Saxony reserve mounted artillery helmet

S

souvigny

New member
I purchased this helmet in a french local auction sale one month ago. This saxony helmet was for sale with another saxony infantry helmet. They were both coming from a local estate, typically somebody in this Bourges (center France) family was a WW1 vet.

The helmet, a very large size, is for a mounted (metal chinscales) artilleryman of the 8th saxony campaign artillery regiment n°78 and is perfectly stamped "78.A" into the back visor. The front plate shows the reservist cross.

When I received it I had the great suprise to discover that this helmet has been probably picked up on the battlefield. The top ball is damaged with what I think to be a splinter.

This is exactly the kind of helmet with a story I like the most to collect. Most of my small helmet collection is coming from estates or directly from vet families. If you are interested I can show you some of them with the related stories. In France, its still happens sometimes that we discover war memorabilies with stories.

One of the famous Illustration magazine picture printed during the war shows an upside down trench during winter 1915 full of dead germans and surviving french poilus... It is cold, it is dark, it is like hell and you see one of the guy picking up all the spike helmets on the dead bodies... very impressing but also the evidence that spikes helmet were very appreciated war trophies....

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Great helmet i love the damaged ball this is a helmet with a story :thumb up: 4 years ago i purchased a helmet in France from a old farmer in the Somme region it was stored in his basement for more then 50 years.

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Superbe! Un casque comme on les aime!!
Cool untouched helme!! (But the cokades have to be interchanged... :wink: )
Philippe :salute:
 
Laurent, could you post some picts of the inside of your helmet with markings?
And maybe also a scan of the pict you were talking about, "the helmets picking up".
Thanx!
Philippe :salute:
 
Very nice find! I hope for the guy that he did not have his chin strap fastened when the fragment struck his helmet. By the way, you could change the cockades around, state to the left.
 
Thanks for you comments, you are all right about the cocades but I found it like this and my golden rule is I "don't touch anything...." I post 2 more pictures as some of you requested and the Illustration magazine picture too:

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This picture comes from the most famous and popular french magazine of that period: "L'illustration". The picture has been printed in the number published the 27 march 1915. The picture shows some french "poilus" holding a destroyed german trench in "les hauts de Meuse" area. Next to the "Poilus" dead german and french bodies (the first one is probably french with the according ammunition pouches). The central poilu is holding 2 spike helmets with their cover. Yes, my dear friends collectors, this is this way we have our helmets in our collection today....LEST WE FORGET....

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Very nice helmets. I also frequent France a lot (Verdun area) but never had the luck (yet) to find such a nice piece at a local farmer! :(

Best regards,
Michel
 
Thank you Laurent for the additional picts!
Yes, how right you are, this magazine pict is coming straight from the hell...
Philippe :salute:
 
From Frank Richards' book "Old Soldiers Never Die" page 43. 'Fromelles: First Battle of Ypres'.
'...One night there was an enemy attack which we beat off and the next morning some corpses were to be seen lying just out in front of us: they were wearing spiked helmets. We crawled out the next night and went through their packs, taking anything they had of value from them. The spiked helmets we intended to keep as souvenirs, but we soon came to the conclusion that it was no good keeping souvenirs of that sort when any moment we may be dancing a two-step in another world. So we used them as latrine buckets, throwing them over the parapet at the back when we had used them...'

Private Frank Richards, D.C.M, M.M.
Late of the Second Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers.

"Old Soldiers Never Die is without exception the most valuable account of World War One written from the ranks."
_Robert Graves

Regards,
Francis
 
Wow, that's an interesting helmet! I wonder what caused the 'dent'... I'm thinking not shrapnel, because that's extremely sharp and this metal records something round hitting it.. once? Perhaps a ricocheting bullet or even some round bar object... I love the riddle of it! I have an M16 with a rip from shrapnel in its top and the poor fellow wearing it was probably killed, fell to the ground... the helmet rolled or was blown from his head, then hit.

So.....

About the photo, it does indeed illustrate the waste of war and anybody who doesn't think war is a waste probably hasn't been to one, since nobody comes back from a war 'untouched'. I always consider the lives of the men who wore these helmets and how proud some of them must have been of them! To me, it's sad how 'history' seems to destroy more than it preserves (can you imagine if the Germans had kept the Pickelhaube, at least for parade wear, to the present day!? How cool would that be!). I don't think any of us can look at the photo and not wonder if any of those men survived the war in spite of their victory on that day.

However, it's a fascinating hobby even with its darker side.. because the helmets are just spectacular and the history... intriguing.

:D Ron
 
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