Austrian General's tunic id help

[mravery]

Hello All,

I'm picking up an Austrian gneral's tunic.. but unfortunatly there is no name in the tunic.....

I'm hoping by the rank, location of the tailor and award loops we can narrow down the list.

I believe the tunic is the pre-war pattern (though I'm not sure of the correct period)

Rank is that of General der **.......

Tunic was made in Przemsyl

There are loops for 6 breast badges and no loops for breast stars (odd )

Glenn ???????????? where are you

[mravery]

makers label.......

[ottomaton]

Is this the one that was up for auction at the Dorotheum last week? I thought they had one that looked exactly like this that came with a name.

[mravery]

No... this one is coming from a friend of mine.

Do you have the item number for the one at Dorotheum ?

Cheers
Mark

[ottomaton]

http://dorotheum.internationalauctio...315&AucID=6445

[mravery]

Thanks Ottomaton !

Another question fo the group.... What is the dress regs for this style tunic... I have seen it in wear with the fore-n-aft hat and with the kepi... I have seen it with sash belts and with no belts ?

Was this considered the parade uniform for the Austrian Army ?

Cheers
Mark

[Daniel Murphy]

Mark,
You finally found one you like. The only loops I see are for ribboned medals. Are there any other loops for pinback crosses? I have a feeling it is going to be difficult to put a name with it. The one belonging to the Duke of Cumberland would be sweet though. I guess you are not going to get rid of that breast star now?
Dan Murphy

[mravery]

Mark,
You finally found one you like. The only loops I see are for ribboned medals. Are there any other loops for pinback crosses? I have a feeling it is going to be difficult to put a name with it. The one belonging to the Duke of Cumberland would be sweet though. I guess you are not going to get rid of that breast star now?
Dan Murphy

Hey Dan,

From what I understand.. there are no loops for a breast star.. which I find odd for a 3 star general (though I have seen pictures of them without stars)....see General Rohrl

I'll need to get the tunic 'in hand' to see if perhaps there were loops at one time that are now gone.

As far as the MMO star I have..... who knows .. maybe .. maybe not .

[ottomaton]

Was this considered the parade uniform for the Austrian Army ?

I believe that this is correct. At the auction they had the accompanying Feldbluse und Stiefelhose which would be more of the field uniform I believe.

The following scans are from a book, which accounts for the poor photo quality:

Here's FJ in your style Uniform.


An Oberst in the trenches wearing what I think is referred to as a "Karl's Bluse".



And an Oberleutnant in the more traditional (?) field uniform.

[mravery]

Hey All,

I have another question.....

Was this style tunic reserved for General's wear only... or were other ranks allowed this pattern ?

I know that the bullion is different... and the buttons.. but I didn't know about the pattern itself.

Cheers
Mark

[ottomaton]

As with the Germans, there is one set of uniforms from the 19th century up till right before WWI and a new set which were adopted at the start of WWI. As with the German army, the Calvary have their own rules. Additionally the Honv******233;d which is the Hungarian version of the Landwehr have their own sets of uniforms.

In the older style I believe that everybody has the double breasted Gala (parade) uniforms in addition to their single breasted daily uniform. The attached CdV image shows the equivalent of a Sergeant (I think) in the Parade. The reason I say "I think" is that it makes a difference whether the stars are bullion or bone and I am not sure. Joerg Steiner has a nice page detailing the badges of rank in the k.u.k. army. The Lanyard in the photo has three little tassels on the end, is red, and is a marksmanship lanyard.

On these uniforms, the primary color and the facing color are changed to denote unit. The following three examples from the Doretheum aren't parade tunics, but give you the idea.

Compare this

with this

and this

Once the feldgrau was adopted only the facing colors changed, as in the swath around the collars. I don't have a photo of anybody in a WWI feldgrau Gala type uniform. I suspect, but am not sure, that they probably did as the Germans did in keeping the old uniforms around for dress occasions.

Though the first two tunics we looked at were grayish, I believe that light blue might be a better way to describe them, and that these might be normal variations of primary and facing colors.

Sorry if I rambled a bit but I generally find this subject confusing. I hope it makes at least some sense.

Edit:

I just noticed that there is a discussion forum on Joerg Steiner's site. The start page site is http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/ . He has written several small books on the Austro-Hungarian military and he's a very congenial person. I'm sure if you posted the question there you could get a definitive answer.