11:53
Snipers are an integral part of today's armies, but it wasn't always the case. In fall 1914, the British and French armies on the First World Wadustr's Western Front were wrestling with a problem: unseen German riflemen were picking off any man who showed himself above the trench. Something had to be done about it - and the result was the birth of the modern sniper. The First World War witnessed the evolution of warfare in many areas: chemical weapons, aerial bombing, armour, combined arms operations, and infantry tactics. And the trench stalemate that set in on many fronts also saw the birth of modern snipers. From September and October 1914, the British, French, and German armies were faced with
a new problem - how to observe and shoot at an enemy that could barely be seen inside his trench. Going over the top in a big offensive was rare, but that didn't mean there was no combat - and that is where sniping came in. To be successful, one had to dominate No Man's Land, which meant precise rifle fire from a protected position - no easy task given the new combat reality. What started as improvised private sniping in the early days and ended with full-on sniping schools and refined tactics later in the war: the story of sniping is a fascinating one, but it's a hard one to tell.
There are pretty big gaps in available literature and primary sources, especially for armies other than the British. When primary sources do mention enemy snipers, we often can't be sure they weren't simply skilled riflemen. And, the definition of a sniper versus a sharpshooter, Scharfschütze, or Tireur d'elite can be blurry. But let's dive in with what we do know. The Central Powers started out with the upper hand in the sniping war. The German and Austro-Hungarian armies had a long tradition of sharpshooter and Jäger infantry units trained for precise shooting.
They also had a widespread culture of hunting, and the best optics industries in the world. This meant that when front line troops began to report that they needed accurate rifles with telescopic lenses to zoom in on hard-to-spot targets, Germany had far more resources than Britain or France. The Duke of Ratibor quickly organized a public campaign to send hunting rifles with telescopic sights to the front, which resulted in 5-10,000 reaching German units by the end of the year. Most ended up in the hands of experienced hunters and gamekeepers.
This had an immediate impact - the Germans could now target Allied soldiers far more effectively. At first the Allies didn't even realize what the problem was. The British often attributed casualties to stray bullets, when in fact many of these were shots aimed by German sharpshooters. Sometimes the Germans even used kites or signs in English to get curious Brits to expose themselves. Soon, the Allies realized what was going on, but didn't yet have the means to fight back. German snipers were well protected too, since they had armored plates with loopholes to
protect themselves, and the Allies at first didn't. The desperate British even experimented with elephant guns to penetrate them. All this gave Germans lots of opportunities. Gefreiter Georg Herrnreiter, a poacher before the war, earned the Bavarian Golden Bravery Medal in October 1914: "Gefreiter Herrnreiter […] volunteered to take up a sentry position in a tree, from which he successfully shot everything alive, whatever valuable target showed itself in the trench ahead […], while at the same time delivering valuable reports about the proceedings on the French side […] Even
though he was wounded [and] two rifles were shot to pieces in his hands […] He shot down a mass of foes, reported enemy artillery positions and guided our own artillery's fire onto them.'" (Schäfer "The Men…") Herrnreiter racked up 121 confirmed kills before he was killed in early 1916. It's hard to say exactly how much damage German snipers were doing, but British units often complained about them and they did affect morale. Anecdotal reports of 10-18 men killed per day in an infantry battalion are common - although we can't confirm if these deaths were all caused by snipers even if the British reports thought so.
The same goes for estimates of one German sniper for every 750m of front line. The Allies slowly began to respond, but at first, scoped rifles were in very short supply - British units had to turn theirs over to the unit relieving them. While the Germans targeted Brits and Frenchmen on the Western Front, the sniping war also developed independently on nearly all fronts. When the war began in the Alps in 1915, the Austro-Hungarians generally overlooked Italian trenches, and had much better access to scoped sights, a 1916 Italian manual specified that the observer had to bring the rifle back if the sniper was killed or wounded at his post.
French and Italian workshops began to produce more telescopic sights based on German examples, but catching up took time. Soon, Italian snipers were also active, with the characteristic, disturbing experience of a very deliberate way of killing: "I remember his very young face, pale, thin, very large eyes, blond. I already had him well in my sights, without trembling, in the middle of his chest. My temple was throbbing hard against the butt of my rifle. I fired […] He arched his arms against the sky, fell to his knees and sank down among the boulders with four or five spasms."
