Austro-Hungarian WW1 Ribbon Bar 02

Here is a closeup of Feldmarschalleutnant Ritter H?fer von Feldsturm's 1917 sew on ribbon bar.

Austria-Hungary used a triangular folded ribbon to individually suspend full sized medals. Like the tsarist Russians, these awards were usually worn all the time-- or not at all. Austria came late to ribbon bars, and had not reached any standardized pattern by war's end. Usually 40mm wide full width ribbons were worn which snapped or clipped onto the slightly overlapped horizontal "string" loops used to suspend full sized medals from tunics. But in the case of an exalted or otherwise "overdecorated" person like the General here, to overlap ribbons that way ended up with them piled up almost on end and unmanagably "3-D" as individual ribbons squashed together on individual backings.

So, they were overlapped and either sewn together like here in a single flexible unit or onto a single rigid backing. This was hardly a sattisfactory solution, since 3/4 of a ribbon could be lost, buried under its neighbors. Only the first of the General's ribbons is completely visible.