Military History Photo Friday: A German Halberd Pistol

On my recent trip to Vienna I got to see some great museums. One of my favorites was the collection of Hapsburg arms and armor at the Neue Berg. I'm working on an article about this place, which has one of the greatest collections of medieval arms and armor anywhere.

Here's one interesting item: a combination halberd and double-barreled rifle made in Germany c.1580. You can see it at the top of a case of other early firearms.

Here's a closeup. As you can see it has two wheellocks, firing mechanisms that are wound up and then released by the pull of a trigger. Given the ornamentation on the halberd, I'm thinking this was intended more for show as a curio than as an actual weapon. A lot of these combination weapons have survived from the Middle Ages and Renaissance but I've never read an account of one actually being used. They all tend to be similarly ornamental, which may explain why so many have survived.

Civil War Photo Friday: The tomb of the Emperor Maximilian

On last week's trip to Vienna I visited several sites of historical interest. One of them was the Imperial Crypt of the Hapsburg dynasty, including this grave for the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. He was the younger brother of Franz Joseph, the Hapsburg who would later be ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and draw his country into World War One.

As a younger brother, it seemed unlikely that Maximilian would ever sit on the throne, so when France extended its influence into Mexico in the 1860s and was looking for a European monarch, Maximilian was the man for the job. He took over as Emperor of Mexico in 1864. The United States didn't recognize him as the rightful ruler of Mexico, but was too busy with its own Civil War to do anything about it.

Maximilian was a liberal ruler, granting extra rights to the peasants and taking steps towards land reform, but that couldn't stop the revolutionaries who were fighting to make Mexico into something closer to a democracy. Once the Civil War was over in 1865, the U.S. government started arming the revolutionaries and Maximilian's position became precarious.

He got a bit of help from former Confederates who fled to Mexico after the war. This included many Missouri figures such as Confederate Generals Sterling Price and J.O. Shelby. They couldn't tip the scales, however, and when France pulled out its army in 1866 Maximilian's days were numbered. He was defeated and executed in 1867. He now lies back home in Vienna. Note that someone put a little Mexican sombrero on his tomb. He still has his admirers in Mexico.

Someone seriously printed a "Men of the Waffen SS" calendar?

I spotted one of these in a military history bookshop in Vienna.

Each month profiles a different "man", listing his military record and biographical details. The photos range from formal military images to snapshots of them playing with their children. There were no photos of them slaughtering non-Aryan civilians or packing people off to concentration camps.

Much as I love military history, this just is not O.K.