oday on Gus’ Gear I present an Austrian uniform that I acquired while visiting a friend in 1972. My friend’s father asked me to help clean the attic in his house. I was handed the tunic of Ferdinand Holzner, and told to put it in the garbage. I was able to convince him that it was not something that should go in the garbage, and after some discussion he gave it to me. When he found how I valued it he started to look for anything that would go with it, and with a little digging, he found two ammo pouches, a water bottle, and a pile of documents. I opened the tunic and found the field cap in the inner pocket as well as a 1917 dated pocket calendar.
The tunic is an early war example of light blue with grass green collar and cuffs. The full collar and cuffs are an indication of the beginning of the war. Shortages soon eliminated the cuffs and reduced collar colors to about 20% of the collar and then even to a very small strip of color on each side. On the left shoulder is an Achseldragoner made of gold and black lace. This is an indication of a uniform of a mounted soldier and the original purpose was to keep his cartridge belt from slipping off his shoulder. The silver buttons indicate he is from a “German” unit, not actually German, but
German speaking instead of Hungarian, Czech or one of the other ethnicities. The lanyard on the right breast is a post war addition as the uniform was worn for ceremonies during the first Republic period. The water bottle is the standard enameled bottle with the mounted carrying strap and the ammunition pouches are the mounted style single pocket examples. The belt is also a mounted roller buckle belt but is not part of the original grouping.
This is an Austro-Hungarian feldgrau Feldkappe, with the cockade of Karl which replaced the Franz Josef I cockade in 1917. This cap is a private purchase, for mounted troops. The Edelweiss bears the dates 1915-1916. The cap was found in the rear skirt pocket of the tunic and at the time had a red cloth cover with a white ribbon across it for use during the First Republic.
The 1917 Kriegs Taschen Kalender was found in the skirt pocket with the cap, and the green note book (dated 1916) was found with other papers.
Inside the 1917 pocket calender is a nice inscription by Ferdinand Holzner of the K.K. Reit Tirol Kaiserschützen.
A number of cards and letters to and from friends were found, the postcard in the upper right is a well known card of the K.K. Landesschützen Division, which had their designation changed to Kaiserschützen after exceptional performance on the battlefield.
There were a large number of unused correspondence cards and letters, the two on the left are captured Italian post cards and the top right is an Austrian card and the lower right is an Austrian letter that folds out to a full sheet of paper.
A blank Erlaubnisschein, vacation pass was also in the grouping.
And lastly, something that one would probably not be allowed to carry on a commercial flight any more, two clips of cartridges that were in the ammo pouches. The clip on the left has 8x50mm cartridges for the Steyr M1895 rifle or carbine, the top one has a ball, but the other 4 have paper projectiles that the exposed part had disintegrated. These were blanks that were used for ceremonial purposes. Oddly enough, in the nearly 50 years that I have had the clip on the right, I only this past week realized that the 5 cartridges and the extra are not 8x50mm, they are the earlier 8x52mm black powder cartridges for the M1888 Steyr rifle. Even in the photo it is easy to see the slightly longer neck of the cartridges on the right.