Customer Reviews

Helmets of the First World War: Germany, Britain & their Allies

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"Helmets of the First World War" is less an historical reference than it is a heavily illustrated coffee table book. While the authors have compiled an impressive selection of current photos of Allied and Central Power helmets, they give almost no historical information as to the design, development, and utilization of the headgear.

The organization of the book is absolutely terrible. The chapters are broken down as German, British, and Allied. The latter category lumps together French, Austro-Hungarian, Italian, American, and minor powers helmets, without differentiating as to which allies they were.

The book focuses primarily on the German Stahelm and British Brodie patterns, and the authors trickle a small amount of information through the captions to permit the reader to eventually piece together some extremely limited historical understanding. As bad as the detail is for German and British helmets, however, information about the French Adrian model, and helmets developed by the other countries is so minimal, as to be almost worthless.

There are some excellent photos, and the authors include pictures of rare and little seen helmets developed by the Turks, Italians, and Austro-Hungarians.

This book might be useful for modelers and devoted collectors of WWI militaria, but is probably not worth the hefty price. For anyone else seeking historical information about WWI helmets, look elsewhere.