European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 14, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Impressed the Royal family by blasting the letters or Lor Vic Lorla Legina into a target. The inventor settled in England became a subject of the Queen and was finally knighted for his achievements. He was asked to stand for parliament hut declined because of deafness a problem possibly caused by the 200,000-Odd shots he had lived while demons rating his gun. At the outset of world War i. All the com Alanl armies were armed with Maxim s gun. Early admirers of the gun included Germany s Kaiser and a Czar of Russia All Hough Maxim encountered problems during the russian sales Lour he made at about he turn of the Century. A1 the time russian Law barred atheists irom the country. And Maxim had alien afoul of the secret police by describing himself As an atheist. Faced Wilh arrest he recalled and proclaimed himself a Christian Prat slant. Like Edison he Taler wrote. I never had any use Lor a religion bul it seemed expedient at the Lime to undergo a temporary conversion. The ploy worked since thai time Maxim wrote the russians have purchased vast numbers of Maxim guns and it has been asserted by i Hose who ought to know thai More than half of the japanese killed in Iho late War the Russo japanese War of 1904-05j were killed with the hot be Maxim the Advant of the machine gun Means that Lor the first Lima a handful of gunners could subdue masses of enemy infantry revolutionaries strikers or hostile crowds. Initially used 1o help build colonial empires the Maxim gun did its first Large scale slaughtering in 1893. A scant eight years after the gun s invention. Fifty Utilish Security guards of the rhodesian Charier company in Africa brought Lour maxims to Bear against Zulu tribesmen and in less than 90 menu Les the guns had killed 3,000 of an attacking Zulu Force of . On sept. A 1898, lha Maxim Tough it first real Battle when sir a Coberl Kitchener assisted by a Young Winston Churchill met an army of moslem Tunda mentalists in Omdurman on Iho Nile the British killed or wounded More than 20,000 of la ? enemy while sus Kalning Only Light casualties of their own. World War i sometimes called the Nechine gun War saw carnage in equated in All previous history. In Tusl one Day along Chr Somme. July i 1916. The British suffered 21.000 killed he great majority by Spandau machine guns he German version of hip Maxim. Among the developments of world Wir i was the pistol Caliper sub machine gun or Vronch As the Thompson sub machine gun was Mihi Illy called alter the War to sub machine gun became a Lavoile weapon of police strike breaking factory guards and gangs lors. The enormous firepower of Thor of weapons greatly enhanced the capacity of heir owners to control social events according to Edward c. Violl curator of armed forces history Al the smithsonian institution no one really knows How Many people have been killed by All the variants of a Palm s invention nor even How Many machine guns there Are in the world today Bui the numbers Musl a astronomical to said in an interview. Take the a family of soviet assault rifles he said since the a con to fired in continuous bursts by keeping a linger on Iho trigger in is a kind of machine gun. To Date something Between 30 million and 50 million aks have been manufactured and that s ust one of hundreds of different the United slates has never matched soviet production of automatic machine weapons but Tho . Has nevertheless manufactured More than 7 million m-t6 assault Rulles since the m Lei was introduced in Vietnam. No Oiler governments nor private organizations keep of to number of machine guns in existence bul the agr Reyale today May be somewhere in Iho vice Nelly of 100 million. Moreover Esell said most aug oxalic weapons machine guns Don l go awry they re just boastful though he sometimes was. Maxim might not have minded Tho absence of any Centennial observances last year for his gun. Toward he find of his life he seemed somewhat chastened by its ghastly Ell Els. Had it been anything else bul a Hilling machine he whole very Tittle would have Boon said about a chronic sufferer of bronchitis Maxim invented and manufactured a steam inhaler a Lew years before his death bul his inhaler prompted a Sorm of accusations thai he was prostituting my talents on quack Tho inventor wryly commented from Iho foregoing it will be seen that in is a very creditable thing to invent a killing machine and nothing less than a disgrace to invent an apparatus to prevent human without Hiram Maxim picture next to m-60 7.62 machine gun contends historian John Al a my rec of subsequent world history might have been different. V Tollon trips a Tilp Pingolt. In position. Re Toreso starts. 1986 the stars and stripes Page 15
