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French World War I helmet

The Adrian helmet was an influential design of combat helmet originally produced for the French Army during World War I. Its original version, the M15, was the first standard helmet of the French Army and was designed when millions of French troops were engaged in trench warfare, and head wounds from the falling shrapnel generated by indirect fire became a frequent cause of battlefield casualties. Introduced in 1915, it was the first modern steel helmet and it served as the basic helmet of many armies well into the 1930s. Initially issued to infantry soldiers, in modified form they were also issued to cavalry and tank crews. A subsequent version, the M26, was used during World War II.

At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, soldiers in the French Army wore the standard kepi cap, which provided no protection against injury. The early stages of trench warfare proved that even basic protection of the head would result in a significantly lower mortality rate among front line soldiers. By the beginning of 1915, a rudimentary steel skull cap (calotte métallique, cervelière) was being issued to be worn under the kepi. Consequently, the French staff ordered development of a metal helmet that could protect soldiers from the shrapnel of exploding artillery shells. Since soldiers in trenches were also vulnerable to shrapnel exploding above their heads, a deflector crest was added along the helmet's axis. Branch insignia in the form of a grenade for line infantry and cavalry, a bugle horn for chasseurs, crossed cannon for artillery, an anchor for colonial troops and a crescent for North African units was attached to the front. Contrary to common misconception, the M15 helmet, and other Great War helmets, were not designed to protect the wearer from direct impact by rifle or machine gun bullets. The resulting headgear was credited to Intendant General Louis Auguste Adrian. The helmet adopted by the army was made of mild steel and weighed only ), which made it lighter and less protective than the contemporary British Brodie helmet and the German Stahlhelm. Orders were placed for the helmets in the spring of 1915, which started being issued by July. By September, all frontline troops in France were issued with the helmet. The helmet was surprisingly complex to produce with seventy stages involved in its production, not including those required to prepare the metal. The slot for the badges and the distinctive crest took additional time to manufacture, while also adding a hundred grams of weight. However, the helmet was deliberately designed this way to evoke the artistic style of the highly popular military artist Édouard Detaille, which helped raise the morale of the troops. Indeed French troops identified closely with their helmets. The helmet's light weight was also better suited to France's emphasis on mobility and was easier for soldiers to wear for extended periods. In addition to the helmet, a set of armored "epaulets" were also developed by Adrian and issued to defend against shrapnel and air dropped darts, although they were not in common use. From late 1915, a cloth cover for the helmet was issued, in khaki or light blue, to prevent reflection. However, it was found that if the helmet was pierced by shell splinters, pieces of dirty cloth were carried into the wound, which increased the risk of infection. Consequently, in mid 1916 an order was issued that the covers should be discarded. By the end of World War I, the Adrian had been issued to almost all infantry units fighting with the French Army. It was also used by some of the American divisions fighting in France, including the African American 369th Infantry Regiment, commonly known as the Harlem Hellfighters, and the Polish forces of Haller's Blue Army. The French Gendarmerie mobile adopted a dark blue version in 1926, and continued to wear it into the 1960s, well after the regular army had discarded it. In December 1915, Winston Churchill (later to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940–1945), while serving as a major with the British Army's Grenadier Guards, was presented with an Adrian helmet by the French General Émile Fayolle. He is seen wearing it in photographs and in a portrait painted by Sir John Lavery. The helmet proved to be fairly effective against shrapnel and it was cheap and easy to manufacture. As a consequence, more than twenty million Adrian helmets were produced. El Salvador, Greece, Haiti, Italy (including license built versions), Japan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Siam, Turkey, the United States, USSR, and Yugoslavia, many of these states adding its own insignia to the front of the helmet.

A 2020 study published by PLOS One found that the Adrian helmet outperformed the Advanced Combat Helmet, which was deployed almost a century later, in overhead blasts. It also surpassed the Stahlhelm and Brodie helmets. The researchers believed the crest, a feature unique to the Adrian helmet, might be the cause.