Toussaint-Henry-Joseph Fafchamps (1783-1868), sometimes spelled Fafschamps, was a

Belgian Army The Land Component ( nl, Landcomponent, french: Composante terre) is the land branch of the Belgian Armed Forces. The King of the Belgians is the commander in chief. The current chief of staff of the Land Component is Major-General Pierre Gérard. ...

captain. In 1851, with the Belgian

gunsmith A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds guns. The occupation differs from an armorer, who usually replaces only worn parts in standard firearms. Gunsmiths do modifications and changes to a firearm that may require a very h ...

Joseph Montigny Joseph Montigny was a Belgian gunsmith, from Fontaine l'Evèque near Brussels, and the developer of the Montigny mitrailleuse, an early European machine gun, in 1863. The design was based on the early 1850s prototype of a volley gun by the Belgia ...

and the Fusnot company, he developed what is sometimes considered the first

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...

in history, 10 years before the advent of the

Gatling gun The Gatling gun is a rapid-firing multiple-barrel firearm invented in 1861 by Richard Jordan Gatling. It is an early machine gun and a forerunner of the modern electric motor-driven rotary cannon. The Gatling gun's operation centered on a cyc ...

Specifications

Fafchamps made a prototype of his machine, as well as drawings, which were remitted to Montigny. The Fafschamps gun was a manually fired 50-barrels

volley gun A volley gun is a gun with multiple single-shot gun barrel, barrels that shoot projectiles in volley fire, either simultaneously or in succession. Although capable of unleashing intense firepower, volley guns differ from modern machine guns in ...

using needle fire and paper cartridges, and was only intended as a stationary artillery piece for defensive fortifications. Fafchamps named it the "carabine multiple".

Legacy

Joseph Montigny further improved the weapon, completing the transportable 37-barrels

Montigny mitrailleuse The Montigny mitrailleuse was an early type of crank-operated machine-gun developed by the Belgian gun works of Joseph Montigny between 1859 and 1870. It was an improved version of the " Mitrailleuse", ( en, Grapeshot shooter) invented by Belgian ...

(also known as the "Fafschamps-Montigny mitrailleuse") in 1863. From 1859, Joseph Montigny proposed his design to

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

, which led to the development of the French Reffye mitrailleuse, designed by

Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye (30 July 1821 – 6 December 1880) was a French artillery general of the 19th century, and superintendent of the works at Meudon. He was a former Ammunition#Ordnance ammunition, ordnance officer for Napoleon III. H ...

with the collaboration of Montigny, and which was adopted by the

French Army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed For ...

in 1865. The invention of Fafschamps thus became the basis of the "

mitrailleuse A mitrailleuse (; from French ''mitraille'', "grapeshot") is a type of volley gun with barrels of rifle calibre that can fire either all rounds at once or in rapid succession. The earliest true mitrailleuse was invented in 1851 by Belgian Army cap ...

", which was used by the French in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Initially kept under wraps as a secret weapon, it became widely used in battle by French artillery during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71).

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fafchamps, Toussaint-Henry-Joseph Artillery of Belgium 1783 births 1868 deaths Belgian Army officers 19th-century Belgian inventors

Specifications

Legacy

See also

Notes