This Le Royal brand pocket watch has an image on the back, in relief, of an artillery battery in action. It is rather well used but still visible, with crossed canons and stacked cannon balls around the image. If I’m interpreting the inscription on the covet correctly, the watch was the first prize for an artillery contest in Paris in 1914. I would suppose this contest would have been prior to August of 1914, for by that time France needed her guns and gun crews for more serious work.
There must have been some mention of the above contest in a French newspaper from the period. However, since I’m unable to speak French my access to this data is limited. It would be of great assistance, though, in identifying the winner of this timepiece. For that matter, it is also possible that each member of the first place gun crew received one of these watches. But for now, there can be no more than speculation.

Inscription inside

The movement has 15 jewels and an uncompensated balance.

In case my image is not good enough to read, the face is marked Chronometere Le Royal, Besancon, Antimagnetique.

Hi Greg.

I did some rummaging around on the internet and from what I found I believe your watch is a prize from the Société De Tir Au Canon de Paris.

From what I understand this was a club of enthusiasts who enjoyed making and firing minature canons that were built to immitate the way real canons fired and the way real canon shells flew. From what I have read on some of the French websites I understand the French Army started to support and encourage them at the beginning of the Great War in hopes of developing some of the members into potential artillery soldiers. This club was active long after the war as well. They used an old canon image as their club's emblem - which you see on the back of your watch.

I would imagine that a single watch was all that was needed for such a prize as their minature canons would likely have been built and fired by individual club members.

Strange and unexpected, Jim. I'd sure like to see some of their mini cannon. They must be little works of art.

BTW, any idea who or what Vexiau is?

Thinking back to French hisory of WWI, I suppose that the French draft would have eventualy taken all of the young men out of the Société and placed them behind real field guns. Leaving only the extremely young and the old men to work with the miniatures.

Many many thanks for your kind assistance.

Greg

Besançon is a city in eastern France so I would guess either the maker or seller of this watch would have been in that city.

Vexiau I am not sure about. It is a French surname so my first guess is that it might be the name of the jewelry store that sold it. My second guess is it could be the name of the guy who won the watch as first prize in their competition. I note that the letters in Vexiau are in a different font than all of the other ones so my guess is that it was engraved by a different engraver than the other words. And my third guess is it could be the name of the guy who made the case with the canon motif on the back.

One scenario is they added the name of the winner after the competition was won? Or it could just be a jewelry company adding their name to someone else's work? I would not think that Vexiau is the name of the watchmaker who made the movement because the normal place for a watchmaker to sign their work is on the movement and not just the a case.

These are just guesses and I would be interested in learning if someone knew for sure.