In my introductory article on War in the Age of Napoleon the Little I mentioned in passing that the uniforms of the French and Prussian armies differed relatively little between the beginning of Napoleon III's reign and the end of the century. "Little" and "Not at all" are of course not the same. Even so, I am prepared to stick with my earlier statement and attempt a summary article on the uniforms of these two powers. I will consider myself successful if it answers the question "how do I paint..." for the basic troop types in each army. THE PRUSSIANS Members of the imperial Germany Military Collector's Association (IGMCA) who specialize in the collecting of pickelhaube and less exotic accoutrements can probably write volumes - indeed, volumes have been written - about variations among spiked helmets. In this scene the infantry forage caps have red bands. The Gard zu Fus is distinguished by Swedish cuffs and lace. The Guard Grenadier landsman shows the "Guard Eagle" on his helmet and the blue patch on his Brandenburg cuff. Note that the ublan NCO wean a full hilted saber. Personnel below the rank of corporal, armed with the lance, had a lighter single bar hilted saber. The soldier of the 55th has white belting, indicating that the 1st and 2nd battalions of regiments 33 to 72 may not have been equipped as fusiliers. For our purposes it is safe to say that the helmet was slightly larger in 1866 than in 1870 - in fact, the hussar busby, and the uhlan's czapska also got slightly smaller between wars. At some time between 1871 and 1900 most of the chin straps ceased to be of brass scales and became black leather. Most of the variations in the line infantry came in as new regiments were added from other states in the process of unification. The same is true of tunic patterns, as for the light blue Bavarians and double-breasted Wurtembergers - but for our period, while the fighting was going on, those uniforms were decidedly different. Most of the Prussian line featured dark blue single-breasted coats with red piping down the front and on the flaps in back. Brandenburg cuffs of red were standard, with brass buttons. Trousers were dark grey with red piping, although white overalls were sometimes worn in full dress and grey coveralls for fatigue and sometimes in the field. The trousers were usually bloused, that is, tucked into short boots, while the coveralls were not. Line infantry, for as long as the blue dress uniform was worn in the field, had a brass Prussian eagle, wings half folded, on the front of the helmet. Guard troops wearing the eagle were distinguished by an heraldic eagle, whose outstretched wings swept back around the helmet except that the Guard Fusiliers had a sunburst arrangement called the "Guard Star". For similar reasons the heraldic eagle came to be known as the "Guard Eagle". The 4 Foot Guard (Gard zu Fus) regiments were distinguished by "Swedish" cuffs, lacking the cuff flap, while the Guard Grenadiers had "Brandenburg" cuffs, both having lace on collar and cuff. Belting was black for fusiliers, who formed the 33rd to 72nd line regiments after the reforms of 1858, and the 3rd battalions of the Guard, Guard Grenadier, Grenadier (1st to 12th regiments) and infantry (13th to 32nd) regiments. White belts were worn by the remainder. This practice, however, varied after the wars when more states in Germany were added to the North German Confederation and then the German Empire. Eventually black belting for the most part was made standard, but that came long after the glory days of 1870-71. If you compare a picture of German infantry right before the adoption of field grey early in the 20th Century with Royal Prussian infantry in the series of paintings depicting the Army in 1862, they are obviously from the same army. Probably the most striking of differences in field equipment is the manner in which the greatcoat, of grey cloth, is carried when not being worn. In 1864,1866, and 1870-71 it was normally rolled and slung over the left shoulder across to the right hip, over knapsack and equipment. At some later point it became the custom to fold the thing into a horseshoe shape over the top of the knapsack. This is the most obvious inaccuracy suffered by those of us who use Airfix, Minifig, or other WWI Germans in blue for their grandfathers of 1870. Compared to fighting the