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During the
World War the Bulgarian Army employed a little number of Madsen machine guns,
mainly in anti-aircraft role. They were delivered by the German Army, coming in
all likelihood from the Russian war booty. But it is also possible that some
of them were part of an order made by the Bulgarian Government itself on
behalf of Germany,
during the neutrality. The main sources about this complex affair were a
contemporary report by Sir Henry Lowther, the
British Ambassador in Copenhagen, and a text
written in January 1918 by lt. With-Seidelin, the
representative of the Danish firm in London,
concerning the attempt made by the German government to purchase Madsen
machine guns during the war.
As a result of
trial in the Balkans in 1914, at the beginning of January 1915 a Bulgarian Military
Mission was sent to Copenhagen
to purchase from the Danish firm Dansk Rekyl Riffel Syndikat a stock of 660 –
7mm Madsen machine guns of an old pattern. These weapons originally belonged
to Brazil and had been
sent to Copenhagen
to be modernised. Since the French government had proposed to take over the
machine guns, they were purchased from the Brazilian government, but later
the French withdrew from their obligation and the weapons were put on the
market. They were therefore sold to Bulgaria
and taken over and paid by the Bulgarian Chargé d’Affaires
in Copenhagen.
The question of the export was then settled entirely between the Danish and
the Bulgarian government, without involving the firm.
The Bulgarian
government, still neutral, had wished that the machine guns should be sent
through Germany, but Denmark
refused. The ship Blenda,
on which they were first loaded, was stopped to prevent their falling into
German hands. The transfer on the Swedish Pan
was permitted only after the ship-owner and the captain had declared that
they would proceed straight to Dedeagach. On 30 May
the Pan sailed from Copenhagen, turning
northwards, but shortly afterwards she was reported to be at the south of the
Sound strait. On 2 June the captain of the Swedish ship Minna, stated that he had seen
near Falsterbo transferring her cargo into a German
torpedo boat. Later a London
dispatch affirmed that the Pan had returned
to a Swedish port without the machine guns and her captain had said that he
had been deceived by the Germans who had promised him a safe passage through
the Kaiser Wilhelm Kanal.
The official
Danish account of the incident was that the Germans, supposing the Pan to be destined to Russia,
had first stopped and then released her. The captain and the Bulgarian agent,
doubting whether the ship would ever reach Dedeagach,
had landed the machine guns at Lubeck
to be forwarded to Sofia
by rail. The Danes asked that they were returned, but the German government
refused to interfere with the property of a foreign state, stating that
machine guns of that calibre would be useless to the German Army. Even if
afterwards the Danish government received proof that they had been actually
delivered to Bulgaria,
they were retained by the Germans, who employed them to form special Musketen battalions. They were employed for the first
time during the Champagne battle in
September 1915.
The Brazilian
Madsen would have been chambered for a 7 x 57mm cartridge, a slim, rimless
round. The Bulgarian cartridge was the same as the Austrian 8 x5 OR, a short,
fat cartridge with a rimmed case. The conversion from the Brazilian calibre
to the Bulgarian one would not be a practical proposition, requiring a
different magazine, magazine housing, feed mechanism, breech block and barrel
that meant a virtually completely new weapon. On the contrary, the conversion
to German 7.92 x 57mm would be a simple matter, requiring little or no alteration
of the magazine feed or breech block, the only major change being the
increasing of the bore of the barrel and the re-rifling or fitting newly made
barrels. The same happened with Madsen captured on the Russian front, that,
being originally 7.62 x 54mm calibre, were
re-barrelled to 7.92 x 57mm by the Germans.
It is
therefore highly probably that from the very outset the Bulgarian purchase
was on behalf of Germany
that was aware of the ease with which the Brazilian machine guns could be
converted to their own use.
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