LIR 23 hat

The 23rd Landwehr (later Schützen) Regiment has been discussed before (here and here). There I also presented two badges. This post will discuss a third badge.

The Arkanzas factory in Budapest produced thematic badge series. Among others, enameled hussar shakos with different regiment numbers, similar lancer chapka, and to complete the sortiment of headgear, hunter hats were also made. Only a few of these numbers were released, not all from 1 to 32 for each “Jägerbattalion”. However, there was also a hat with the number 35. Yet, there was no battalion with that number. From this I can conclude that the series could have been made not only for the hunters, but also for the Landwehr regiments.

The postcard attached to the post shows the ornate uniform of the Landwehr regiments. This was supplied with the same hat as the hunters. This suggests that they could also have used the beautiful enamel Kappenabzeichen. In fact, they may have been the intended users, since the Arkanzas company manufactured badges mainly for the more easily accessible Hungarian units wherever possible. This is clearly visible on the flags of the joint regiments, as we only occasionally find badges showing the numbers of non-Hungarian regiments among them. However, there are several numbers among the hats that do not indicate hunters with Hungarian additions, but Austrian ones, and many Hungarian battalions did not get a hat badge.