battle of Jena with the uniforms of 6 years later it is a trifle. The next most obvious difference, other than smaller helmets (more or less constant from 1867 on) is the fact that the red collar tab of 1860 becomes the full color collar of 1867-1910. That change also applied to other arms, in which colors followed regimental differences. Evolution To run through the evolution of the Prussian Army for the beginner, on the eve of our period, say at the time of the Crimean War when George B. McClellan was touring the continent after observing the closing months of the war, the Royal Prussian Army stood at 4 Gard zu Fus and guard grenadier regiments (2 each) and 32 line regiments of foot, each of 3 battalions (1st, 2nd, and Fusilier). The battalion had a peace strength of around 600 and a war strength of 1,020, with luck. There were also a guard jager and shutzen battalions, similarly clad in dark green with leather shakoes, dark green coats, red cuffs piping and collar tabs. There were 38 regular cavalry units. The reserve consisted of some 8 (2 battalion) infantry regiments of reserves and 40 infantry, 32 cavalry regiments of landwehr cavalry. Although wearing the Russian style helmet which was to become their trademark, these soldiers were essentially organized into the army reconstructed after the catastrophe of 1806. Dreyse had invented his bolt action "needle gun", but that novelty as yet equipped only the fusilier battalions and the guard. The remainder still carried a smoothbore percussion musket, except for the 8 jager battalions, who were dressed much as the guard jager and schutzen, but carried the Tige rifle. The latter was a predecessor to the Minie in which the base of the conical bullet was actually spread against a post in the chamber by the process of applying a mallet to the ramrod! By 1862 however, the Von Roon reforms were well along. The landwehr was largely absorbed into the regular army. As a result the Guard and Guard Grenadier regiments were upped to 2 apiece, and the infantry increased from 40 to 72 regiments. The reserve units were increased to 3 battalions. All of the Guard and regular infantry received a version of the Dreyse needle gun. The fusilier battalions enjoyed a version with a brass hilted saber bayonet, as did the Jager, although their rifle was yet another version. All of these weapons, by the way,were over60caliber. We tend to think of anything over 30 caliber as heavy weapons, but we should recall that the Brown Bess was around 70 caliber, and the Austrian Lorenz not far behind. Uniforms for the Prussian soldiers are essentially simila, However, the collar is entirely red for infantry or facing color for cavalry. The Mecklinburg Schwerin dragoon is dressed in Prussian style except that the yellow laced cuff is only piped in red while the collar is entirely red. When the Chassepot was issued, it used a smaller cartridge - a mere 44 caliber, to compensate for the well known French propensity for poor fire discipline! Other infantry carried a triangular bayonet, but also wore a short sword similar to the French infantry "Briquet". Of the latter weapon, McClellan observed that the French soldiers considered it useless, and he could think of no reason to doubt them. Organization That was the state of affairs revealed in an 1862 series of prints which shows the Royal Prussian Army on the eve of the great wars of unification. There were 4 each foot guard and guard grenadier regiments, 2 guard jager, 72 line regiments of which 1-12 were termed grenadiers, 13 to 32 infantry, and 33 to 72 f usiliers. The post-Jena corps system remained in effect, with 1 guard and 8 line corps, each having 1 jager battalion and 1 field artillery regiment as well as engineers and various cavalry attached. The cavalry stood at 8 guard regiments, Gard du Corps, Guard Cuirassier (both decked out in gilded breastplates and helmets), hussar, 1, 2, 3 uhlan, and 1 and 2 dragoon. The cavalry of the line included 8 cuirassiers said by some to have been equipped from Waterloo surplus French breastplates, 8 dragoon regiments, 12 each of hussars and uhlans. The cuirassiers included the two of guard, had square shabraques and wore white uniforms with double piping of regimental color on the coat and a lobster scaled version of the pickelhaube. They carried a long straight sword (Pallasch) of 