Thomas W

The German assault-battalion commander with Austrian personnel. Unfortunately the album doesn't say where the training took place.

Grenade launcher.

Flamethrower.

Preparing to go over the top.

Trench mortar.

Attention!

Austrian officer firing a Russian Maxim.

I just bought a family album that has several photos of Austrian officers and NCOs observing Sturmbataillon Nr. 14 in a training exercise.

Don't know. I've never seen a Bluse in the flesh, as it were. Maybe some of our collector friends can answer...

By the way, I have plenty of photos on men wearing the Bluse without shoulder straps. Even though regulations said the straps had to be sewn on, either the men cut them off, or the jackets were issued with removable straps. Here are men attending a Minenwerfer-Kursus in the Vosges, February 28, 1918. Three of them wear Bluse without shoulder straps.

Actually, I was talking about the M.1910 Waffenrock only, not the Bluse. That's why I posted a photo of a flamethrower pioneer wearing an M.1910 Waffenrock. I didn't mention that I was talking only about the M.1910 Waffenrock, because I assumed everyone understood that. The metal numbers on officers' straps could be removed, and the numbers on helmet covers were often removed or covered with squares of cloth. Soldiers with the Bluse often wore slip-on covers for their shoulder straps to hide the numbers. Here are a bunch of pioneers with Bluse and M.1910 Waffenrock, wearing both rolled straps and slip-on covers for the straps.

Ding-ding-ding-ding! Give that man a cigar! The 12th Company of the III. Garde-Pionier-Bataillon.

From what I gather, it was more to prevent the enemy from identifying units by sight before an action. The enemy might be observing troop movements through periscopes or telescopes, or they might interrogate captured prisoners who saw the unit in question moving up on the line, for example. The rolled straps would prevent initial identification.

Well, but the one man rolled up his straps, which would expose the number on the strap beneath. I have no idea.

Double shoulder straps! Very strange. I've never seen that before. Each man seems to have two straps on each shoulder.

Sturmbataillon Nr. 15:

Thanks very much, Uwe. I appreciate it.

Here's what he wrote on the back of the card. Can anybody translate?

Here's Pionier Schwarz (II), of the Ersatz-Kompagnie, III. Garde-Pionier-Bataillon, about to go off to set things on fire:

Even more anachronistic: The same standard bearers walking behind the Kaiser and von Hutier as they review submachine gunners armed with the MP18/1.

A French magazine--Ligne du Front--is looking for historian/writers who specialize in the German army of World War II. They pay for the articles, which can be submitted in English. If you're an expert and can write, send me a private message and I'll give you the editor's e-mail address. He wasn't any more specific than what I've written here, so you'll have to work out the details with him.

Late-war bantam.

Infanterie-Regiment No. 105.

An even smaller kid.

I've got plenty of German bantams in my collection.