Editing Mauser C96 (section)

==History==
[[File:Mauser C96 prototype 1895Mar15.jpg|thumb|An early C96 prototype]]
[[File:Mauser C96 M1916 Red 9 7.JPG|thumb|"Red 9" Mauser C96 with stock]]Within a year of its introduction in 1896, the C96 had been sold to governments and commercially to civilians and individual military officers. The Mauser C96 pistol was extremely popular with British officers at the time, and many purchased it privately. Mauser supplied the C96 to [[Westley Richards]] in the UK for resale. By the onset of World War I, the C96's popularity with the British military had waned.<ref name="Maze 2002, p.56,70">Maze (2002), pp. 56, 70.</ref>

As a military sidearm, the pistols saw service in various wars including the [[Easter Rising]] and [[Irish War of Independence]], as well as [[World War I]] and the [[Irish Civil War]], when the gun was nicknamed "Peter the Painter", after the contemporary Latvian anarchist [[Peter the Painter|of the same name]] (so nicknamed by the [[Metropolitan Police]]) who was believed to use this gun, and because the pistol grip looked like a brush handle, the [[Estonian War of Independence]], the [[Spanish Civil War]], the [[Chinese Civil War]], and [[World War II]]. During the [[Warlord Era]] in China, European embargoes on exporting rifles to Chinese warlords meant that the C96 became a mainstay of the period's armies, and the basic form of the pistol was extensively copied.<ref>{{cite book|last=McCollum|first=Ian|author-link=Forgotten Weapons|title=Pistols of the Warlords: Chinese Domestic Handguns, 1911 - 1949|chapter=Domestic Chinese Designs|pages=112–159|isbn=9781733424639|date=2021|publisher=Headstamp Publishing}}</ref> The C96 also became a staple of Bolshevik commissars from one side and various warlords and gang leaders from another in the [[Russian Civil War]], known simply as "the Mauser". [[Communist revolution]]aries [[Yakov Yurovsky]] and [[Peter Ermakov]] used Mausers to [[Execution of the Romanov family|execute]] the Russian imperial family in July 1918.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg |first=Helen |last=Rappaport |year=2009 |location=New York |publisher=St. Martin's Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/lastdaysofromano00rapp/page/181 181] |isbn=978-0-31237-976-6 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/lastdaysofromano00rapp/page/181 }}</ref>

[[Winston Churchill]] was fond of the Mauser C96 and used one at the 1898 [[Battle of Omdurman]] and during the [[Second Boer War]]; [[T.E. Lawrence|Lawrence of Arabia]] carried a Mauser C96 for a period, during his time in the Middle East.<ref name="wilsonr" /><ref>Skennerton (2005), pp. 33–34.</ref> Indian revolutionary [[Ram Prasad Bismil]] and his partymen used these Mauser pistols in the historic [[Kakori train robbery]] in August 1925. Chinese communist general, [[Zhu De]], carried a Mauser C96 during his [[Nanchang Uprising]] and later conflicts; his gun (with his name printed on it) is in the [[Beijing]] war museum.

Three Mauser C96s were used in the killing of Spanish prime minister [[Eduardo Dato]] in 1921, and a Mauser C96 was used in the assassination of the King of Yugoslavia, [[Alexander I of Yugoslavia]], in 1934.

Imported and domestic copies of the C96 were used extensively by the Chinese in the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]] and the Chinese Civil War, as well as by the Spanish during the Spanish Civil War and the Germans in World War II.<ref name="1896mauser.com" /><ref>Skennerton (2005), p. 33.</ref>

Besides the standard 7.63×25mm chambering, C96 pistols were also commonly chambered for [[9×19mm Parabellum]], with a small number also being produced in [[9×25mm Mauser|9mm Mauser Export]]. In 1940, Mauser officials proposed using the C-96 as the vehicle for an upgrade to the 9×25mm Mauser Export cartridge to match the ballistics of the [[.357 Magnum]].<ref>Mauser Pistolen: Development and Production, 1877–1946, Weaver, Speed, Schmid, Collector Grade Publications, Canada, PP. 193.</ref> Lastly, there was a Chinese-manufactured model chambered for [[.45 ACP]].<ref name="wilsonr" /> Despite the pistol's worldwide popularity and fame, China was the only nation to use the C96 as the primary [[service pistol]] of its military and police.