(Campana 63) On Gallipoli, even though the Ottomans didn't have sniper units or telescopic sights, their defensive positions on the high ground allowed their sharpshooters to wreak havoc on Allied trenches. Allied units improvised responses, which led to the fame of Australian sniper Billy "The Assassin" Sing. His alleged duel with the Ottoman marksman nicknamed "Abdullah the Terrible" by Anzac troops is sometimes considered the first recorded sniper duel, and his kill total is estimated at 150-300. There were also rumors of female Ottoman snipers, but these have since been debunked.
On the Eastern Front, German accounts claim that although the Russians had a few sharpshooters, they didn't use telescopic sights. They weren't prepared for Austro-Hungarian or German sniping either, which gave snipers like Wilhelm Enz easy targets: "I often lay there for half an hour with a telescopic sight at the ready until some Siberian in a lambskin hat came across my sights. I put a bullet into three of those. You just start shooting as if you were looking at a roebuck. The thought that he is also a human being, that he has a wife and child at home, always comes too late."
(Schäfer "The Men…") Once the practice of sniping began, armies began to improve and regulate it - not only terms of rifles, but the principles and supporting tools of a new and deadly trade. As time passed, both sides professionalized sniping, by creating official sniping sub-units, schools, and manuals. Again, the Germans were the pioneers, ordering 15,000 scoped Mauser rifles and designating certain soldiers as sharpshooters in 1914. They probably formed the first teams of so-called Abschusskommando snipers in spring 1915 - there are even reports of some units offering bounties for kills, though others criticized the practice.
There are also confirmed references to German telescopic sight observer training and sniper schools from 1915. Most British accounts credit enthusiastic officers, especially Vernon Hesketh-Prichard, for convincing army brass to develop formal sniping schools. The first British School of Sniping started training men in July 1916. Training emphasized the purposes and skills of sniping. The Scouting and Patrolling Manual eventually formed the basis of sniper training until the present day, defined the goals of sniping as to inflict casualties, gather intelligence, improve their comrades' morale, and reduce enemy morale.
For the slightly more aggressive Canadian school, sniping was to: shake enemy morale, cause casualties, stop the enemy from working, and retaliate against enemy snipers. (Pegler 145) Australian sniper Ion Idriess' experience in Palestine confirmed why the training emphasized counter-sniping: "The respect you gain for a (Turkish) sniper when a bullet smacks within half an inch of your jaw is thrilling." Pegler 151 Soldiers also perfected skills like judging range, and compensating for wind, and how to deal with problems like enemy snipers, fog, overly sensitive or difficult to adjust sights, or wooden stocks swelling and reducing
rifle accuracy. Instructors emphasized that dawn, dusk, and moonlit nights were the best times to snipe given how light conditions affected the telescopic sights. Keeping a sensitive and valuable scoped rifle in good shape and in the right hands was important, and training emphasized that the men were not to tamper with optics themselves. The French took the lead in camouflage, and an artist-led workshop began to churn out materials to make decoys, fake horse carcasses or dead bodies to use as hides, and material for camouflage suits. They also supplied British sniping schools, as did the Royal Engineers Special Works Park. The Lovat Scouts, who played a key role in the development of British sniping, created
the first Ghillie suits based on Scottish stalking camouflage. The Germans even developed an armor-piercing bullet in 1915 that could penetrate most Allied plates for a time. British sniper teams in theory consisted of 8 men per battalion, but this varied widely. Usually, the men were free to move around a defined section of the front held by the unit they were attached to. Because of the dangerous and difficult nature of their work, they also enjoyed some benefits. They were often relieved of trench duty, and later in the war, didn't join the infantry assaults going over the top.
That's why German soldier Ignaz Hautumm was happy to become a sniper: "I have been assigned a wonderful job. I am now a sniper […] Whenever I feel like it, I walk to the observing post […] When I spot an Englishman who is bold enough to raise his nose, it is my duty and obligation to shoot him. I do not need to do any sentry duty and am allowed to sleep at night and that while everyone else is on their feet. I feel like I am in heaven!" (Schäfer "A Dirty…") Once the armies had trained snipers, they soon became a common sight in the trenches, and they refined their tactics.
