Field bandage
The field bandage ( French écharpe , from which the German word sash originated) was an ornament of military clothing worn around the shoulder, arm or body.
The armband can be found occasionally in antiquity and appears in the Middle Ages as a component of the knightly suit, usually for the special honor of the chosen lady.
At the time of the Reformation , the field armbands began to serve as a distinguishing mark. In the Schmalkaldic War , the Protestants wore yellow, the imperial red armbands. In the Thirty Years' War the imperial army again had red and the Swedes green field armbands.
In the years that followed, the armband became a special badge for officers and later as a sign that the person wearing it was in the process of performing his duties. With this in mind, a special field band (sash ribbon without tassels with a bronze or silver lock depending on the color of the buttons) for hooking into the German army was introduced in 1896. It was worn by officers of the infantry (hunters), foot artillery , the engineer corps , the pioneers , the railway troops , the war ministry , the general staff and others.
The field armbands also include the common badges worn here and there by allied armies (white armband around the left arm for the Allies in the Sixth Coalition War in 1813, for the Prussians and Austrians in the German-Danish War in 1864, for the Prussian Rhine Army and the contingents of the North German states in the German War 1866).
literature
- Wilhelm Rustow , Military Hand Dictionary , Volume 1, p. 253 digitized