Hi guys,
Here's what I was writing sometime ago on the French forum (HM) about this matter :
Les sous-officiers (oui ils existent, ils sont presque toujours oubliés) supérieurs portent un uniforme très proche de celui des officiers, comme les adjudants et adjudants chefs de l'armée française en 1914. Les autres sous-officiers portent un uniforme proche de la troupe, parfois fourni en partie par le corps, d'ordonnance donc. Le feldzeichen est différent de celui de la troupe, et de celui des officiers.
Les engagés d'un an et les aspirants sont équipés de façon hybrides entre uniforme de troupe et d'officier, voir le Larcade, c'est très bien décrit comme toujours. Page 22 et 23 tome II:
- L'engagé d'un an s'équipait à ses frais, donc par "achat privé". Il passait au bout d'un an dans la réserve et y évoluait vers le statut de sous-officier, de sous-officier supérieur, puis d'officier. Un casque d'engagé d'un an peut donc être assez évolutif suivant qu'on le trouve dans sa configuration initiale ou modifiée pour s'adapter à l'évolution du grade de son propriétaire...
- L'aspirant est un militaire d'active et est équipé donc en uniforme d'ordonnance, fourni par le corps. Il peut être autorisé à porter un casque d'officier, qu'il achéte alors à ses frais, voir description détaillée dans Larcade.
Let's try to translate this in good (?) english
Unteroffizier were divided into 2 main corps, with or without porteepée, to simplify: on one side the junior NCOs and on the other side the senior NCOs... senior NCOs, mainly vize-feldwebel and feldwebel, could wear a uniform very similar to the officer type, just like adjudant and adjudants chef in the French army in 1914... The junior NCO had to wear a uniform close to the enlisted man, privately purchased and probably sometimes provided by the quartermaster, since the wages of a young sergeant could certainly not sustain the purchase of the full kit, parade uniform and field gear, that's why we find NCO items marked after the regiment.... Of course a sergeant could, especially in war time, become a vize feldwebel..... if he was posted on the Champagne front or on the Russian front, we can assess that he could not go back to the tailor of his hometown, to purchase a more luxuous vize felddewel tschapska..... the only way to distinguish himself from a sergeant would have been to pick up some locally available offizer rosette..... This situation is also thrue for a corporal promoted sergeant..... Can we imagine that he would at once travel back to the logistics zone, some kilometers behind the front, to get his uniform changed ? He had just to find some stripes and to sew them on his EM uniform....
We also have the case of the one year volunteer, einjahrfreiwillige.... they wear a mixted uniform, made from officer and EM stuff, .... it's well described in the Larcade, if necessary I can try to translate that page.... on top of this situation, the volunteer was released after one year and was assigned in the reserve section, where he could move towards the NCO status, junior NCo, then senior NCO and finally reserve officer.....
Concerning the aspirant, I don't remember the word in English, he's an active military, and he's therefore equipped by the corps, he can be authorized to wear an officer type helmet, that he has to buy at his own expenses, ... that's again well described in Larcade's book.....
In conclusion, we can find a lot of hybrides helmets, some collectors change them to bring them back to the "regulation" or what they beleive to be the regulation, .... it's a bit a pity since in certain cases, when these helmets are untouched, they are the reflect of little know regulation, or the reflect of the local situation somewhere on the front, far from the military tailor, and also sometimes the reflect of the use after the war, during commemorative parades....
hope this helps, if you have any reaction on what I write, please feel free to give your opinion, I'm not sure that what I suppose is the ultimate truth
and I would be happy to get more experienced collector to share their views :thumb up:
Steve
