I respectfully disagree. JMB never worked on HP. And he was never tasked with adaptation of his 1911 design for European market. Saive was tasked to come up with something for French trials, and he designed hi-cap magazine and adapted 1903 design to meet French preliminary requirements and fit this 15-round magazine. He sent two samples to JMB and JMB worked on them. That was last JMB involvement in the series of projects that resulted in "High Power". Read on. French kept changing requirement and at this point not just Saive but also Val (JMB son who was working in Belgium) contributed to French trials project and result was so called Model of 1922 (that was in 9mm Luger, don't confuse it with Serbian adaptation of M1910 in 9mm BrS which later was called M1922, totally different pistols). So at this point project drifted very far from what JMB worked on with two samples of adapted 1903. I can't find online picture of French trial Model 1922 but it's in the book. Now after 1922 there were many changes as French kept changing requirements. Eventually FN branched the project and Saive finalized project called "Grand Rendement". FN was reluctantly sending to French new samples meeting their everchanging requirements, but newly branched Grand Rendement was marketed and ready to be produced in 1928-1929. Belgium military got interested in 1931 and ordered 1000 or GRs for field trials. They submitted their feedback and their requirements and Saive came out with Grand Puisannce which is "High Power" in English. As you can see there's no JMB involvement, there's no "working around patents" etc. I would not recommend trust Wikipedia or inetrenet articles, but rather look into books specialized on subject.
I also don't agree HP design was not successful. In Europe apart of some exception 1911 design was not successful. And these days it's popular in North America only, just because it's iconic for US collectors and shooters. That is if we measure with sales figures. As Europe after WW2 has seen decay of private firearms ownership we can't really say that HP design was failure (add to this that is Europe traditional personal defense firearm was small and with smaller calibers and even officers preferred small 7.65 handguns). If we look to military and police contracts then HP was widely adopted across the world. Really 1911 and HP can't be compared as they were results of different requirements and served on different markets. The legacy of JMB works is undisputed, true, however legacy of M1911 is limited to North America and those who follow US gun history. In Europe and other parts of the world M1911 is not iconic at all. With many countries and nations on single continents there's greater variety in taste and opinions.
