Toussaint-Henry-Joseph Fafchamps, sometimes spelled Fafschamps, was a Belgian Army

Belgian Army

The Land Component is organised using the concept of capacities, whereby units are gathered together according to their function and material. Within this framework, there are five capacities: the command capacity, the combat capacity, the support capacity, the services capacity and the training...

 Captain. In 1851, with the Belgian gunsmith

Gunsmith

A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds firearms. This occupation is different from an armorer. The armorer primarily maintains weapons and limited repairs involving parts replacement and possibly work involving accurization...

 Joseph Montigny

Joseph Montigny

Joseph Montigny was a Belgian gunsmith, from Fontaine l'Evèque near Brussels, and the developer of the Montigny mitrailleuse, an early European machine gun, in 1863. The design was based on the early 1850s prototype of a volley gun by the Belgian officer Fafschamps...

 and the Fusnot company, he developed what is sometimes considered the first machine gun

Machine gun

A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....

 in history, 10 years before the advent of the Gatling gun

Gatling gun

The Gatling gun is one of the best known early rapid-fire weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun. It is well known for its use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat...

.

Specifications

Fafchamps made a prototype of his machine, as well as drawings, which were remitted to Montigny. The Fafschamps gun was a manually-fired 50-barrels volley gun

Volley gun

A volley gun is a gun with several barrels for firing a number of shots, either simultaneously or in sequence. They differ from modern machine guns in that they lack automatic loading and automatic fire and are limited by the number of barrels bundled together.In practice the large ones were not...

 using needle fire and paper cartridges, and was only intended as a stationary artillery piece for defensive fortifications. Fafchamps named it the "carabine multiple".

Legacy

Joseph Montigny further improved the weapon, completing the transportable 37-barrels Montigny mitrailleuse

Montigny mitrailleuse

The Montigny mitrailleuse was an early type of crank-operated machine-gun developed by the Belgian gun works of Joseph Montigny between 1859 and 1870...

 (also known as the "Fafschamps-Montigny mitrailleuse") in 1863. From 1859, Joseph Montigny proposed his design to Napoleon III, which led to the development of the French Reffye mitrailleuse, designed by Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye

Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye

Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye was a French artillery general of the 19th century, and superintendent of the works at Meudon. He was a former ordnance officer for Napoleon III...

 with the collaboration of Montigny, and which was adopted by the French Army

French Army

The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...

 in 1865. The invention of Fafschamps thus became the basis of the "mitrailleuse

Mitrailleuse

Mitrailleuse is the French word used to describe all rapid-firing weapons of rifle caliber. Therefore the word mitrailleuse, when used in the French language, applies to all machine guns including modern full automatic weapons. However in the English language the word mitrailleuse applies to...

", which was used by the French in the Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

 of 1870. Initially kept under wraps as a secret weapon, it became widely used in battle by French artillery during the Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

(1870–71).