Landships II

Hello James

The nice book "Geschichte der eidgenössischen Militäruniformen 1852 bis 1992" ("The history of the federal military uniforms 1852 to 1992") says that the change from the blue uniform to the grey uniform took several years. There is a photograph that even in the 20's blue and grey uniforms were in use.

On October 28th, 1914 (!) the Swiss executive council decided to use only fieldgrey fabrics for future uniforms.

In 1916 most of the swiss servicemen wore the fieldgrey uniform.

During the war it was very difficult to get the grey fabric. The swiss bought uniform fabric in the US, but there were significant colour differences with the grey fabric in use. The colours to dye this fabric weren't non-fading and so, the uniforms changed to a brown colour.

Hope this helps a little.
Thomas

Thanks to Thomas B's lead, have dug up some more. Found a description that translates as follows:

The new uniform recognised that in an age of aerial reconnaisance and machine-guns conspicuous uniforms are of little value. The radically altered uniform was of field-grey material. The tunic (Waffenrock), cut in the Austrian style, had a stand collar and a row of 6 buttons, covered or uncovered, usually stamped with a Swiss cross.

Breast- and skirt-pockets were added. Collar, cuffs, and certain seams were piped in the arm-of-service colour. The new field-grey greatcoat no longer carried a red collar patch.

The peaked service cap was widely replaced by the new (Austrian-style) forage cap, which had earflaps that could be pulled down and fastened at the front with two buttons.  Cyclists retained the service cap but in the new field-grey, and their tunic had a fold-down collar.

From 1917 all piping was changed to black, and the arm-of-service colour worn only on the collar and sleeve. At the same time the cuffs were slightly lengthened. The shako was fitted with a grey cover for camouflage, and in 1918 a steel helmet* was introduced.

*The original text says Stahlhelm, but this appears to be not the Stahlhelm but Switzerland's own pattern. I've seen one or two of these on Ebay with uncertain descriptions, but I think it's safe to say that this was worn by the Swiss from 1918 until post-WWII. It's not unlike one of the American experimental models; perhaps that's where it came from.

The greatcoat is described as a Kaput (not to be confused with kaputt). This seems to be a Swiss/Austrian dialect word that I would assume comes from the French equivalent, capote.

And, frustratingly, there's the same problem with the naming of headgear as we had with the Belgians. What I've translated as service cap looks like a kepi but is described as a Quartiermütze, meaning garrison- or barracks-cap. Unhelpfully, in some armies the garrison cap is the wedge-shaped, fore-and-aft sidecap. The Belgian (Flemish/Dutch) word is kwartiermuts. And what I've called the forage cap is called in the original text a Policemütze, clearly on the same principle as the bonnet de police as worn by the Belgians. I haven't been able to find the word Policemütze in any German dictionary, and the search for the origin of bonnet de police was not entirely conclusive. Plus, of course, some armies refer to the garrison cap as a forage cap. Perhaps Thomas B can throw some light on this.

Anyway, here are some pics that bear out the above, as far as I can tell.

1&2: Officer's Quartiermütze. 3&4: Waffenrock. 5: Adjutant in the Air Service, with black piping. 6: Steel helmet.

Feel free to add or correct.

Al, those are terrific. The first must show the Swiss mobilisation during the FP War. The second shows the 6-pouch ammunition belt, known as the Argentinian model. The third is particularly interesting; the man is in field-grey and the illustration of the watchtower (Beobachtungsturm) is clearly based on one that can be seen here: http://www.schweizer-festungen.ch/1914-18_ww1.htm

His helmet doesn't look like the Swiss Stahlhelm. Is it an Adrian or something else? It looks a bit like the temporary French cuirassier-à-pied model. Maybe an improvisation or even a fireman's.

The last pic bears out Thomas's claim about both grey and blue still being in use at the end of the War.

Thanks a lot for sharing them.

This pic is claimed to be of French cuirassiers à pied in 1915. As discussed elsewhere, they briefly wore the standard cuirassier helmet with the crest removed. Is it possible that when the Adrian was issued France did a deal with Switzerland and sold them the surplus helmets?

