OK, here is where I am on this....
This tunic has the following points and questions....
1) It never had loops for an EK1
2) Everything points to these Major boards being original to this piece, pedigree going back 40-45 years and back then not bought from anyone in the Militaria scene.
3) A question mark because the boards have a red underlay, this pattern for infantry should have a white underlay. (The regiment had red until 1915, white after 1915)
So ... what is needed is to find a Major who never received an EK1 ... and an explanation as to why there are 1915-16 boards with a red undelay.
On a separate thread Dave Mosher is trying the same exercise with a GGR 2 uniform, but I have a big advantage, the Bavarian Records are there to look the men up. I was able to read the records of all men who served in the Leib Regiment as Major, or were ex Leib Regiment serving in other units.
Initially there was only one candidate with no EK1. As he was killed in the first week of the war, there was absolutely no explanation for the boards which are later boards, and the loops do not correspond.
The loops are for a small ribbon bar and not for a medal bar with a thick pin
So... I thought I had struck a dead end, and went through all the records again... and then I struck gold.....
First off... From what I see the whipcord uniforms were almost exclusively a field tunic, the material made for rough conditions, as seen by the fact that the colonial uniforms were made out of the same material. These were not only frowned on on the homefront, but the material was forbidden at some stage in the war.
So, the officer I found, an older major (Born 1871) who before the war was attached to the Bavarian Royal family, first as Military Tutor and Military travel Companion/Escort to a young Herzog, then as Personal Adjutant to Crown Prince Rupprecht.
The uniforms of the Flugal Adjutant for the various Kings is pretty much the same for Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Würrt. etc... But the Personal Adjutant for Crown Princes has some gaps in it... Prussia and Saxony have red underlayed shoulder boards, like the Flugal Adj. but for Bavarian it just says "Uniform of the Parent unit"... I would say it is a logical conclusion that even if not mentioned in the texts we have available, that the Bavarian Crown Princes Adj would have aligned with the Prussian and Saxon, just was all the Flugal Adj's were aligned... i.e. Red underlayed boards... and he would not have remained the odd man out as the only adjutant (King or Crown Prince) not to have the red underlay... especially since his regimental underlay was Red up until 1915 anyway...
Bavarian Flügel Adj had the red underlay and the same golden Crown that the Leib Regiment had… so we are more or less talking the same boards here…
if anyone has any thoughts on this, please add them below....
The awards.... the loops for the bar fits what he would have had in 1916.
In Mid 1915 he transferred from his duties as Adj to Rupprecht back to the Leib Regiment... but officially he was still Crown Prince Adj, this he stayed until mid June 1916 when he was finally “officially” transferred from Rupprechts service back to the Leib Regiment…. So until mid June 1916 he would have been wearing Adj. Boards… which in the Bavarian case would have been red underlayed with a gold crown… just like the Leib Regiment…
Now, the EK1… the officer in question did indeed receive the EK1… in the last week of june he was
1) Buried in a collapsed celler after a heavy shell landed on their position,
2) Awarded the EK1
3) Suffered what seems to have been a heart attack
4) Transferred to hospital, back to Bavaria, then months in a sanatorium to recover.
Being a professional officer as well as a nobleman who served (in Leib Regiment uniform) almost 5 years with the royal family, I think it safe to assume that he had a rather complete wardrobe. For this reason I am further going to assume that this field tunic went into the wardrobe and was maybe never worn again, hence the lack of loops for the ek. His service after June 1916 were restricted to a sanitorium stay, a passage through the Leib regiment Ersatz battalion, a stint in an office as head of the recruiting depot in München, then an honorable discharge from the army in Mid 1917.
Having read through many records over the years, he seems to have been one of those cases where heart problems and maybe shell shock led to him being sent back home.
As the months in uniform back in München would probably have been spent in a standard Rock, Kleinerock or Litewka, it is very unlikely that this tunic would ever have been worn again, and therefore I think it safe to assume an EK1 was never worn on it.
I welcome any thoughts….
The whole way through, I have made an effort not to fall into the “wishful thinking” mode… i.e. to stick to plausible, likely, believable conclusions….
So we have
- A tunic with no name
- Boards which are very likely to be original to the piece
- 1 Possible wearer
- A logical explanation as to why the boards do not have a white underlay
- The post June 1916 events indicate it was very likely he never wore this in the period after his EK1 award, hence no loops.
I welcome any critical thinking here… if anyone has any “yeah… but you forgot”s to add, please feel free…
Best
Chris
Were officers of the unit sent to other units upon mobilisation? I have a photo of Bavarian Leib Regiment officers in Leiber uniform, serving in the 1st Bavarian Reserve Inf Regt (for instance)
