Death's Head and Cavalry units

Pat Holscher · Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:32 am

I was wondering aimlessly on the net and ran across this site with little metal toy soldiers:

http://home.earthlink.net/~soldiers/wwcav.html

Is that depiction of the 17th Lancers correct? I'm surprised to see the death's head painted on the helmet, but then I do not know anything about them.

Pat

Trooper · Tue Oct 21, 2003 7:07 am

Pat,
Try this:
http://www.deathorglory.com/1721motto.htm
Dusan

Trooper · Tue Oct 21, 2003 7:18 am

Pat,
Or this:
http://www.replications.com/17LD/
Dusan

David Webb Φ · Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:05 am

Well, IMO not as an expert on ww1 -
I think that there is a good deal of licence there. The helmet marking looks very wrong (although you can never say an individual did not paint his helmet, at least until an officer noticed it). I would have expected a white, correct badge as per Trooper, small and on the side - if anything at all.
Also, I have doubts about the lance and helmet in comtempory use, and about the white horse for a trooper. And the horse bandolier comtempory with the lance? The lance was very quickly phased out of active service in ww1.
I think they took a standard figure, added a lance and painted the smallest death's head they could that was still recognisable and called it a 17th Lancer.

David Webb

Pat Holscher · Tue Oct 21, 2003 11:29 am

Gordon A. Makinlay, whose set up doesn't allow for direct posting, sent us this reply:

re this thread. That superb British military artist Mike Chappel has shown
in a number of his texts the 17th Lancers skull and 'or Glory' motto, on the
steel helmet during the Great War. It is well recorded also in photographic
evidence.

Also the lance was in use in the the heavy cavalry regiments of the British
Army during the 1914-18 period, the lancer regiments only converted to the
sabre in 1931. Whilst the lance and sabre were important weapons of the
British Cavalry regiments, the main weapon for the cavalry was the 1907
.303. SMLE rifle.

Pat

Pat Holscher · Tue Oct 21, 2003 11:30 am

Does anybody know where there might be on-line photos of the 17th Lancer in WWI?

Pat

Pat Holscher · Sat May 19, 2007 10:16 am

This topic has been kicking around a bit in the context of the use of the Death's Head symbol on SS uniforms. I mention it here, however, not in that context, but rather in the context of its use by cavalry (seemingly mostly Hussar) units.* Indeed, I think it's use by SS units was basically an appropriation by them of a symbol used by Hussars, in an effort to associate themselves with it.*

Here's an interesting example. August von Mackensen wearing the supersized Death's Head:

http://www.gwpda.org/photos/bin04/imag0344.jpg

It looks truly odd to the modern eye, but it had been around for a long time. Robin Smith's Brassey book on the American Civil War Union Army shows the same device in use by a "United States Hussar" during the Civil War. Apparently that unit was a unit of New Jersey militia that changed its name, and its uniform, to the Hussar fashion during the Civil War.

Here's another odd example. On this site various examples of death's heads on Finnish helmets are portrayed at the bottom:

http://www.mosinnagant.net/finland/Finn-Helmets.asp

Most of these Finnish units seem to be cavalry units, and perhaps they picked up that style from German advisers during WWI, when the Germans assisted the Finns in their effort to obtain independence from Russia.

Anyone know the origin of it?

Pat

*Please note I'm not trying to start a thread on the SS, and I'd greatly prefer if people stayed away from it. I'm not attempting to explore their appropriation of various styles, and the SS in general, except for mounted units, is off topic.

Besides, their use of it is fully explained by this video clip (with thanks to Mikko):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsNLbK8_rBY

Trooper · Sat May 19, 2007 11:23 am

Originally Light Dragoons the 17th. became Lancers but retained the Death's Head:
http://www.qrl.uk.com/h_17.html

Dušan

Trooper · Sat May 19, 2007 11:26 am

17th sabretach 1790:
http://news.webshots.com/photo/10552480 ... 9588paBhzF

Dušan

Trooper · Sat May 19, 2007 11:31 am

Drum banners as Lancers :
http://news.webshots.com/photo/14977564 ... 9588tUMdyt

Dušan

Couvi · Sat May 19, 2007 4:20 pm

That is a serious hat on von Mackensen! What is the story there? I would think a hat that big would be a liability on a horse at high speed.

