joerookery
Well-known member
The Grand Duchy of Baden, a German state since the twelfth century, was a member state of the Germanic Confederation between 1815 and 1866. Baden fought on the side of Austria during the 1866 war, lost and paid Prussia an indemnity of 6 million guilders. A Prussian general was placed in command of Baden’s troops by the Grand Duke beginning in 1867 and all forces from Baden were trained according to the Prussian model. The military became a contingent of the Prussian army on 25 November 1870. Baden became a state of the German Empire in 1871 reserving however, certain separate privileges (Sonderrechte). By the treaty under which Baden had become an integral part of the German empire, the Grand Duke Frederick, reserved the exclusive right to tax beer and spirits; the army, the post-office, railways and the conduct of foreign relations were placed under the effective control of Prussia. The government of Baden was a hereditary constitutional monarchy with a parliament consisting of two chambers. The upper chamber was composed of all the princes of the reigning family, certain members of the nobility and eight members nominated by the grand-duke. The lower chamber consisted of 73 popular representatives, of whom 24 were elected by the burgesses of certain towns and 49 by the rural communities. Every male citizen of 25 years of age had a vote and balloting was secret. The elections were indirect; the citizens nominating the Wahlmonner and the latter electing the representatives. This system was changed in 1904 with the introduction of direct secret voting. This actually led to a left leaning alliance of liberals and socialists to put the Catholics under control. The capital city was Karlsruhe, the 38th largest city in the empire. The population was 1.8 million in 1900. Catholics outnumbered evangelicals by 2:1.
The internal politics of Baden centered on religion. The signing of a concordat with the Holy See which placed education under the oversight of the clergy led to a constitutional struggle won by the Protestants. In 1867 a law was passed to compel all candidates for the priesthood to pass government examinations. The archbishop of Freiburg resisted, and, on his death in April 1868, the See was left vacant. The “Kulturkampf " raged in Baden and lasted throughout the 1870s. Not until 1880 was there reconciliation with Rome. In 1882 the archbishopric of Freiburg was again filled.
Consuls were maintained for trade with Bavaria, Belgian, the Netherlands, Austria-Hungary, Portugal, Russia, Norway, Spain, Württemberg, Argentina, Colombia, Greece, Mexico, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Great Britain, Honduras, Italy, Persia, Rumania, Switzerland, Turkey, Venezuela, USA, Paraguay, and Serbia.
Most of the initial army of Baden was concentrated in XIV corps. However, there seemed to be a lot of mixed equipment early in the war. While there are several pictures of mixed wappen. The ones from Baden seem the most numerous like this example.
There does not seem to be a good concrete reason for this as opposed to other Army Corps Districts that I am aware of. However, it continued into the Ersatz era. this just leads to a lot of questions that I have not heard the answer yet. Julius Jensen provided a great deal of the prewar leather helmets which quickly became supplemented by many other firms early in the war.\
The purchasers for Ersatz seem to have gone far afield. For instance the first metal helmets seem to have been purchased from Berlin and most of the Filz helmets came from the area of Guben. We know that many of the Prussian kit helmets such as those pictured below came from Firma von der Heyden --Berlin after their contract with Bavaria. Did the ones with Baden wappen come from the same firm?
There seems to be a significant number of non-regulation helmet conversions. Active officers pickelhauben had a motto on the bottom. Reserve ones did not. However, there are many examples of helmets with a Landwehr cross and a motto. To convert it often the only thing that had to be done, or one of the few things to be done was to add a Landwehr cross to the active wappen.
Baden used a Landwehr Cross that had a motto to the grand Duke instead of the King.