37" blade and one or two horse pistols. The reference to a revolver in the off saddle holster in the Osprey book on The Army of the German Empire is misleading. That radical innovation came between 1871 and the issue of carbines and lances in 1887. The German cuirassier of 1866 or 1870 who had a revolver bought it himself and hid it from his superiors. Dragoons and uhlans had rounded full shabraque. Unlike the cuirassiers whose shabraques were usually of trim color, those of the uhlans and dragoons were usually of the coat color - cornflower blue for dragoons (German Dragoons Blue for Humbrol) and dark (Prussian) blue for uhlans. Dragoons and hussars were considered light, and carried shortversions of the Dreyse and curved sabers, the hussars having embroidered dolmans of various colors, pelisses for the guard, Ist, and 6th. The shabraques were pointed with wolf's tooth trim. Uhlans had collar tabs (later collars), coat trim, trouser stripes, shabraque stripes and for full dress, plastrons and czapska covers of regimental colors. They were armed with an ultra light saber with a single guard, a 10 foot long lance with white over black pennant, and horse pistols. Landwehr cavalry wore hussar busbies with simpler coats and dragoon style shabraques except for the uhlans, who wore dragoon helmets. Landwehr cavalry were active in the 1866 war, but by 1870 Prussia seems to have decided not to waste good horses on weekend warriors. The artillery dressed much like the infantry - Prussian blue tunics, grey trousers. The helmet had a knob instead of a spike so they wouldn't stick each other while jumping around serving the guns. The distinction between field and horse artillery was said to have been abolished somewhere along the line, each corps district having a field regiment which accompanied the corps and a garrison regiment which manned the fortresses and the siege trains. However, while nominally both part of the field artillery, there were definite distinctions between horse and foot artillery. Each corps regiment usually had 3 abteilungen of guns whose crews rode on the carriages and on seats on the guns, and 1 abteilung whose gunners rode horses into battle. The first 3 were equipped with infantry gear, carbines with bayonets, and had Brandenburg cuffs whose barrel was black piped red, the patch being the blue of the coat. Their luckier colleagues in the mounted element carried sabers and wore riding boots. They had black Swedish cuffs piped red, and in full dress wore a black plume. The foot abteilungen each consisted of 4 batteries of 6 guns, one assigned to each infantry division, 1 in corps reserve with the horse abteilung. In 1866 the horse guns were sometimes sent forward with the cavalry and jagers as a vanguard, but the reserve 24 guns were often left so far behind they never came into action. Of 184 batteries, 54 were equipped with 12 pdr smoothbores of the latest Napoleonic fashion - probably splittrailed like the Griebeaval system. The horse batteries had a 4 pdr gun which fired a 9 lb shell, while the more fortunate field batteries had a 6 pdr which fired a 15 lb shell. For emergencies they could fire a rather short ranged canister round. The reason for the discrepancy in poundage is that the guns were rated for the weight of a round shell, while they fired a cylindrical one. After 1866, Kraft von Hohenlohe got rid of the old 12 pdrs and retrained the artillery to get forward -- which is fortunate, since the Dreyse, which had won the 1866 War, was outclassed by the Chassepot. The 7 corps batteries (3 horse, 4 field) were termed corps rather than reserve artillery to avoid having them left "in reserve" when fighting broke out. Cuffs: The Swedish Cuff (figure 1) was worn by the four Gard zu Fus regiments, the Guard Fusiliers, and the 100th, 101st, 109th, 119th, 123rd, and all Saxon regiments. The non-Saxon units had two white vertical bars with buttons at the top. Correction: Page 11 - the titles for Brandenberg and Swedish cuffs are reversed Buttons: These were of yellow metal except for the 1st Foot Guards (Gard zu Fus), the Guard Fusiliers, and the 1st and 3rd Batallions of the 89th (Grenadier), 40th (Fusilier), 115th, 116th, 117th, and 118th Infantry, which had white metal. Buttons at the top of the skirts in the back of the tunic were shaped like hooks to carry the