The flamethrower was first used in World War I on February 26, 1915, when it was briefly used against the French outside Verdun. The English word flamethrower is a loan-translation of the German word Flammenwerfer, since the modern flamethrower was invented in Germany. It was a single-shot weapon-for burst firing, a new igniter section was attached each time. The weapon projected a jet of fire and enormous clouds of smoke some 20 yards (18 m). On depressing a lever the propellant gas forced the flammable oil into and through a rubber tube and over a simple igniting wick device in a steel nozzle. The most significant model submitted was a portable device, consisting of a vertical single cylinder 4 feet (1.2 m) long, horizontally divided in two, with pressurized gas in the lower section and flammable oil in the upper section. He submitted evaluation models of his Flammenwerfer to the German Army in 1901. The first flamethrower, in the modern sense, is usually credited to Richard Fiedler. French forces use flamethrowers against enemy positions.
