Introduction

From the earliest times, leather had been the material from which much of any soldier’s personal field equipment – his belts, scabbards, pouches, and other miscellaneous kit– had been produced; but in 1880 the United States Army became the first to adopt a webbing item for universal issue. Although trials had proved woven cotton webbing to be far superior to leather in many respects, its adoption was at first limited to a dark blue webbing waistbelt looped for cartridges. These loops were stitched around the outer face of the belt, which was closed with a brass ‘belt fastener’. The belt provided the soldier with a ready supply of 40 brass .45–70 cartridges for his single-shot, breechloading 1873 Springfield ‘trapdoor’ rifle.

Belts were originally made by the firm of Gilbert and later by Oberndorff. The Mills Woven Cartridge Belt Company of Worcester, Massachusetts, was eventually set up to manufacture Mills’ integrally woven web belts, the company being incorporated in 1902. The firm had been founded by US Army officer Anson Mills and Charles Gilbert, a weaver. Mills, born in Indiana in 1834, had an adventurous life as a soldier, retiring as a brigadier-general in 1897. In military circles Mills is best known for having invented a weaving loom that was capable of producing webbing belts with integrally woven cartridge loops. Patented in 1877, the principle was soon developed to provide first double and then triple loops. These one-piece belts were much stronger than the previous models with stitched loops. Anson Mills died at the age of 90 in November 1924, and was buried with full honours in Arlington Military Cemetery. He had been prominent and successful in a number of fields, and was an early supporter of women’s suffrage and racial equality; but it was the invention of his loom and the Mills Woven Cartridge Belt Co that had made his name and fortune.

In 1896 the US Army adopted a new khaki webbing belt that took the .30–40 ammunition used with the 1892 Krag Jorgensen rifle used in the Spanish-American War (1898–1902). No expense was spared in its development; the best quality spun cotton was woven, and then treated by new waterproofing techniques that made the webbing resistant to damp and rot – an essential requirement in the Cuban and Philippine campaigns.

The next Mills development was the introduction of belts with integrally woven and partitioned pockets and their top flaps, called the ‘pocket waistbelt’. At the start of the 20th century extensive trials were undertaken in the search for a new equipment set for the US Army; Mill’s pocket waistbelt was found to be the best design, and under the advice of the Board of Officers it was adopted for the US Army as the M1903. Large orders for the new belt, and a set of suspenders (braces) to support its loaded weight, were placed for the Army, Marines and National Guard. A modified version of the M1903 belt, with pocket dividers and cartridge retainer straps, was later issued as the M1914 cavalry belt.

This new pocketed belt was designed to carry the .30–06 ammunition used with the 1903 bolt-action Springfield rifle then replacing the Krag Jorgensen. These cartridges were issued in 5-round chargers; originally the belt was offered with nine or ten pockets carrying 90 or 100 rounds, but the nine-pocket design was later standardized. Mills cartridge belts were adjustable from 30 to 46 inches. The pockets were closed with ‘ball-and-socket’ fasteners (termed ‘glove fasteners’ in offic