216th Honvéd Infantry Brigade
By 1915, after the first8-9 months of the Great War, the troops of the Monarchy suffered extremely heavy losses. This was true for all types of regiments. Attempts were made to fill the missing soldiers with march battalions from the newly enlisted staff. The most valuable joint K.u.K., Honvéd and Landwehr infantry regiments were preferred. The insurgent regiments were usually disbanded and merged into the Honvéd and Landwehr regiments. Most of them ceased to exist. Only a few survived. In the spring of 1915, the 16th and 19th insurgent mountain brigades were organized from such regiments.
The subject of this entry is the 16th Brigade, which included the 17th and 29th Insurgent Infantry Regiments of Székesfehérvár and Budapest. I write the 16th Brigade because, interestingly, the name of this formation changed several times during the Great War. It was formed as a mountain brigade, but in my opinion, the name did not refer so much to the special mountain training of these types of units. Rather, after formation, the brigade, along with the 10th Mountain Brigade, was classified in the 61st Division. They did not even fight in high mountain conditions, but immediately were sent to the Italian front on the Karst plateau near Mt dei sei Busi.
The brigade was commanded to Transylvania in 1916 to repel the Romanian invasion. Here it became part of the Litzmann army group. The first name change took place in 1917, the brigade became the 16th Honvéd Infantry Brigade. At that time, the other brigade of the weakened 61st Division was also merged into the 16th. In 1918, during the major reorganization, it was given the number 216, from which it became the 216th Honvéd Infantry Brigade. The same two former insurgent infantry regiments belonged to it, the 17th and 29th.
The 216 badge was similar to the cap badge presented in the previous post, only the number changed on it. A field postcard was also decorated with this badge, which I will also present.
