Jezail

2022-11-08T01:03:08Z

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{{more citations needed|date=July 2022}}
[[File:Jezail.jpg|thumb|Jezail]]
The '''jezail''' or ''jezzail'' ({{lang-ps|جزائل}}, ultimately from the plural form {{lang-ar|جزایل}}, "long [barrels]") is a simple, cost-efficient and often handmade long arm commonly used in [[South Asia]] and parts of the [[Middle East]] in the past. It was popular amongst the [[Pashtuns|Pashtun]] tribesmen, who deposed [[Shah Shujah Durrani|Shah Shuja]]<ref name="1966-08-26-12">{{Cite web|title='Ko-i-Staun Foot Soldiery in Summer Costume, Actively employed among the Rocks' {{!}} Online Collection {{!}} National Army Museum, London|url=https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1966-08-26-12|access-date=2020-08-29|website=collection.nam.ac.uk}}</ref> and were primarily utilized in the [[First Anglo-Afghan War|First]] and [[Second Anglo-Afghan War]]s by [[Pashtuns|Pashtun]] tribesmen.

==Features==
[[File:Mir Alam of Kohistan region in Afghanistan.jpg|thumb|upright|Lithograph dated during the [[First Anglo-Afghan War]] of a Pashtun tribesmen (from the [[Kapisa Province|Ghizai tribe]]) and his jezail.<ref name="1966-08-26-12"/>]]
Jezails were generally handmade weapons, and consequently they varied widely in their construction. Jezails were seen as very personal weapons, and unlike the typical military weapons of the time which were very plain and utilitarian, jezails tended to be well crafted and were usually intricately decorated.

Jezails tended to have very long barrels. Such lengths were never common in European rifles (with the exception of the Spanish {{Interlanguage link multi|espingarda|es|espingarda}} circa 15th century), but were more common in American rifles, such as the [[Kentucky rifle]]. The American rifles were used for hunting, and tended to be of a smaller caliber (.35 to .45 or so being typical). Jezails were usually designed for warfare, and therefore tended to be of larger calibers than the American rifles, with .50 to .75 caliber and larger being common. Larger calibers were possible because the long length of the typical jezail meant that it was heavier than typical [[musket]]s of the time. Jezails typically weighed around {{convert|12|to|14|lb|kg|abbr=out}}, compared to {{convert|9|to|10|lb|kg|abbr=out}} for a typical musket. The heavy weight of the jezail allowed the rifle itself to absorb more energy from the round, imparting less recoil to the weapon's user.

Many jezails were smooth bore weapons, but some had their barrels [[rifled]]. The rifling, combined with the barrel's long length, made these weapons very accurate for their time.

The firing mechanism was typically either a [[matchlock]] or a [[flintlock]]. Since flintlock mechanisms were complex and difficult to manufacture, many jezails used the lock mechanism from captured or broken [[Brown Bess]] muskets.

The stocks were handmade and ornately decorated, featuring a distinctive curve which is not seen in the stocks of other muskets. The function of this curve is debated; it may be purely decorative, or it may have allowed the jezail to be tucked under the arm and cradled tightly against the body, as opposed to being held to the shoulder like a typical musket or rifle. The argument against this method of firing is that the flash pan would be dangerously close to the face and the weapon would be harder to aim. It is more likely that the rifle was only tucked under the arm whilst riding a horse or a camel. The curve may also have saved weight; by shaving away some of the heavy wood used for the stock through employment of the new curved shape, whilst maintaining the same structural integrity of the stock it could still be fired from the shoulder safely whilst also being lighter. The weapon was fired by grasping the stock near the trigger, like a pistol, while the curved portion is tucked under the shooter's forearm, allowing the rifle to be fired with one hand while mounted.

Jezails were often fired from a forked rest, or a horn or metal bipod.

==Anglo-Afghan Wars==
[[File:Group of Afridi fighters in 1878.jpg|thumb|Group of [[Pashtuns|Pashtun]] Tribesmen (Afridi) fighters in 1878, pictured with their jezails, during the [[Second Anglo-Afghan War]].]]
During this period, the jezail was the primary weapon used by the [[Pashtun tribes|Pashtuns]] and was used with great effect during the [[First Anglo-Afghan War]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Aga Jan, an officer of the Kohistan rangers; Meer Humzu, trooper of the first regiment, Janbaz cavalry; a serjeant of Affghan infantry; Ahmed Khan, private Kohistan rangers|url=http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-6a3d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99|access-date=2020-07-24|website=NYPL Digital Collections|language=en}}</ref> British [[Brown Bess]] smoothbore muskets were effective at no more than 150 yards, and unable to be consistently accurate beyond 50 yards. Because of their advantage in range, Pashtun marksmen typically used the jezail from the tops of cliffs along valleys and [[Defile (geography)|defiles]] during ambushes. This tactic repeatedly inflicted heavy casualties on the British during their [[1842 retreat from Kabul]] to [[Jalalabad]].

