The Royal Habsburg coat of arms was adopted as the regimental badge after Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria, was appointed Colonel-in-Chief of the King’s Dragoon Guards on 24 March 1896. The arms of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was the armorial emblem, dating from 1867. The double headed eagle was an ancient Greek symbol used by the Byzantine Empire and adopted by the Holy Roman Empire as well as more modern states and empires. The shield in the middle has the lion rampant of Habsburg on the left side, the diagonal bend with three eagles of Lorraine on the right, and the plain red and white fess in the centre for Badenberg. It is topped by the Imperial crown and, although absent from this cap badge, some forms of the badge include the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece.
The first cap badge to feature this symbol had the regimental title on a scroll beneath. The badge was discontinued at the start of World War One and not revived until the 1930s. After WW2 the KDG revived the badge again on their caps but without the scroll beneath.