Couvi

"Cavalier sans Cheval"

stablesgt · Sat May 19, 2007 7:47 pm

It is my understanding that the Prussian use of the symbol began in 1713 after the death of King Frederick I. His son, Frederick William I ruled from 1713-1740. Frederick William I was the father of Frederick II (the Great) 1740-1786.

Fr I was a spendthrift and like many rulers of the time admired the lavish court of Louis XIV. His son, FWI hated frippery and the French mode in general. FWI was also parsimonious except in expenditures for his army. He was the "Soldier King" of Prussia who built the tool that FrII then used. He was also the guy who had a fetish for having 6 foot and taller soldiers in his bodyguard regiment, buying, kidnapping any nondeformed 6 footer his agents could find in central Europe.

Now finally for the punchline. Upon the death of his father, the penurious FWI gave him a funeral in the mode the father would have wished. Massive expenditures on lavish funereal decorations including silver embroidered black cloth containing all the usual mourning motifs. After the funeral, the cloth was reused, being made into new uniforms for a hussar regiment. Originally their headdress had on the front a complete skeleton laying on its side holding a scythe. The regiment's motto: Vincere a Mori - Victory or Death. Until 1918, the regt's dress uniform was black trimmed in silver. Somewhere by about 1800 I think, the skeleton was replaced by the large skull and remained so until 1918.

The 17th(?) English hussars and the Hussars of Braunschweig (Brunswick) had small skull with two crossed bones under it. How they came by their insignia, I don't know.

Dave J. · Sat May 19, 2007 9:03 pm

Originally posted by stablesgt

The 17th(?) English hussars and the Hussars of Braunschweig (Brunswick) had small skull with two crossed bones under it. How they came by their insignia, I don't know.

Interesting, since I would most associate the "Death's Head" with crossed bones with the "Jolly Roger." How did that come about?

Pat Holscher · Sat May 19, 2007 9:17 pm

Originally posted by Couvi
 horse at high speed.

Couvi

"Cavalier sans Cheval"

That is one seriously odd hat. And then that huge deaths head. I wonder what it would look like in color?

Pat

Pat Holscher · Sat May 19, 2007 9:19 pm

Originally posted by Dave J.
Originally posted by stablesgt

The 17th(?) English hussars and the Hussars of Braunschweig (Brunswick) had small skull with two crossed bones under it. How they came by their insignia, I don't know.
Interesting, since I would most associate the "Death's Head" with crossed bones with the "Jolly Roger." How did that come about?

It is interesting to note the Jolly Roger use at about the same time. It makes a person wonder what the origin of this grim symbol was?

Pat

Pat Holscher · Sun May 20, 2007 12:28 pm

Absolutely fascinating photograph courtesy of Stablesgt (with more to follow):

Wow, what an image. Prinzessin Viktoria Luise in the uniform of a Hussar. Really a glimpse into a bygone era.

Pat

Pat Holscher · Sun May 20, 2007 12:31 pm

Another great example, courtesy of Stablesgt (no reproduction without his athority).

Pat

Pat Holscher · Sun May 20, 2007 12:34 pm

Here's an example demonstrating that the use of the death's head on peak caps came about well prior to WWII:

Photo courtesy of Stablesgt, no reproduction without permission.

Pat

Couvi · Sun May 20, 2007 4:21 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Pat Holscher
 <blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Dave J.
 <blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by stablesgt

The 17th(?) English hussars and the Hussars of Braunschweig (Brunswick) had small skull with two crossed bones under it. How they came by their insignia, I don't know.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Interesting, since I would most associate the "Death's Head" with crossed bones with the "Jolly Roger." How did that come about?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

It is interesting to note the Jolly Roger use at about the same time. It makes a person wonder what the origin of this grim symbol was?

Pat
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">I have heard that the skull and cross bones used by pirates was a take-off on the symbol of the Pope, the Crown of Saint Peter and the Crossed Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. I have nothing with which to back that up, however.

Couvi

"Cavalier sans Cheval"

Trooper · Sun May 20, 2007 4:46 pm

A history of the pre Nazi use of the symbol including public domain images is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totenkopf

Dušan