Sources
Introduction
Prologue
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88

 
TAZARA ... a journey by rail through world-history © KJS / 2009
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CHAPTER 37  



Karl May, the first-person-narrator, is at the beginning of his Winnetou-cycle not yet „Old Shatterhand“ but a private teacher in St. Louis who arrived as an immigrant from Europe. Later he will become a surveyor in the „Wild West“, surveying the land for the construction of railways. The land he surveys belongs to the Indians. He is instrumental to force on them the results of industrial revolution that is slapping across from Europe. When he comes to know Winnetou and through him Indian life his Henry-rifle, being part of industrial inventiveness as well, is becoming an instrument to free the way for justice. This modern gun is able to do this only because its inventor is under the obligation not to produce it in serial.

18 Its unique existence and with it Old Shatterhand’s capability to masterly exercise with it scaring effects avoids in prairie (and desert as well) the feared bloodshed. Every attempt of the hero’s opponents to misuse the rifle for their own benefit cannot work; they don’t grasp the know-how to handle it thanks to the complicated mechanism understood by only one person in the story: Old Shatterhand.

That much about Karl May’s virtual contribution to the Indian’s struggle for survival; the contribution of Karl Marx would have been somehow different, but in his works there are no Indians … Sorry! That old joke was just fitting ….
Mr. Henry would you please narrate how the story of your invention worked in the real world?


„At my time guns were still muzzle-loaders, you had to push the ammunition down the barrel, a troublesome and sometimes dangerous procedure.
Serial hunting of bison in the way we have seen it would not have been possible, I agree. But your Mr. May’s warning of serial-production of my gun must have been, for sure, an after-thought.
At my time I became aware of first trials with muzzle-loaders and metal-cartridges. That was the basis for the idea to build a repetition-gun. I constructed a lock which used the bent metal-hand protector as a handle that could be moved forward and backward. Each move would span and release a hammer or cock whereby the empty cartridge would be thrown out. I choose a self-made cartridge of the calibre 44. The magazine was integrated in the barrel; it would hold fifteen cartridges. Thus, your Mr. May would never, as he claimed, have been able to shoot twenty-five times without re-loading.
When the weapon hit the market it was Civil War in America. Between 1860 and 1866 we produced some fourteen thousand Henry-rifles.
That called for a partnership because I was an inventor and constructor and no businessman. In 1861 I accepted partnership with Oliver Winchester who had made his money with the production of shirts and trousers for workers. Now he added the rifle under his brand-name. Both, the use of my name and his production of shirts and trousers, slowly waned. In 1866 his company was re-organized and re-named as ‚Winchester Repeating Arms Company‘.
I improved the type of the gun permanently and this gained us good profit. The first Winchester-gun was called Model 66, a thorough re-modelling of my original invention. Models 1866 and 1873 brought the break-through although the commissions we had hoped to get from the U.S.-army after the end of the Civil War did not materialize. Thus, we had to export. From 1870 onwards we delivered some fifty thousand modell-1866-guns to Turkey.
Here, in the New World, it was rare that a private person could afford such a gun. In 1878 the model 1866 did cost twenty dollars, the hunting 76-version even thirty-five dollars; a cowboy would earn in those days thirty dollars per month.
The 1866 had a polished brass-box which could be seen from far away; it was therefore called ‚Yellow Boy‘. Despite the high price it was popular for more than thirty years. But finally, it was surpassed by the model 1873 which even was honoured in a movie …”

Stop! We want to watch it! This film with James Stewart is reputed as the starting point of the artistic and economic success of American Western movies.

CONTROL! START MOVIE!


WINCHESTER 73
U.S.A. 1950
Director: Anthony Mann
Cast: James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dun Duryea,
Stephen McNally, Millard Mitchell

Lin McAdam (James Stewart) has still to settle an old account with bandit Dutch Henry Brown. He wants to get back the legendary Winchester 1873 which Brown had robbed of him after a price shooting. Until the furious showdown, this gun is changing many hands: from weapon-dealer Joe Lamont to Sioux-Chief Young Bull, but it does not bring luck to anyone.
Fritz Lang had selected for his newly established production firm ‚Diana Production Company‘ a story by Stuart N. Lake. According to Lang the main story-line went as follows: „A Westerner looses his gun, a Winchester ‘73, which was his only motive for life and the symbol of his strength. He either must find the gun or find another reason to live. He must find again his lost strength.“
‚Winchester ’73‘ starts in its final version on 4th July 1876 — the 100th anniversary of independence of the United States of America. The Wild West is almost taken by white settlers. Towns of the former ‚Frontier‘ have established their own political and administrative system. This order is threatened by the two gangs of Dutch Henry Brown and Waco Johnnie Dean. At the same time, another threat comes from Indians who are forced into settlement-programs; it is the year of the battle at ‚Little Bighorn‘.
The ‚Model Winchester ’73‘ which gave the name to the movie and was known as ‚the gun that won the West‘ became the symbol for the settlement of the Wild West.


„You know the serial ‚One of Thousand‘ which plays the main-role in the movie was on the market since 1875. Of all tested barrels in a lot of one thousand the most precise one was selected and built in a gun which got close to the muzzle the engraving ‚One of Thousand‘. Only one hundred and sixty-six were released and sold for one hundred dollars per piece …”

… According to today’s value that would be some fifteen thousand dollars! One of the still existing examples has presently a collector’s value of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

„The triumphal march of the ‘73 started in full gear in 1878 when Samuel Colt introduced his revolver with the same calibre of 44. Since cowboys did not want to carry different types of ammunition, most owners of the Colt made use of this calibre by purchasing a Winchester-gun as well.“


German version available on DVD!
Audio presentation by the pointsman, animation & video-clips!
Acces RBO's web-shop by clicking on the radio!
 
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