Mosin rifles in Turkey

[Alex Yeliseenko]

Hallo!

Any knows about deliveries of the weapon from the Soviet Russia to Turkey in 1920-1924? I know just to Turkey there arrived rifles Mosin.

Best Regards.

Alex.

[Peter H]

This link suggests they came from White Russian sources:

http://www.mosinnagant.net/global%20mos ... Mosins.asp

In addition to the Brothers Mauser’s gift to human betterment the Turks made use of Russia’s Mosin-Nagant 7.62 mm M1891 rifle. The Turks acquired these weapons by two methods: capture from the Russians during the bitter fighting in eastern Anatolia, mostly in 1915, and as war-aid from the Germans, who captured huge quantities of them in Europe on the Eastern Front. Many of the German-supplied Mosins had been altered to fire the standard German 7.9 x 57 mm military round, easing supply and logistics problems for the Turks. These Russian rifles in the original caliber were used largely in eastern Anatolia, where there was always the possibility that more ammunition and rifles could be captured from the Russians. Mosins, evidently of both calibers, were also used on the Southern Front in Palestine. Why Turkish units in the Holy Land should have been so blessed is a mystery. As ever, many of these rifles can be identified as Turkish by their Arabic numbers, crescents, etc.

When the anti-Bolshevik forces of Wrangel, Kolchak, Denikin and others were defeated in the Russian Civil War many fleeing White Guards crossed the border into neutral Turkey in the years 1919-20, bringing their Mosins with them and surrendering them to the Turks. These rifles joined the ones already in Turkish hands and remained in inventory as reserve rifles until at least the later1940s. It is entirely possible that many of these Mosins were used in fighting the Italians and Greeks in Anatolia immediately after World War I, and during the Turkish Civil War of the early 1920s.

Wrangel's forces evacuated to Gallipoli are also discussed here:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=97627