IR 19 “King Charles”

The focus of this post is a beautifully decorated field postcard. The entire left half of the addressing page is decorated with a picture of King Charles. According to the inscription, he was the regiment’s namesake (also owner?) at that time. After the coronation at the end of 1916, several units were named after the new king. I tried to find out when the regiment changed to his name, but I was unsuccessful. I couldn’t find any mentioning of this. One thing is certain, in the statements of 1914, the assassinated Franz Ferdinand was still listed as the namesake. I already wrote about this in a previous post here. Before that, the Győr regiment bore the name of heir to the throne Rudolf. It is not very encouraging to be included in this series… Charles was not much luckier than the two namesakes before him.

I am not associating one of Charles’ badges on the correspondence sheet with this post, although there are plenty of them. Instead, I attach the stunningly beautiful enamel badge of the 19th regiment. This is modeled after the war ribbon of the Austro-Hungarian awards. In the middle of it, in a field colored with the lapel color of the regiment, the regimental number can be seen.