Trench warfare didn't mean there wasn't any fighting - every day and night along the line, soldiers raided enemy trenches, called in artillery strikes, or fired on enemy working parties or scouts in No Man's Land. And, they sniped at each other - usually at ranges between 100 and 400 metres. As the trench stalemate continued, snipers in all armies began to develop innovative tactics to achieve the objectives taught in training. Sniper teams worked mostly in pairs, with one observer and one shooter, although sometimes the German Abschusscommandos had two pairs working together.
The Germans also tried to have their snipers support each other, to immediately threaten any potential enemy counter-snipers. All armies developed periscope rifles with mirrors attached to a wooden frame that allowed the shooter to fire without exposing himself over the parapet as well. If an enemy sniper was causing a unit difficulty, it might call in its own battalion snipers to counter-snipe. The most valuable targets were enemy officers, snipers, artillery observers, machine gunners, and sometimes the machine guns themselves.
The logic was that another soldier might replace a downed comrade behind a machine gun, but a shattered water-cooling drum neutralized the threat. The Germans responded with metal jackets for their Maxims, and a rarely used extra armour plate for machine gunners' helmets. For regular soldiers in the trenches, snipers were a double-edged sword. The men were glad if a sniper team arrived to counter-snipe and enemy who had been picking off their comrades, but sometimes resented their own snipers' presence, since they
would provoke the enemy and leave, while the regular infantry would still be there when the enemy retaliated: "I never liked them [snipers] they would shoot some poor Hun and bugger off then we'd get it in the neck. Our officer often used to chase them out, telling them to ply their murderous bloody trade somewhere else." (Pegler 179) Aside from the daily grind of trench sniping, snipers and sharpshooters could help stop enemy attacks. When enemy infantry began to cross No Man's Land, snipers in protected positions just behind their own front line could take out enemy officers and NCO's, or small groups of enemy who had penetrated friendly trenches.
The Germans complained that when they attacked the French, locating enemy snipers pinning them down was "like fighting phantoms." German sharpshooters tried to do the same at Verdun: "We sharpshooters occupied the lines of craters behind the main body of our men and as soon as the French advanced, we would shoot the officers and leading ranks, our riflemen and machine guns dealing with the rest." (Pegler 161) Eventually, even though the British never matched the quality of German optics, they gained the upper hand in the sniping game.
A German report from mid-1917 indicated that: "[The] number and quality [of scoped marksmen] on the English side have strongly increased during the previous months […] The experiences since the start of the war have shown that amongst our foes the English are the best precision shooters and come before the French." (Schäfer "A Dirty…") This was partly due to the skills of Dominion troops from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Many had experience as hunters, trappers, or outdoorsmen, and they put their skills to good use hunting enemy soldiers instead of big game. The privately raised Bailey's South African Sharpshooters even claimed its 24 members racked up a kill total of some 3000 enemy, though this optimistic figure cannot be proven. (Pegler 158) Indigenous Canadian snipers proved among the best, making up 6 of the top 12 snipers in the British army. Metis Henry Louis Norwest was a rodeo performer before the war, but as a soldier killed 115 Germans before he fell victim to a sniper. Ojibwe Francis Binasswi Pegahmagabow had the highest confirmed total kills of any sniper in the war with 378.
German sniper Mannfried Gossen experienced the skill of his Canadian enemies: "[…] we had the Canadians in front of us, who were the very devil. Our snipers could not shoot without retribution and we lost many good men […] we did little sniping there as even for us old trench veterans it was too dangerous." (Pegler 150) But British success didn't mean the Germans weren't still a menace. British Lieutenant Bernard Montgomery was hit and trapped in No Man's Land: "A soldier ran to me and began to put a field dressing on my wound.
He was shot through the head by a sniper and collapsed on top of me. The sniper continued to fire […] the dead man received many bullets intended for me." (Plaster 307) SEGUE So the British had eclipsed the Germans as the dominant snipers in the trenches, but once the war dramatically changed in 1918, sniping did too. In the last year of the war, US snipers joined the ranks of the Allies. Many of them brought the same hunting and backwoods skills that had led the Dominion troops to success as well. The US Army did have a designated sniper rifle, the Springfield, but no training program or official snipers.
