A special post for my twitter friend Peter Doyle who asked yesterday if there were evidences that Germany complained to the USA regarding the use of ‘trench shotguns’ by American Expeditionary Force in France. I knew these complaints but I admit I have never found a primary source: it was time to do some search!

Luckily, I was able to find quickly some information, without searching on the Web. Indeed, I own a copy of America’s Munitions 1917-1918, a 591-page report written by Benedict Crowell, assistant secretary of war, director of munitions, in 1919. The book states (pp. 185-186):

When American troops were in the heat of the fighting in the summer of 1918, the German government sent a protest through a neutral agency to our Government asserting that our men were using shotguns against German troops in the trenches. The allegation was true; but our State Department replied that the use of such weapons was not forbidden by the Geneva Convention as the Germans had asserted. Manufactured primarily for the purpose of arming guards over German prisoners, these shotguns were undoubtedly in some instances carried into the actual fighting. The Ordnance Department procured some 30,000 to 40,000 shotguns of the short-barrel or sawed-off type, ordering these from the regular commercial manufacturers. The shell provided for these guns each contained a charge of nine heavy buckshot, a combination likely to have murderous effect in close fighting.

Here’s a view of the two shotguns shown in this book: the Remington and Winchester shotguns:

After a quick search on the Web, I’ve found an interesting article on this topic: “Joint Service Combat Shotgun Program”, by W. Hays Parks, Special Assistant for Law of War Matters, Office of The Judge Advocate General, U.S. Army, Washington, D.C, published in The Army Lawyer in October 1997. Here are some excerpts of this article:

[…] Shotguns were employed by United States Army and Marine Corps units during the insurrection that raged in the Philippines from 1899 to 1914, and by Brigadier General John Pershing in the 1916 punitive expedition into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa. When World War I entered its stalemated trench warfare phase, both French and British High Commands considered, but rejected, the use of double-barreled shotguns in trench defense. The rejection of their use was not due to any questions as to their legality, but was due to the perceived ineffectiveness of their light bird shot loads and, undoubtedly, the requirement for and difficulty of frequent, quick reloading of a double-barreled shotgun in close combat. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, General Pershing was placed in command of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). General Pershing’s forces employed 12-gauge repeating (pump action) shotguns, loaded with six No. 00 buckshot shells, for close-range defensive fires against enemy infantry assaults, trench raids, and assaults on enemy trenches and machine gun positions. The highly-effective use of the shotgun by United States forces had a telling effect on the morale of front-line German troops. On 19 September 1918, the German government issued a diplomatic protest against the American use of shotguns, alleging that the shotgun was prohibited by the law of war. After careful consideration and review of the applicable law by The Judge Advocate General of the Army, Secretary of State Robert Lansing rejected the German protest in a formal note. This is the only known occasion in which the legality of actual combat use of the shotgun has been raised […]

[…] The 1918 German Protest

On 19 September 1918, the Government of Switzerland, representing German interests in the United States, presented to the U.S. Secretary of State a cablegram received by the Swiss Foreign Office containing the following diplomatic protest by the Government of Germany:

The German Government protests against the use of shotguns by the American Army and calls attention to the fact that according to the law of war (Kriegsrecht) every [U.S.] prisoner [of war] found to have in his possession such guns or ammunition belonging thereto forfeits his life. This protest is based upon article 23(e) of the Hague convention [sic] respecting the laws and customs of war on land. Reply by cable is required before October 1, 1918.

The German protest was precipitated in part by the capture in the Baccarat Sector (Lorraine) of France, on 21 July 1918, of a U.S. soldier from the 307th Infantry Regiment, 154th Infantry Brigade, 77th Division, AEF, who was armed with a 12-gauge Winchester Model 97 repeating trench (shot) gun, and a second, similarly-armed AEF soldier from the 6th Infantry Regiment, 10th Infantry Brigade, 5th Division, on 11 September 1918 in the Villers-en-Haye Sector. Each presumably possessed issue ammunition, which was the Winchester “Repeater” shell, containing nine No. 00 buckshot. The German protest was forwarded by the Department of State to the War Department, which sought the advice of The Judge Advocate General of the Army. Brigadier General Samuel T. Ansell, Acting Judge Advocate General, responded by lengthy memorandum dated 26 September 1918. Addressing the German protest, General Ansell stated:

Article 23(e) simply calls for comparison between the injury or suffering caused and the necessities of warfare. It is legitimate to kill the enemy and as many of them, and as quickly, as possible . . . . It is to be condemned only when it wounds, or does not kill immediately, in such a way as to produce suffering that has no reasonable relation to the killing or placing the man out of action for an effective period. The shotgun, although an ancient weapon, finds its class or analogy, as to purpose and effect, in many modern weapons. The dispersion of the shotgun [pellets] . . . is adapted to the necessary purpose of putting out of action more than one of the charging enemy with each shot of the gun; and in this respect it is exactly analogous to shrapnel shell discharging a multitude of small [fragments] or a machine gun discharging a spray of . . . bullets. The diameter of the bullet is scarcely greater than that of a rifle or machine gun. The weight of it is very much less. And, in both size and weight, it is less than the . . . [fragments] of a shrapnel shell . . . . Obviously a pellet the size of a .32-caliber bullet, weighing only enough to be effective at short ranges, does not exceed the limit necessary for putting a man immediately hors de combat.

The only instances even where a shotgun projectile causes more injury to any one enemy soldier than would a hit by a rifle bullet are instances where the enemy soldier has approached so close to the shooter that he is struck by more than one of the nine . . . [No. 00 buckshot projectiles] contained in the cartridge. This, like the effect of the dispersing of . . . [fragments] from a shrapnel shell, is permissible either in behalf of greater effectiveness or as an unavoidable incident of the use of small scattering projectiles for the necessary purpose of increasing [the] likelihood of killing a number of enemies.

General Ansell concluded his memorandum with the statement that “The protest is without legal merit.” Acting Secretary of War Benedict Crowell endorsed General Ansell’s memorandum of law and forwarded it to the Secretary of State that same day. Secretary of State Robert Lansing provided the following reply to the Government of Germany two days later:

[T]he . . . provision of the Hague convention, cited in the protest, does not . . . forbid the use of this . . . weapon . . . . [I]n view of the history of the shotgun as a weapon of warfare, and in view of the well-known effects of its present use, and in the light of a comparison of it with other weapons approved in warfare, the shotgun . . . cannot be the subject of legitimate or reasonable protest.

The Government of the United States notes the threat of the German Government to execute every prisoner of war found to have in his possession shotguns or shotgun ammunition. Inasmuch as the weapon is lawful and may be rightfully used, its use will not be abandoned by the American Army . . .

[I]f the German Government should carry out its threat in a single instance, it will be the right and duty of the . . . United States to make such reprisals as will best protect the American forces, and notice is hereby given of the intention of the . . . United States to make such reprisals.

World War I ended six weeks later, without reply by Germany to the United States response. There is no record of any subsequent capture by German forces of any U.S. soldier or marine armed with a shotgun or possessing shotgun ammunition, or of Germany carrying out its threat against the U.S. soldiers it captured earlier.

The position of the United States as to the legality of shotguns remains unchanged from that stated in the opinion of Brigadier General Ansell and the Secretary of State’s 28 September 1918 reply to the government of Germany.