... on closer inspection of that photo of the musicians, there's something curious going on. This is how I would expect the 1916 tunic of an NCO in Palestine should look...
That ones from the Bavarian army museum, and is described in detail in "The German Army in the First World War" J Kraus (Verlag Militaria 2004). Note plain shoulder straps, no breast pockets, rank insingia on the collar.
Now have a look at one of your guys-
Nice EK and Turkish War Medal but see the rank insignia as chevrons on the upper left arm. That's unusual for Palestine, but always done by the Schutztruppe on khaki uniforms. He's also got breast pockets like the Schutztruppe. I didn't think that was too odd at first. "Die feldgraue Uniformierung des deutschen Heeres 1907-1918" by J Kraus and W Hanne (Verlag Militaria 2009) describes a 1917 tunic for other ranks in Palestine that did have breast pockets.
But then look at this chap-
Again nice EK, but the shoulder straps don't look plain khaki but more like flecked or striped. A bit like the Schutztruppe-
Note the similarity in pockets. Could it be that the 1917 khaki tunic described was in fact surplus 1896 Schutztruppe uniforms being re-issued? We know their helmets are re-issued East Asian ones.
To confuse things further, see this guy-
He's again got the flecked shoulder strap, but has his rank insignia
as button on the collar... I won't get any sleep tonight at this rate!
Cheers
Chris
