On 3 August 1914 the German army had 4,411 MG08 machine guns. The Belgian army had about a hundred. That is not a misprint — and Belgium was not uniquely foolish, either: the British Expeditionary Force landed in France with two guns to a battalion, twenty-four to a division, under a hundred and fifty across its six divisions. Everyone except the Germans had decided the machine gun was a specialist item, useful in small numbers. The Germans had decided otherwise and built four thousand of them. The next four years were an argument about which view was right, and it was settled in the first few weeks.

Four pieces: the gunner down behind it, a second man feeding the belt, a third kneeling with his rifle, and the gun itself. They wear the dark green and the yellow-banded field cap of the 1st Carabiniers. This is one of the hundred — which is why the dog cart exists. When you have a hundred machine guns you do not leave any of them behind, and a dog will pull one for forty francs. In a diorama, set the German MG08 team across the wire: the same Maxim design, in an army that had four thousand.

Tradition of London model 834. 54mm, white metal, hand-painted in gloss enamel. Four-piece set — a Belgian Carabinier machine gun team of the 1st Regiment, 1914. Supplied in the Tradition Classic Red Box. Allow 2–3 weeks delivery.