Spartan Gold: Hambrusch Jagdwaffen and more

pg 97
the shotgun was custom-made by Hambrusch Jagdwaffen

This company is still in business. http://www.ferlachguns.com/

It belonged to Otto von Bismarck himself

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg (1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a German statesman who unified numerous German states into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership, then created a "balance of power" that preserved peace in Europe from 1871 until 1914.

As Minister President of Prussia from 1862–90, Bismarck supervised wars that made Prussia dominant over Austria and France. In 1867 he also became Chancellor of the North German Confederation. Bismarck designed and created the German Empire in 1871, becoming its first Chancellor and largely controlling its affairs until he was removed by Kaiser (Emperor) William II in 1890. His diplomacy of Realpolitik and powerful rule gained him the nickname the "Iron Chancellor". As Henry Kissinger has noted, "The man of 'blood and iron' wrote prose of extraordinary directness and lucidity, comparable in distinctiveness to Churchill's use of the English language."

As the leader of what historians call "revolutionary conservatism" Bismarck became a hero to German nationalists; they built hundreds of monuments glorifying the symbol of powerful personal leadership. Historians praised him as a statesman of moderation and balance who was primarily responsible for the unification of the German states into a nation-state. He used balance-of-power diplomacy to keep Europe peaceful in the 1870s and 1880s. He created a new nation with a progressive social policy, a result that went beyond his initial goals as a practitioner of power politics in Prussia. Bismarck, a Lutheran who was loyal to his king (who in turn gave Bismarck his full support), promoted government through a strong, well-trained bureaucracy with most decisions in the hands of a Junker elite representing the rural aristocracy in the east.

Bismarck had recognized early in his political career that the opportunities for national unification would exist and he worked successfully to provide a Prussian structure to the nation as a whole. While the new Germany had universal male suffrage, the elected officials did not have real control of the government.

the Battle of Balacva and the Charge of the Light Brigade

The Battle of Balaclava, fought on 25 October 1854 during the Crimean War, was part of the Anglo-French-Turkish campaign to capture the port and fortress of Sevastopol, Russia's principal naval base on the Black Sea. The engagement followed the earlier Allied victory in September at the Battle of the Alma, where the Russian General Menshikov had positioned his army in an attempt to stop the Allies progressing south towards their strategic goal.

Alma was the first major encounter fought in the Crimea since the Allied landings at Kalamita Bay on 14 September, and was a clear battlefield success; but a tardy pursuit by the Allies failed to gain a decisive victory, allowing the Russians to regroup, recover and prepare their defence.

The Allies decided against an immediate assault on Sevastopol and instead prepared for a protracted siege. The British, under the command of Lord Raglan, and the French, under Canrobert, positioned their troops to the south of the port on the Chersonese Peninsula: the French Army occupied Kamiesh on the west coast whilst the British moved to the southern port of Balaclava. However, this position committed the British to the defence of the right flank of the Allied siege operations, for which Raglan had insufficient troops. Taking advantage of this exposure, the Russian General Liprandi, with some 25,000 men, prepared to attack the defences in and around Balaclava, hoping to disrupt the supply chain between the British base and their siege lines.

The battle began with a Russian artillery and infantry attack on the Ottoman redoubts that formed Balaclava's first line of defence. The Ottoman forces initially resisted the Russian assaults, but lacking support they were eventually forced to retreat. When the redoubts fell, the Russian cavalry moved to engage the second defensive line held by the Ottoman and the Scottish 93rd Highland Regiment in what came to be known as the 'Thin Red Line'.

This line held and repulsed the attack; as did General Scarlett's British Heavy Brigade who charged and defeated the greater proportion of the cavalry advance, forcing the Russians onto the defensive. However, a final Allied cavalry charge, stemming from a misinterpreted order from Raglan, led to one of the most famous and ill-fated events in British military history – the Charge of the Light Brigade.

The Charge of the Light Brigade was a charge of British cavalry led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 in the Crimean War. The charge was the result of a miscommunication in such a way that the brigade attempted a much more difficult objective than intended by the overall commander Lord Raglan. Blame for the miscommunication has remained controversial, as the original order itself was vague. The charge produced no decisive gains and resulted in very high casualties, and is best remembered as the subject of the poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, whose lines emphasize the valour of the cavalry in carrying out their orders, even "tho' the soldier knew / Some one had blunder'd".