Madsen Gunner in typical pose

With the advent of trench warfare the German army quickly saw the need for a portable light weight machine gun. As a stop gap expedient the Germans organised and converted a number of infantry battalions to use Danish purchased Madsen light machine guns (termed Automatic Rifles in the German Army nomenclature). These new formations were known as Musketen battalions. They were formed in August, 1915. The very first Musketen unit, known as the 1st Musketen Battalion, was made up of Hessian soldiers drawn from the 4th battalion of the 117th Body Infantry Regiment. Three such battalions were speedily mustered and armed with the newly acquired Danish Madsen. The Madsen in German use was chambered to fire the same 7.92mm round as their Mauser rifles.

The Musketen battalions went into action the following month, in the Champagne region of France. By the battle of the Somme, in 1916, only two battalions remained, including the 1st Musketen Battalion.

A Hessian Soldier checking his Madsen behind the lines

The 1st Musketen Battalion was made up of 500 men organised into three companies of thirty machine guns each. Four man squads operated the individual Madsen machine guns, two as gunners and two as ammunition carriers. Their role was to act as a mobile reserve, in the second line, ready to move forward to plug any breaches in the front. Essentially confined to a defensive posture, their job was to engage the advancing allied units and stop them by sheer weight of fire. In this they were not particularly successful as they could not match the sustained rate of fire of the conventional machine gun defence.

Inevitably the 1st Musketen Battalion suffered heavy casualties. Many of its Madsen's were lost to British artillery fire and the troops of the former 117TH Hessian Body Infantry Regiment had to be re-equipped with captured British Lewis machine guns. In early 1918, the battalion was broken up and its personnel sent to various machine gun sharpshooter detachments.

Clearly exhausted soldiers after first day on the Somme