37th Honvéd Howitzer Regiment

For some reason, the artillery units of the Monarchy had relatively fewer insignia than infantry or cavalry. In addition, very few wearing photos were taken of them. The photo that shows a cap with several artillery cap badges is rare. Such is the present one, on which one of the lieutenants of the 37th Honvéd Howitzer Regiment wears a cap decorated with three artillery badges.

Going in a row from the left, we see the outlines of two badges I couldn’t recognize. They could also be portraits of rulers or badges of the fronts. To the left of the cap button is the beautiful, hand-painted enamel badge of the 37th Howitzer Regiment.

On the other side is a general howitzer badge depicting a 15 cm gun between the laurel branches.

Next to it, on the other side, the badge of the 1st battery of the regiment can even be seen, which can be recognized mainly from the enamel-colored ribbon shown below. Presumably there may have been additional badges on the other side of the cap, but of course we don’t see them in the picture.

The 37th Howitzer Regiment was one of the regiments of the Artillery Brigade of the 37th Army Infantry Division. As I have written about it several times before, the establishment and command of artillery regiments was not always adapted to the territorial conditions of the infantry division. This is true without exception for the honvéd troops set up during the war. The 37th Division, of course, already existed before the Great War, but there were no howitzers  in the artillery brigade. The unit was set up during the war, partly using the cadre of the division’s field cannon regiment. Despite this it is possible that in this howitzer regiment the crew was overwhelmingly Hungarian, as indicated by the Hungarian inscription of both enameled Kappenabzeichen and their strongly Hungarian aspect (national ribbon, mention of the Hungarian Gyergyó region).