France French armband ID help please

[Garth Thompson]

I would like a little help in IDing these French armbands.

Thank you in advance,

Garth

Picture #1 I think these two are WW1 staff officer but am not sure.

[Garth Thompson]

Picture #2 I really don't have a clue on these two. Another collector thought they might be for veteran organizations.

[Bison]

Good evening Garth

The first armband is for the Staff officers of a Army Corps, the 6th in this case.

The second (without number) is for the SO of the personal military staff of the French president.

On your second post, it is armbands for veterans after the WW1. As you can see on this picture of Colonel de la Rocque, famous leader of a veteran movement "les croix de feu" after WWI.

Regards

Edited December 10, 2008 by Bison

[Garth Thompson]

Most interesting information, thank you. Is there collector interest in these armbands in France and are the two veteran armbands for distinctly different organizations?

Thanks again,

Garth

[Bison]

Yes it is, obviously. The HQ armbands are quite scarce. They were worn in the 1900's and in the very beginning of WWI.

The others are also fully interesting, but not so rare and related to right wing political movements in the 30's.

To answer your question about the veteran movements :

V.N. stands for "Volontaires Nationaux" (national volonteers) which was a sub organization of the "Croix de feu".

Those who belong to the "Croix de feu" were mentioned during WWI. Those who belong to "V.N." were sympathizers or supporters (but not mentioned veterans ).

The "torch" was also the name and symbol of the newspaper of this organization.

Regards

Bison

Edited December 10, 2008 by Bison

[Garth Thompson]

Thank you for the very informative answers to my questions.

Best regards,

Garth

[PKeating]

Very nice armbands! The Croix de Feu was considered by some to be a far-right organisation, and possibly even fascist, but I would classify them as fairly typical arch-conservatives, like many veterans' organisations. I suppose the deathshead didn't do them any favours with the lefties but I imagine it was more of a traditional Catholic memento mori thing related to the dead of the battlefields than a fascist thing. I always advocate wariness of Wikipedia but this joint essay is a reasonable starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croix-de-Feu.

PK

Edited December 11, 2008 by PKeating