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    Today I was lucky enough to complete the set... A Mannschafts Tschako which belonged to Karl Hesselbach. It is in such good shape because he was only a Jäger for 2 months before being badly enough wounded that he never saw the front again. A bullet wound to the thigh on the 30th October 1916 in Romania. He joined the 2nd Reserve Jäger battalion after they were pulled out of the fighting at verdun. The Battalions had suffered heavy losses and needed new men and material....

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    Chris

    I just noticed the Feldmütze is in half size, thats got to be quite scarce I would have thought....neat dam its minty!

    Eric

    The really interesting thing is the XVI stamp. It took a bit of research to find out why an Alpenkorps item would have one of those in it. After their stint in Verdun the combat units of the Alpenkorps were sent to the XVI Korps area in the Argonne, here they recieved many new replacement soldiers to make up for their losses at Verdun, as well as being resupplied with new kit. (One of the replacements was the guy whose Tschako is first on the thread). In the meantime the XVI sent combat troops to fight at Verdun, which they did under the command of the Alpenkorps staff.

    I am not sure why the cockades are not the sew on ones, but I assume that to resupply for bavarian Jägers was much more difficult to resupply for regular infantry, especially as the XVI Korps was not Bavarian...

    It is one of my favourite pieces, even though it was not at Verdun ;-)

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    Here are Hesselbachs signatures... its actually not a very comman name, so I only found one with the Jäger and the signature on his documents was the same as in the Tschako.

    As I said, rather an identified item from a guy who was not really the super warrior you wanted, than an unidentified one.

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    An account of the action where Hesselbach of the 3rd Company was wounded. He was not one of the ersatz that joined the night before the action, he had been assigned to the company 20 days before on the 9th of October

    Cumpana

    27 – 30th October 1916)

    After the memorable push at Salatrucal and avoiding an enemy effort to surround us, the 2. bay. Res. Bat. was tasked, along with the I./ Inf. Leib Regt. with an advance on the railway station Cumpana. The battalion of the Leib Regiment arrived at the objective during the afternoon, we, the Jägers, had difficult terrain to cross and we arrived in the evening.

    Cumpana was a railhead at the source of the Argesul. It consisted of a nice Villa, a number of Lumberjack huts and a lumber yard. On the night of the 29th “Ersatz” (Replacements) arrived. A number of old friends who had been wounded at Verdun returned but the majority had never had been under fire. These new replacements had been marching to the rear with the “Rekrutendepot” and had not yet experienced the earnestness of war. That very night the new arrivals were allocated to the companies and entered in the Kriegsstamrollen. Nobody could foresee that in a few hours a number of them would have a Blue Cross added to their entry with the notation “Gefallen bei Cumpana” (Killed at Cumpana).

    In the early morning on the 29th of October the attack was to continue. The 3rd company was to advance through the valley along the railway and river while the other companies were to advance and push the enemy back along the high ground.

    It was a bitterly cold morning! Shortly after our depart the railway line traversed the river. To the left of the tracks were large stacks of wood, waiting to be loaded for the journey to the Walachei. Here the company came under fire from the Romanians and suffered quite a number of casualties. The remainder took cover behind the woodpiles and gathered their wits then scanned the terrain searching for the enemy. They were well positioned on the slope. Any attempt to move forward was met with heavy fire.

    Our company commander, Oblt. Otto Kühn, showed what he was made of. Calmly smoking his Cigar, Pistol in his right hand, riding crop in the left and still hindered by a wound he had suffered in 1914, he charged across the freezing river. The rest of the company followed him up the slope. There was to be no close combat, the Romanians broke, a few of them made it back into the forest, the majority were captured.

    It was soon apparent that we had overrun a forward position and during the next two days we battled forward, the fighting in the difficult terrain costing us many casualties. In the end 3rd Company had 11 men killed and 60 wounded. The Battalion would leave almost 30 men behind in the quiet, isolated Argesultal (Argesul valley).

    (Hans Rogali, 3./ b. Res. Jg. Btl. Nr. 2.)

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    • 1 year later...
    • 2 weeks later...

    An interesting thing, Kraus has a few sample boards showing the Feldmutze Cockades with the Splints on the back being the correct issue ones from 1916 onwards. Before that they had been for NCO Peaked caps, but in 1916 became standard for NCO and other ranks Peaked caps and Feldmütze. I had always assumed they were private issue rondels.

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    That's right. After 1915 (Sept.21 regulations) the spit prong cockades were used for all enlisted and non-Portepee NCOs, especially on new Schirmmützen. Examples of newly issued Feldmützen with them are also known.

     

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