Chris Boonzaier

Hi, thanks, I thought maybe high ranking NCOs or maybe officers with a wartime commision that they could not expect to buy their own swords. Best Chris

I think along with the MC and EK one of the best designs ever.... Nice babies!

Nah...Ebay boy... ;-)

Fantastic! I am jealous... to say the least! What do the citations say? Best Chris

Found this in the back of a cupboard in the basement, forgot i had it... A plaque from the technical Hochschule in berlin, to honor the dead 14-18. Erich Riecke died on the 27th of March 1918. Unfortunately no indication of where and what unit....

Want to learn what the Jebu war was? Like to see an medaille Coloniale document for the annexation of Tunisia? See whats new! http://www.kaiserscross.com/152301.html

Nice pic! Have never seen that before. I wonder if it was private initiative?

Hi, on the back it is addressed to a wife by a "Comrade of your husbands" saying basically "Here is your unwashed husband at the front" Best Chris

INdeed, it is Sudeten and Austria. His name was Cornel Dumbacher, was a leutnant der Reserve. All I know was he lived in Schmeeberg, close to W?rzburg, so may have been in the infantry regiment Wrede. In April 1915 joined a Feldersatzbataillon and then went off to the front, the whole time on the Western front in an unknown Bavarian unit.

Niiiiiiiiiiiiice!

aaaaaaaaahhhhh that is very possible... I had not thought of that.

Were next to the scanner, so here is most of mine. The Tchad one is an Outre mer of course.

Here is one to the 23rs Chasseur a Pied, he served in Tunis in 1881, the first actions (Although not that much fighting took place)

fantastic !!!!!

Hmmm... possible, but wouldnt it be 1 komp Pionier Battalion 2, 35th weapon? 1. Pionier Zug 35 would be unusual ?

Hi, Am I correct in thinking that someone living in GSWA and being in the reserves (at least attending the odd bear session) could also dress up as the great white hunter in the 1930s after having never really served actively in Africa? there must have been folks living there in the quiet periods who qualified as "Colonial soldiers" by being angemeldet as reservists .... but never touched a rifle?

Hi, its a definate P, just scans badly. best Chris

Above sent to his sister and stamped "Foreign Legion mounted company) in 1915

Night on the town? How about the Cafe des Arcades or Grand Cafe in Colomb Bechar?

I have been doing a bit of reading on the Bat d'Af. Veteran is right, they have little to do with the Legion in later years, but it seems that up until the 1930s they actually had quite a bit in common as to how they were used. From the WW2 era onwards they existed as prison companies, but from their creating until after the Rif War they were a combat unit for inhospitable places/forts in the desert, and there are many Legion like accounts for how and where they fought. This superb card below shows Legionnaires and Bat d'Af troups in Morocco in 1913... Below... Tatahouine.... main clain to fame (in google) is a meteorite struck there in 1931, and it was a "Foreign Legion prison"..... was also the Bat d'af HQ.

Classic fort in the desert....

I did not know the French kept german POWs in Morocco.....

From the inhospitable Colomb Bechar... from what i understand, this concerns a Legionnaire who changes his name and nationality, (To Dutch). I think it may be a German Legionnaire during the war....

Left 3.F.M.G.K.299 Right 39.2 Kp FLA.M.G.Abt.912

Left, marked 1.P.2.35 (the 2 is upside down) (This one was frowned on some time ago here on the forum, but I am still pretty sure the stamps are period. Right, a classic KS piece.