belt. Collar: Scarlet. The following regiments having two barsof white lace: All regiments of the Prussian Guard; 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 89th Grenadiers (the 2nd Battalion had yellow); 100th, 101st, 109th, 115th, 119th, 123rd Infantry. Shoulder Straps: The shoulder straps varied according to army corps. Since the assignments of regiments to different corps varied somewhat, and the army went from 1 Guard and 8 Line corps in 1866 to 1 Guard and 12 Line in 1886, this may lead to some confusion, especially as the regiments of the lesser states, when added to the Empire, were assigned high numbers, which were sometimes matched to their old state regimental numbers (regiment number such and such, 1st Mecklinburg, etc.). However, for the help it may provide, we are including the corps patch and regimental assignments in this article as of 1886. The Corps assignments of the various German units determined their shoulder strap colors. By 1886 there were a total of 12 line corps. In 1866 there had been only 8, which is the sort of thing which accounts for campaign rules about being able to maintain more forces when you win more squares. NOTE: only the first 8 corps were in the 1866 campaign. CORPS INFANTRY REGIMENTS STRAP PIPING I 1,3,5,33,41,44,45 White White II 2,9,14,21,34,42,49,54,61 White None III 8,12,20,24,35,48 Scarlet White IV 26,27,31,36,66,67,71,72,93,96 Scarlet None V 6,7,18,19,37,46,47,58,59 Yellow White VI 10, 11, 22, 23, 38, 50, 51, 62, 63 Yellow None VII 13,15,16,17,39,53,55,56,57 Light Blue White VIII 25,28,29,30,40,65,68,69,70 Light Blue None IX 75,76,84,85,86 White Yellow X 73,74,77,78,79,91,92 White Yellow XI 32,80,81,82,83,87,88,94,95 White Light Blue XII 97,98,99,128,129,130,131,132, 135,137,138 Scarlet Light Blue GUARD CORPS 1st Foot Guard 1st Grenadier White - 2nd Foot Guard 2nd Grenadier Scarlet - 3rd Foot Guard 3rd Grenadier Yellow - 4th Foot Guard 4th Grenadier Light Blue - Also, the Mecklinburg-Schwerin Grenadiers, Regiment number 89, had white shoulder patches in the first and third battalions, the 2nd Batallion had scarlet edged dark blue. In any case, when painting the bladed weapon in scabbard on the left side of a Prussian soldier, the following sword knot coding may prove useful: The tuft at the end is in all cases white; above it is a conical piece, above which is a smaller ball. The conical piece is white in the first, scarlet in the second, yellow in the third (or fusilier) battalion, and light blue in the fourth (this was not around until long after the 1870-71 War). The balls at the top indicate company within the battalion, i.e.: White: 1st, 5th, 7th, 13th Scarlet: 2nd, 6th, 8th, 14th These numbers pertain to regimental companies, and although it is not clear in Gleichen's "Armed Strength of Germany", it would appear that even companies within a battalion were scarlet, odd white. National Cockades: This item obviously applies to the German Empire and to its numerous predecessor states, as the cockade for the Prussian units when worn, was a constant black and white. Prussia Black and white Bavaria White and light blue Saxony Green and white Hesse White and red SaxeWeimar Blue, green, yellow Mecklinburg Red, yellow, blue Oldenburg Blue and red Brunswick Light blue and yellow Lippe Detmold Red and yellow Baden Yellow and red Schaumburg Lippe Red, blue, white Waldeck and Reuss Black, red, yellow Anhalt Dark green Schwarzburg Dark blue and white The Hanse Towns White and red After 1870 some regiments (please, don't ask which ones!) were raised there by the German Empire, and these were assigned the same cockade colors as the Empire troops (Marines, Schutztruppen, etc.) which were black, white, and red. When worn with the pickelhaube, the cockade was worn on the fastening of the chin strap. Cockade disks also appear on the front of the Hussar busby. More Prussian Cavalry 1870 Part I: Introduction Part I: Hussars Part I: Cuirassiers Part I: Dragoons Part I: Uhlans Part II: French Army: Line and Light Infantry Part II: French Army: Chasseurs a Pied Infantry Part II: French Army: Zouave Infantry Part II: French Army: Turco Infantry Part II: French Army: Cavalry Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. VII #1 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1986 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com