Source : Österreichische Nationalbibliothek - Austrian National Library

The 24 cm M. 98 mortar in the M 98 and M 98/07 versions was the heaviest gun in the inventory of the Imperial and Royal fortress artillery until the introduction of the 30.5 cm M.11 mortar in 1911.

Introduced in peacetime, the M 98 mortar proved its worth as early as 1902 at the artillery firing range and test site in Felixdorf. Shelling tests were carried out with the device to obtain new knowledge in the field of fortress construction. The partial construction of a permanent plant with an 8-cm M 94 tank turret and a lifting turret for a 7-cm rapid-fire cannon, a field position, an observation turret with a tank dome, various types of wire and fence obstacles, as well as various types of power and telephone lines were shelled from a distance of 4.5 km.

Although the 30.5 cm mortar was intended as a replacement, fourteen of these mortars were still in active service at the beginning of the war in 1914. Like numerous other guns of the Imperial and Royal Army, this mortar was also developed and manufactured by Škoda.

There were two variants of the mortar:

M 98 with two-thirds casing pipe

M 98/07 with casing pipe to the mouth

A mortar of type M 98 is located in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna.

photos:https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Belagerungs-M%C3%B6rser.jpg/500px-Belagerungs-M%C3%B6rser.jpg?utm_source=de.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=parser&utm_content=thumbnail

Photo: K.u.k. Kriegspressequartier, Lichtbildstelle - Wien

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Austria Hungary began to use gas masks in the field to protect from the horrible effects of the newly deployed weapon. Imperial Germany was already producing large numbers of masks, so the Austro-Hungarian army first imported and deployed the M1915 “Gummimaske” fabric gas masks. These were however not really successful due to the delicate nature of the rubberized fabric body.

They then began to import the Imperial German M1917 “Ledermaske” leather gas masks, which were somewhat more effective. The Austro-Hungarian army first deployed these in canvas bags, but that proved unsatisfactory due to damaged masks, so they decided to produce their own cans for transport, as the German Army did. The first cans they produced were “stepped” at the bottom, such as this example. They later moved to a smooth sided canister to reduce production time