You may have noticed that the ''new'' box says nothing about a licence...so my original verdict may be wrong... Maybe these are sets produced exclusively by Lyra, and made from Lyra moulds... So maybe the Hussars are indeed Lyra and later changed as you suggested Arthur to produce the victorian set...
But there is another complication, one that could both confirm your guess and at the same time, based on my source, speculate the notion that Lyra did indeed only use Geobra moulds...
Have a look at the pic.. this horse has a different head from the original playmobil horse...maybe Lyra changed the head in order to avoid lawsuits... but then, why bother keep the playmobil logo, or even the same klickies, whose feet have no indication of whether this is Lyra or Geobra btw... you might also notice that the arm of the klicky is broken...another good example of low quality product!
Finally, a confirmed source tells me that Lyra did indeed get all their moulds from Geobra and produced the low quality sets in a Balkan counrty... Geobra finally lawsuited Lyra for producing these low quality playmobil sold in the ''new'' box... But if Lyra did get the moulds from Geobra and did not produce any themselves, how come this horse has a different head? Did Geobra give to Lyra moulds they produced but never used (we know designs exist that never made it to production, like the red house etc)? Maybe... As I said earlier, only a person who used to work in Lyra can varify any of this...