This soon changed as commanders like Colonel F. Wise created ad-hoc sniping units who learned on the fly in summer and fall 1918. Two of the most famous were Herman Davis, reported to have killed four Germans at the extreme range of 1000 yards, and Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant Alvin York, who used a British Lee Enfield's iron sights to kill 25 Germans and capture 132 more. With the return of limited movement in 1917, and full-on mobile war in 1918, snipers adapted their tactics. Now, they joined the attack alongside advanced infantry teams to take out enemy snipers and
machine guns holding up the regular infantry units, as well as locating enemy artillery batteries that had displaced. The British Training and Employment of Platoons manual, for example, recommended that leading infantry sections should have two snipers on their flanks doubling as scouts. The French began to use snipers in assaults against German strongpoints: first artillery and gas would blind the defenders while the infantry moved closer. Then, French snipers would target German snipers and MG teams inside pillboxes through the firing slits, giving time for bombing teams to lob grenades from close range.
A German soldier recalled the effect of US snipers on his unit's defences: "We had great trouble from the [American] riflemen who were very accurate shots. Three of our top four machine gunners were shot down one after the other and no one was prepared to take their place. With no fire support from the machine guns we were soon overrun and forced to surrender." (Pegler 190) Of course, as the Allies advanced, the Germans used snipers working in tandem with machine guns to delay the enemy to buy time for German units to retreat to new positions.
One Canadian regiment recorded a costly action: "At Le Quesnel, one Boche sniper did more damage than four machine guns which were firing from the same locality. The guns were located, the sniper was not." (Pegler 192) The overall impact of sniping in the First World War is difficult to judge given the state of research. Its proponents often make optimistic claims about high numbers of casualties inflicted, but evidence is mostly anecdotal, and its critics dismiss it as a tactical sideshow.
There is no doubt though, that snipers and sharpshooters killed tens of thousands of men over four years of war, often when the target least expected it. Their presence added significantly to the unrelenting tension men experienced while on the front line - and deeply affected many snipers as well: "For years after the war I used to wake in the early hours and go walking, to forget some of the things I'd seen and done. […] I never, never told anyone I had been a sniper, not even my wife. They wouldn't have understood."
(Pegler 194) The First World War marked the birth of modern sniping, and the principles and tactics of the snipers of 1914-1918 still influence snipers in armies across the world today. Military innovation often changes warfare in unforeseen ways. 30 Years after the trenches were dug on the Western Front, the atomic bomb was used for the first time against Japan in the Second World War. This also marked the beginning of the nuclear arms race between the West and the Soviet Union - and the Soviets also saw the potential in nuclear energy for their vision of atomic powered communism.
If you are interested to learn more about the Soviet nuclear program from its origins even before the Second World War to the Chernobyl disaster and the nuclear legacy of the USSR, you can watch our new documentary series Red Atoms exclusively on Nebula. Nebula is a streaming service we're building together with other creators and where we don't have to worry about the algorithm or advertising guidelines and where viewers directly support creators. If you go to nebula.tv/thegreatwar, you can get 40% off an annual subscription. For just $30 a year you can watch Red Atoms or our other Nebula original series and much more. And that's not all, Nebula features many other creators' original documentaries like
the Battle of Britain series from Real Engineering. And your Nebula subscription also includes classes where you can learn useful skills directly from Nebula creators. In the new Real Time History class, I personally take you through the entire production process of a Real Time History video and show you what it takes to produce a great history documentary. If you sign up at nebula.tv/thegreatwar you get 40% off an annual subscription and support our channel at the same time. For just $30 you can watch Nebula originals, all our content ad-free and earlier than on
YouTube, other Nebula creators and also Nebula classes and much more. Again, that's nebula.tv/thegreatwar and supporting us directly. As usual you can find all the sources for this video in the video description. We want to thank Diedrik Droesbeke for his Lebel 1886 3D model. If you are watching this video on Patreon or Nebula, thank you so much for the support, we couldn't do it without you. I am Jesse Alexander and this is a production of Real Time History, the only history channel that can hit that subscribe button from a mile away.
