Re: Blood and Iron

Bruno came to notice something as the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian armies came together. Something subtle had shifted in the timeline, and it was not exactly all that surprising. To a certain degree, the same rules which applied in his past life still were applicable to this timeline despite its changes.

What did this mean? Well, at a very small level, slight changes in uniforms were made due to the nature of the shift in alliances. For example, in Bruno's past life, there were, for the most part, two different steel helmet designs that came to dominate the battlefield during the Great War.

If one were aligned with the Central Powers, then the odds were that they adopted the M1916 Stahlhelm, originally created by the German Reich, as their answer to head trauma caused by artillery shrapnel.

Or at the very least, they fielded some form of locally produced variation of that design. This had been true for not only Austro-Hungary but also the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria during Bruno's past life.

Whereas the Allied Powers, except for two exceptions, used the French Adrian Helmet more or less. This included Russia to a much smaller degree, as they were very late to the game to adopt a steel helmet as a result of Tsar Nicholas's aesthetic sensibilities.

The two exemptions to this general rule of thumb were Great Britain and their infamous Mk I Helmet. There were various nicknames given to this timeless flat brim design, such as the "Brodie Helmet" or the "Tommy Helmet" but at the end of the day it was the same thing.

The United States, curiously enough, was the only faction during the war of any partial significance which opted for the British Mk I design over the French M1915 Adrian Helmet. Which the American soldiers affectionately referred to their domestic copies of the Mk I as the "doughboy" helmet.

I mention these distinctions, because in this life it was the same way. With Germany adopting the m1916 Stahlhelm much earlier than it otherwise should have, a decade or earlier that is, there were naturally copied designs by its allies who understood the value of steel helmets as the infamous Iron Division which Bruno led into Russia had received far fewer casualties as a result of their unique head protection.

The Austro-Hungarians, much as in Bruno's past life, copied the Stahlhelm. It was damn near identical aside from the chin strap used, and the placement of the rivets which attached it to the helmet.

However, what was most certainly interesting was the fact that the Russians had also adopted their own variation of the Stahlhelm. A direct copy of the German version, the only distinction was the Russian Empire's coat of arms being emblazoned into its center.

Something that interestingly enough appeared during Bruno's past life among German Freikorps volunteers in the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922. Something which Bruno had luckily dealt with much earlier in this life, and thus did not have to fear as a consequence of his pursuit of victory over the Great War.

Because of this, there was little distinction in the appearance of the combined army of the Imperial Powers as they marched south through the Balkans, in particular both Montenegro and Serbia. Especially as both Germany and Austro-Hungary had adopted a damn near identical version of feldgrau for the coloration of their uniforms.