What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
During the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Kuomintang army, including the Eighth Route Army, had two buttons on their hats, were these two buttons merely decorative or of real use?
German mountain hats
After the Battle of the Central Plains in 1930, German military advisers took the German army's "mountain hat" as the prototype and designed this cylindrical cloth hat according to the head shape of the Chinese, which became the standard hat of the Nationalist army. The biggest feature of the hat is that there is a layer of protective cloth around the hat, which is usually folded up and fixed to the front with two buttons, which can be lowered when it is cold to protect the face and the back of the neck.
Nationalist military hat
From this small military hat, it can be seen that in the 1930s, the Chinese army was deeply influenced by the German army at that time.
From November 1928, Colonel Max Bauer, a former staff officer of the Operations Division of the German General Staff Headquarters, came to China as an advisor. By 1938, under protests from Japan, Germany recalled its military advisers and suspended its arms contracts with China. Four German military advisers instructed the Kuomintang army in China. By the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1937, China's army, trained by German advisers and equipped in some German styles, had reached 300,000 people. A total of 15 divisions and 24 divisions were reorganized, in addition to 15 divisions of the Northeast Army, 10 divisions of the Guangdong Army, 26 divisions of the Chuankang Army, and 9 independent brigades. Through this reorganization, the quality of the Chinese army has been greatly improved, especially the 30 divisions of the Central Department, which have basically realized the Germanization of equipment and received systematic training from German advisers, which can be called the most modern army in China's modern history.
German-style equipped Nationalist army
The 87th, 88th, 36th Divisions, and other troops, all equipped with German equipment and trained by German military advisers, participated in the Battle of Songhu and the Battle of Songhu, completely smashing the Japanese army's delusion of "falling to China in March", and the London Overseas News Agency reported at the time: "... (Shanghai) Ten weeks of heroic resistance have been enough to make China an honor as a military state, which is unheard of." Due to the heroic performance of the German-style Chinese army, Japan and some Westerners even called the Battle of Songhu "German War".
Although German-style training and equipment did not change the rout in the early days of the War of Resistance, the military industry built with german help before the War of Resistance established a solid material guarantee for the protracted War of Resistance in the future.
Nationalist military German helmet