This is an odd shaped helmet. Very close to the German Stahlhelm. But the odd shape of the helmet does not seem like it would protect the head as well as the German Stahlhelm. Why would the Swiss design it like this? My thoughts are that it might be easier to produce, easier to cook soup in, or just might block the sun better. What do you all think?

I found out the Swiss helmets were also their firemens helmets. So they just took Swiss firemen helmets and gave them to the troops.

-- Edited by Trenchfoot at 02:05, 2008-03-27

-- Edited by Trenchfoot at 02:10, 2008-03-27

I should have thought that the Swiss military version came first, although, of course, the Adrian was originally based on the French fire helmet.

The suggestion that the Swiss was connected with an experimental U.S. helmet was just a thought, but I've found a couple of claims that that was the case. Nothing conclusive, though. There are accounts of troops accidentally wearing them back-to-front because of the unusual design (including a senior officer, much to the amusement of the ranks).

I've also read that the Swiss conducted tests on the German Stahlhelm and considered theirs an improvement.

The U.S. ones are shown below. Unfortunately, the producer of the DVD has removed it from Youtube, presumably so that people will buy it rather than watch it for free.

Gentlemen,

"The new steel helmet, model 18"

After a longer evaluation the authorities decided during the last war year to indroduce the steel helmet developed by Mr. Paul Boesch and Mr. E.A. Gessler.
First, the Werker factory at Baden and later the Metallwarenfabrik at Zug produced the helmets.

It was difficult to produce those helmets so at the beginning no more than 250 helmets a day were made. Eventually 603'000 Stahlhelme were fabricated.

There were two sizes ("A" and "B") and the weight was 1220 - 1230 g. The material was 1,5mm thick manganese steel. The costs were 22.50 Swiss Francs per unit - a lot of money those days!
The helmets were painted olive green.

In 1932 there was an export order for 10'000 pieces for Brasil.

In 1941 the army bought 160'000 white cotton covers for the mountain troops helmets  and 475'000 grey green fabric camouflaged covers.

In 1943 all helmets got a new field grey matt coat.

Before WW II a few fire brigades used the helmet (Zurich for example) and after WW II those helmets were used by fire brigades and the Luftschutz service in large scales. For those services there was a lighter aluminium version available.

Today the civil protection still uses the Stahlhelm M18 (the alu version, too), painted yellow.

Since 1976 the Swiss Army uses the Stahlhelm 71.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Thomas

Yes, that's thanks to one of Albert Kahn's photographers. They're on the Swiss side of the border south of Pfetterhausen. Kahn's man photographed the sentries on the French side; some of these blokes were in the background and must have persuaded him to do one of them. See the rest here:

http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=63528&p=3&topicID=11841622

Several pics of them on the net described as Belgians, but not the case.

If anyone is interested, there's a book on the Swiss in the War:

Die Schweizer Armee im Ersten Weltkrieg by Hans R Fuhrer.

http://www.buecher.de/shop/Buecher/Die-Schweizer-Armee-im-Ersten-Weltkrieg/Fuhrer-Hans-R-/products_products/detail/prod_id/23877153/

Also, a patriotic film was made in 1941 called Gilberte de Courgenay, about Swiss independence and neutrality in 1914. There are a couple of clips on Youtube.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8ob-qh3zVNI



-- Edited by James H at 16:22, 2008-12-18

A couple more pics of the Eplattenierhelm:

Ironsides wrote:

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Hi Trenchfoot, could be the othere way round, giving army helmets to the firemen as often happened with the french adrian helmet..

Cheers

...as happened with many other military helmets. After 1945 many fire brigades had German helmets, I remember in my home town, they were just painted black with a white 'crest' on top. British helmets used by civil defence, Adrians with (traffic) or ordinary police, Dutch police with pre war models (I think still produced in slight plainer version after the war)...
The picture is from a Tintin volume, I hope mrs. Herge will forgive me.

regards, Kieffer

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