Chapter 350 Helmet

Berlin, Imperial Palace.

William IV looked at the pointed helmet he designed himself and liked it no matter how he looked at it.

"It's perfect!"

"It's a masterpiece!"

With the boasting of the courtiers, the Prussian M1842 cavalry helmet was finalized.

The M1842 cavalry helmet is actually still a leather helmet, but the tip is metal. This design, which looks like a nail inserted in the helmet, was actually designed by Frederick William IV himself.

This pointed helmet is also called a spike helmet. It was originally designed to show off the masculinity and powerful combat power of the Prussians. It was indeed loved by successive Prussian emperors. Even German military leaders such as Otto von Bismarck and Paul von Hindenburg liked to pose with spike helmets.

Especially after the Franco-Prussian War, the erect beard and spiked helmet became a symbol of pride for Prussian soldiers.

(It was the kind of Bismarck portrait, which was the typical painting style at that time.)

Although William IV claimed that his inspiration came from the unicorn in mythology, which symbolizes loyalty and beauty, this helmet was ridiculed and mocked domestically and internationally as soon as it came out.

Heinrich Heine thought the spiked helmet was very exaggerated and superficial, and wrote a satirical poem specifically, comparing the spiked helmet to a lightning rod.

He even publicly criticized this helmet in the Rheinische Zeitung.

"Yes, yes, I like this helmet, it shows the highest wisdom! The king's inspiration! I am only afraid that when the storm comes, the romantic crown will attract lightning!"

So the lightning crown became one of the synonyms of the Prussian M1842 helmet. Of course, Franz would not miss this feast. Although he could not participate in person, it was still okay to make a vest and post a few bad reviews.

The comments within the German Confederation were still polite. When it came to the British, they contemptuously called it "the devil's horn."

The French began to speculate on the purpose of this helmet. Even the most famous French satirical newspaper "Fool" publicly solicited possible uses of this helmet from the public, claiming that it would help France become great again.

As a result, all kinds of fantastic ideas blossomed in French newspapers.

For example, using the devil's horns to kill the opponent, or using it to open bottle caps, and letting a few soldiers stand upside down when setting up a tent can instantly fix it.

But in the end, the highest vote was the lightning rod of the German poet Heine. The "Fool" newspaper was ready to award the great poet a prize of 5,000 francs, but was rejected on the grounds that his inspiration came from His Majesty the King.

So the editor-in-chief of the "Fool" newspaper mailed the 5,000 franc prize to Frederick William IV, who actually thought that his design was recognized by the international community.

But when he saw the content of the letter, he wanted to tear it to pieces, but as a king he could only pretend not to care.

"Congratulations, great king, your inspiration entertained the public, and we would like to thank you here."

-The French newspaper "Fool" salutes you.

In fact, the peak design of this helmet is to allow cavalry troops to use it as a bracket for wearing feathers and horsehair, which was very common in the army at that time and could be used for decoration and morale boosting.

Second, and most importantly, adding a peak can effectively deflect the slashing of the head, because in the cavalry combat at that time, saber-slashing was a conventional tactic.

Of course, if you insist on mentioning the Austrian Lancers and the American Pistol Cavalry, there is nothing you can do.

Vienna, Austria.

The Prussian helmet controversy has reminded the Austrians that they should also design new helmets. Austrian designs must not follow the footsteps of Prussia, and must be generous, decent, and practical.

As a result, the Austrian imperial government quarreled again, and Prince Metternich advocated the continued use of Hungarian-style cloth leather helmets, or even the felt hats often worn by Hungarian hussars.

The advantages of this equipment are beautiful, practical, and cheap, but this thing is useless in preventing slashing, and it is often filled with colorful decorations by soldiers, affecting the overall look and feel, giving the other side a sense of weakness and giving ordinary people a sense of a ragtag army.

Count Korolov visited experts and found the most famous blacksmith family in Austria to design a helmet for the cavalry of the Austrian Empire, which he thought was the perfect helmet.

This helmet is larger and stronger than the Prussian helmet. It is wrapped with iron plates with high-quality leather, which can defend against most slashes and even block the attack of shotguns at a distance of 50 meters.

(Their experiment is that the steel balls cannot penetrate the helmet. As for what will happen to the head under the helmet, it is not their business.)

There is a semicircular slot made of brass on the top of the helmet, which can be used to place a large number of decorations, such as tying towering feathers into a semicircle.

(In fact, this is the standard helmet of the Austrian Empire Cavalry later)

In order to make the military appearance neat, the semicircular decorations on the helmet can also be uniformly replaced with black and gold, which can better highlight the temperament of Austrian soldiers and the financial resources of the empire.

Of course, old book friends should know that all products produced by Austrians for practical purposes are not practical.

The same is true of Count Korolov's helmet, which weighs 3.5 kilograms without feathers.

What does 3.5 kilograms mean? Some people will definitely say that the weight of American soldiers' equipment is as high as 53 kilograms, but please understand that this is the 19th century.

And even the high-end tactical helmets used by the US special forces usually weigh no more than 1.7 kilograms, and the peaked helmets of Prussia in the same period weighed only 0.6-0.8 kilograms.

The famous M35 during World War II weighed only 1.4 kilograms, so you can see how outrageous Count Korolov's helmet was.

Of course, he was not entirely for safety and appearance considerations. The price of this helmet was very high, which would involve the interests of many people, including his own.

The same is true for Metternich's request to maintain the status quo, because he wanted to protect the interests of those supporters. Military procurement has always been a hot commodity. Unless it is Franz, everyone wants to make a lot of money.

Regarding the dispute between the two sides, the royal family wanted to see the attitude of the military, but in fact the military had no attitude on this matter. Because Count Tural himself had been on the battlefield, he felt that it made no difference whether there was a helmet or not for the cavalry, and it would be better to get a breastplate.

After all, there was almost no possibility of survival if shot in the head, and chopping the head was completely a Tatar practice, which had long been proven to be outdated.

Russia once sent Tatar cavalry and Russian infantry to encircle the Hungarian hussars, but the result was that 2,000 hussars easily tore apart the Tatar formation.

Afterwards, tens of thousands of Tatar cavalry broke up the ranks of Russian infantry while fleeing, leading to a great defeat for Russia. After that, the Tsar saw the weak nature of the Tatar cavalry and began a series of annihilation activities.

Let's get back to the story.

The military had no attitude, so the debate had to be shelved. In fact, it was not until 1848 that the Austrian Empire finally decided to use this helmet after Count Korolav came to power.

M35, and even M42 helmets are not difficult to design, because there is not much technical content, Franz can easily make this helmet, but the appearance of this helmet is seriously inconsistent with the style of the mid-nineteenth century, and the sense of disobedience is very serious.

Imagine Napoleon, Wellington, one wearing an Adrian steel helmet, one with a flying saucer on his head, and Archduke Karl with a group of hussars wearing M35, what a scene that would be.

(The Adrian helmet is a famous French helmet, the UFO refers to the famous British UFO helmet MK-1 during World War I, and the M35 is a classic German helmet during World War II.)