Hello MG34M5
wiki.genealogy.net
wiki.genealogy.net
Thank you for making me look into the Hessian 418R:
By making me look at the 418R, I've just solved a 40-year-old riddle. I had bought a Hessian helmet, M95/14 on a flea market in Jarny, and inside there was a label, ‘Chateau de Moncel’.
I never paid much attention to it. But now I read that the 418R was raised in Metz, and that the Staff of the Army-Abteilung Strantz was precisely in this Chateau. Furthermore, the 418R fought throughout the war, between Metz and Verdun, on a front of about fifty kilometres.


It is marked R.B.A. It is an M95/14 because it does not have a cross-head base. At the time of its creation, fighting took place in Stahlhelm, so either a ‘rear’ helmet, or a helmet still worn at the front with a helmet cover, although in 16, grey iron M15s were in the majority. These helmets were no longer used by the regiment at that date (1916). I will examine it carefully to check that it is not nominative.
Some helmets, like mine, are transfers from an ex-Prussian JR81 from Hesse-Cassel, the holes for the eagle have been plugged and new eyelets have been drilled for the lion. But others were built new with the holes for the lion.
