My KuK cavalry badges collection

[gregM]

Very. very cool Thanks for sharing them with us.

[Don D.]

Very neat badges.

[flik]

Great collection!

[Ironcrown]

Most of the cavalry regiments were grouped in cavalry brigades, each brigade being formed by two regiments. Two brigades formed a Kavallerie Trupp Division, except in the case of the 1st KTD that had three brigades.

During the war 12 cavalry divisions existed, numbered from 1 to 12. The 5th and the 11th where made of Honvèd Hussars, the 12th was composed by regiments from the Landwehr (this was the last division to be raised, in 1916), the other KTDs belonged to the common army.

The performances of these units during the Great War were generally disappointing, mostly because they were used in the most wrong ways. But in some cases, at the beginning of the war, when the KTDs were used in the way they were made for, very good results were achived. After all, the personnel was highly skilled at every level, and the equipment was of very good quality. But this has no importance if you are ordered to charge on an open field against an enemy unit armed with cannons and Mgs…

The badges. Here are some from the KTDs from 1st to 6th.
The first one from the KTD1 is very rare and has been already featured in some websites and pubblications. I’ve never seen another around, altough some most still exist for sure.
The Kappenabzeichen from the 5th division (the Honvèd cavalry divisions were also called in hungarian Honvèd Lovas Hadosztàly – HLHO or Honvèd Huszàr Hadosztàly - HHH) are also interesting. The image of a red devil is very often recurrent; in fact, the men of this unit were called Vörös Ördögök, red devils in hungarian.
Also interesting are the badges from the 6KTD. The two that look identical are not so: one is made in silver, the other in a poorer white metal.

[Ironcrown]

And here, the badges of the KTDs from 6th to 12th.
Note the 4 round badges from the KTD10, enamelled and bronzed, in big and miniature sizes. Interestingly, sometime these unit badges showed the name and/or the colors of the regiments that composed them, like in this case.

[Ironcrown]

As the trench war began, the cavalry divisions started a process that brought them to become mere infantry units, with only a ridiculous part of the men remaining still mounted.
At the first stages of these changes, the soldiers that became dismounted for losing their rides (war horses were difficult to replace) were transferred to specific units inside the cavalry divisions. These unit were called Kavallerie Schuetzen Division and had the theorical size of half regiment. Each cavalry division had one or two of these units.

Please note: very often the Kavallerie Schuetzen Divisionen (KSD) are confused with the Reitende Schuetzen Regimenter of the Landwehr, but actually they are two different kinds of units!

And here we have some KSD badges. In the unit number, the first roman character identified the Division number inside the KTD, that is indicated with a roman number. For example II/8 refers to the second Schuetzen Division of the 8 Kavallerie Trupp Division.

[Ironcrown]

In the austrian hungarian empire the artillery was considered as a mounted corps. That makes sense to me: after all, moving artillery pieces and shells required a huge number of horses!
But among the many existing artillery branches, one above all was “more munted” than the others: the Reitende Artillerie. Each KTD could count on a Reitende Artillerie Division, equal to a half regiment, with 3 batteries of 4 8cm cannons each.

Some RAD badges are shown here. Sometime we find just an R3, R4 or R10 on the Kappenabzeichen so the risk is to get confused with the Reitende Schuetzen. But is my opinion that the "R" only identifies the horse artillery. Look at the R10 badge: it clearly shows an artillery Tschako on the top

[Ironcrown]

Regiments, Brigades and divisions were not the only cavalry units that existed during the war.
Here is a selection of some assorted cavalry units bKappenabzeichen. Some are in silver.
Very interesting are the two Detachment Harmos badges: the left one is correct, the other on the right has the regimental colors inverted so it’s wrong! A mistake done by the maker.

[Ironcrown]

The last Kappenabzeichen of my collection, a bit mixed up…
Mainly these are generic badges made to commemorate a certain branch (Dragoner, Honvèd Huszàrok ans so), or the cavalry in general.
The handgun badge depicts a Rast & Gasser pistol, a typical cavalry weapon. There’s a Kappenabzeichen for St. George, patron of the cavalry.
The central badge in the lower row is from the Polish Legion. This can be considered in part a cavalry unit as it comprised 8 cavalry squadrons.
The last two badges on the right are Sturmtruppe badges from the cavalry divisions. Late in the war each KTD had a Sturmtrupp unit with the strenght of a half regiment.

[Ironcrown]

No more badges for now, sorry
This was the last picture from my cavalry badges collection.
I'm always looking for the missing ones, so if you have one and don't know what to do with it, don't hesitate to contact me

[peterm]

Again and again and again: What a really nice collection!!!

Kind regards, Peter

[Ironcrown]

This is my last buy: a cap badge of the 6th Dragoons!
It's pretty rare, and what I consider one of the ugliest Kappenabzeichen ever made!
Probably it's rare because it's so ugly: at the time the badge was made nobody bought it