In the [[First Anglo-Afghan War]] the British established a [[cantonment]] outside of Kabul with dirt walls approximately waist high. Surrounding the cantonment were several abandoned forts which, although out of range of British muskets, were close enough for jezail fire. When [[Ghazi (warrior)|ghazi]] and other Pashtuns forces besieged Kabul and the cantonment, they occupied the forts and used them to snipe at British forces from a safe range.{{fact|date=February 2021}}

A description from the [[British Library]] dating to the First Anglo-Afghan War:
{{Quotation|Afghan snipers were expert marksmen and their juzzails fired roughened bullets, long iron nails or even pebbles over a range of some 250 metres. The Afghans could fling the large rifles across their shoulders as if they were feathers and spring nimbly from rock to rock. They loved to decorate their rifles: [[James Rattray | Rattray]] writes of finding one adorned with human teeth.<ref>[http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/other/019xzz000000562u00012000.html Ko-i-staun foot soldiery in summer costume (lithograph, British Library)]</ref>}}

==In British literature==
The jezail is most notable, at least in Western literature, as the weapon which wounded [[Dr. Watson]]—the fictional biographer of the fictional detective [[Sherlock Holmes]]—in the [[Battle of Maiwand]] during his military service in Afghanistan. In ''[[A Study in Scarlet]]'', Watson mentions being wounded in the shoulder.<ref>Doyle, Arthur Conan. ''A Study in Scarlet'', 1887</ref> However, in ''[[The Sign of the Four]]'', Watson gives the location of the wound as in his leg.<ref>Doyle, Arthur Conan. ''The Sign of the Four'', 1890</ref> In "[[The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor]]" Watson refers to the Jezail bullet being "in one of my limbs." These discrepancies have caused debate by Sherlock Holmes fans about which of these locations is the "correct" location of the wound.

The jezail is mentioned repeatedly in some of Wilbur Smith's books, most notably "Monsoon". It was also mentioned in the [[George MacDonald Fraser]] adventure ''[[Flashman (novel)|Flashman]]'', whose protagonist describes the awful slaughter of British troops retreating from [[Kabul]] to [[Jalalabad]] by Pashtun jezailchis.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fraser |first=George MacDonald |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/29733 |title=Flashman : from the Flashman papers, 1839-1842 |date=1969 |isbn=0-257-66799-7 |location=London |oclc=29733 |quote=At first it was well enough, and we were unmolested. It looked as though Akbar had his folk under control, and then suddenly the jezzails began to crack from the ledges, and men began to fall, and the army staggered blindly in the snow.}}</ref>

The weapon appears in [[Rudyard Kipling]] 1886 poem ''Arithmetic on the Frontier'', where the low cost of the weapon is contrasted with the relatively expensive training and education of British officers:
:''A scrimmage in a Border Station''
:''A canter down some dark defile''
:''Two thousand pounds of education''
:''Drops to a ten-rupee jezail.''

Another reference to the jezail occurs in Kipling's novel ''[[The Man Who Would Be King]]'', where the Kohat Jezail is mentioned in the same paragraph as the more advanced [[Snider-Enfield|Snider]] and [[Martini-Henry|Martini]] rifles of the British.{{fact|date=February 2021}}

[[P. G. Wodehouse]] in ''[[Jill the Reckless]]'' (1920) describes how the character Uncle Chris, in India during his first hill-campaign, would "walk up and down in front of his men under a desultory shower of jezail-bullets".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wodehouse |first=P.G. |title=The Little Warrior |year=1920 |chapter=XX, part 3}}</ref>

==Contemporary use==
The jezail no longer sees widespread use in warfare of any nature. Limited numbers were, however, used by [[Mujahideen]] rebels during the [[Soviet–Afghan War]]. Derivatives of the jezail, barely recognizable, and usually termed 'country-made weapons', are in use in rural [[India]]—especially in the state of [[Uttar Pradesh]].{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}

== See also ==
* [[Moukahla]], a similar North African musket

==References==
;Citations
{{reflist}}
;Bibliography
* Tanner, Stephen, (2002) ''Afghanistan: A Military History From Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban'', Da Capo Press, {{ISBN|0-306-81233-9}}
* "Firearms of the Islamic world in the Tareq Rajab Museum, Kuwait" By Robert Elgood
{{Early firearms}}
[[Category:Indo-Persian weaponry]]
[[Category:Muskets]]
[[Category:18th-century weapons]]
[[Category:19th-century weapons]]
[[Category:Weapons of Afghanistan]]
[[Category:Rifles of Pakistan]]
[[Category:Rifles of India]]
[[Category:Weapons of the Ottoman Empire]]

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Jezail