army had a smokeless cartridge (see French Arms & Weapons).
Design & Construction
The Lebel's cartridge was its revolution: an 8mm bullet at over 2,000 feet per second, with a flat trajectory that made range-estimation errors less costly and no smoke to reveal the firer. In 1898 the French adopted the Balle D, a solid brass spitzer with a boat-tail, one of the first of its kind. The rifle around this cartridge was conservative. It used a two-lug turn bolt locking at the front, like the later Mauser, but fed from an eight-round tube in the fore-end, so a loaded rifle held ten rounds counting one on the elevator and one in the chamber. The tube had to be refilled one cartridge at a time, and a pointed bullet resting on the primer of the cartridge ahead of it was a hazard, cured by the Balle D's design and the rim of the case. The rifle was long, at over fifty-one inches, and carried the needle-like cruciform "Rosalie" épée bayonet.
Combat Use
The Lebel went to war with the French colonial armies in Africa and Indochina, and with the French Foreign Legion from Dahomey to Morocco. In World War I it was the rifle of the poilu from the Marne to Verdun. Its slow-loading magazine was a real handicap against the German Mauser Gewehr 98 and its five-round stripper clips, and France issued Berthier rifles with clip-fed magazines alongside it, but the Lebel remained in the majority. Its accuracy made it a favorite for sniping and grenade launching with the VB cup launcher. Lebels were still in use in 1940, with second-line and colonial troops, and with the Vichy and Free French forces afterwards.
Legacy
The Lebel ended the black-powder era. Within a few years Germany had the Gewehr 88, Britain the Lee-Metford that led to the Lee-Enfield Rifle, and Russia the Mosin-Nagant M1891, all designed to answer it. The 8mm Lebel cartridge also fed the French Hotchkiss and Chauchat machine guns. The rifle's long, slim profile and Rosalie bayonet make it an icon of the Great War, and dated, arsenal-marked Lebels are staples of French military collecting.
Sources
Huon, Jean. Military Rifle and Machine Gun Cartridges. Ironside International, 1988.
Walter, John. Rifles of the World. 3rd ed. Krause Publications, 2006.
Hogg, Ian V., and John Weeks. Military Small Arms of the 20th Century. 7th ed. Krause Publications, 2000.
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