Crested Helmet with Horsehair Tail

Crested Helmet with Horsehair Tail (French casque à cimier), a military headdress, surmounted by a metal crest with horsehair tail.

The crested helmet was already known in antiquity, but fell out of use, only to become fashionable again in 1743, during the War of the Austrian Succession, as the dragoon helmet of the Volontaires de Saxe, who in 1751 formed a dragoon regiment of volontaires under the comte Friesen. In 1755, the comte Schomberg took command of the dragoons, who were so fond of their helmets à la Schomberg that they refused to take them off even in church. Toward the end of the Seven Years’ War, in 1762, the stylish dragoon helmet replaced the tricorne in all French dragoon regiments, and the Volontaires de Schomberg were taken into the line as the 17th Dragoon Regiment. In 1804, the French cuirassiers adopted the crested helmet with horsehair tail, and in 1812 the British heavy dragoons did as well.

Military Glossary