Carol I

Military Order of Christ (Portugal)

Military Order of St. Benedict of Aviz (Portugal)

Order of St. James of the Sword (Portugal)

Order of Tower and Sword (Portugal)

(I do not think that these badges were matched in the museum.)

Order of Our Lady of Conception of Villa Vi?osa (Portugal) - another one

Order of Our Lady of Conception of Villa Vi?osa (Portugal)

Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Savoy)

(This was unfortunately in a vertical display.)

Order of Naval Merit (Spain)

Order of Military Merit (Spain)

Order of the Sword (Sweden)

Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen House Order

(This was in a big case and I could not get a better picture. )

Order of Albert I (Saxony)

Order of the Crown of Prussia

Unfortunately the badge was too close to the light in the display box (the white 'thing' at the bottom of the image).

Order of the Red Eagle (Prussia)

Order of Carlos III (Spain) - collar

Order of Carlos III (Spain)

Order of the Legion of Honour (France)

Bravo!! It is so difficult to take such close photos without any reflection of the flash...

Yes it is difficult to avoid the reflections, but this time I took advantage of the stable base offered by the glass top and did not use the flash. Only the light from the display cases, which sometimes had shed strange shadows or had confused the camera.

If you have more to post, please do!!!!

This Museum is very nice, with so many lovely pieces!!!

Will do in a sec.

These are excellent pics .

Thank you for the kind words, Christophe.

How did you take them? Did you manage the box to be opened ?

Nothing of the sort. I just put my camera on the top glass of the display box and let it do the rest (I was afraid that his would set off some alarm, but fortunately I had a small camera). It happened of course that I had to try several times to get a good picture, but generally it went OK. I have several other pictures taken there, but I did not know if people were interested in them or not.

thanks for the additional info, I did write in my post "I have been told it was traditonal for units to adopt children and they would be raised in the barracks."

I used the term mascot to diffentitiate between writing "soldier's child" which could heve been misinterprited as the soldier own children.

I did not mean to contest your statement, but only wanted to make clear that the children were not adopted by chance as symbol-mascots of the military units. The closest translation in English of copil de trupă (plural copii de trupă) probably is 'troop child' ('troop children').

Can you supply any more information with regards this practise?

I do not know much more than I have already written since the practice has been discontinued after WWII. Basically it was one way to support disadvantaged children. Probably it started as a way to support the orphaned children of fallen comrades in the unit, but then extended to other disadvantaged children as well. Most of the children probably remained in the army, with the brightest ones going through officer's schools, but I think there were some cases of troop children choosing civilian careers.

Thanks for the prompt reply, but I am interested in the awards presented to King Carol of Romania and to Crown Prince (later King) Ferdinand.

Are there any records for the orders of the German states presented to foreign royalty during the period of the German Empire?

While searching through the place I discovered this picture, dated the 14 April 1931, and which shows 3 men of the Romanian Mountain Artillery Corp and their boy-mascot, I have been told it was traditonal for units to adopt children and the would be raised in the barracks.

These children (copii de trupă) were no mascots of the units that adopted them. They were usually orphans and the military units were responsible not only for raising them, but also for providing an education for them.

Commander's cross of the Austrian Order of Franz Joseph in the collections of the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum in Copenhagen

Grand Cross insignia of the Austrian Order of Franz Joseph in the collections of the Maritime Museum in Lisbon