Comfort or attractive appearance?
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A shako or a cap? In Poland the term “lancer’s shako” was used to refer to the headgear worn by lancers at the time of
the Duchy of Warsaw and later. It is a gross misunderstanding, which deprecates Polish contribution into the dress and, more broadly, into world military thought. The word shako comes from a Hungarian word “csakó” meaning a kind of a high military hat. A shako had the shape of a truncated cone or a cylinder and was used from the end of the 18th century till the beginning of the 20th century by front troops. Today it is used as an element of ceremonial dress. The same word is used to refer to a formal headgear worn by miners. At first a shako was 40 cm high but in 1850 it was lowered. High and heavy headgear was uncomfortable and even dangerous during a fight. A French kepi and the typical headgear worn by officers of Austrian and Austro-Hungarian armies, which a hundred years ago was believed to be the most stylish in the world, come from the lowered version of a shako. Officer’s shako was made from leather covered with cloth and soldier’s shako from felt and, depending on the degree and type of weapon, it was decorated with garlands, putty, pompoms, etc. In 1805 a shako was introduced to the French army by Napoleon and then adopted by other armies; it was commonly used till 1914. In Poland shakos were worn by soldiers of the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Poland but they were never used by lancers! They wore hats whose characteristic angular shape came from Polish traditional confederate caps and Cracow hats. In many armies in the world there were units of light cavalry modelled on Polish lancers. A Polish word in foreign spelling “tschapka”, meaning a lancer’s headgear, got into foreign armies and was used till WW I. Helmets of Austrian and German lancers were topped with a slightly strange angular protrusion, which was nothing else but a miniature of a Polish lancer’s cap. We owe the return of a Polish cap in 1914 in a form almost unchanged from the times of the Duchy of Warsaw, to Cavalry Captain Władysław Belina-Prażmowski, the creator of cavalry troops of Polish Legions. This tradition led to appearance of a contemporary four-cornered hat in the Second Republic of Poland, being today the typical and unique sign of Polish army.
