"British cavalry trumpets at Waterloo" Topic

Hello to all.

This may be a silly question, we are painting an army for Waterloo with Age of Eagles rules and part of my duties is to paint the British Guard units and Household and Union cavalry brigades in 15mm.

As I know, it was custom for the French cavalry regiments that their trumpets had different colours for their uniforms. Did this also happened with any of the British regiments that formed the Union and Household brigades at Waterloo?. I've seen pictures of standard bearers and they have the same uniform, don't know about the trumpets.

I'm asking this just because I also have trumpets and standard bearers figures and always like to add personality to the units painting them in the most faithful manner I can.

I can't quote a source, but I'm pretty sure that the trumpeters wore the same uniform as the rank and file.

Sorry, no fancy stuff.

White horses. IIRC, the uniforms were the same as the ordinary troops.

From the dusty archives:

TMP link

Allen

Thank you very much for your kind help gents.

:^)

I thought that the trumpeteers tended to have (light) grey horses.

Did any nation ever try to pick off the trumpeters with rifle fire to interfere with the enemy cavalry's ability to manoeuvre? Or plant their own trumpeters among their own troops to sound the enemy's "retreat" call at inconvenient moments?

Oh thank God. For a moment there I thought new historical scholarship had made all my British Trumpets (not trumpeteers) obviously un-historical. Of course I would throw out my entire British 1815 collection if that were true.

Mon cher Cuirassier – of course trumpeters are non-combatants and therefore strictly off limits to sniping, which is a sneaky way of waging war anyway. They don't even carry sabres, only dress swords to show their cavalryman status. Weren't you listening to the Maréchal des logis?

Trumpet signals were actually very similar throughout their period of use, and there is at least one report (by Warnery I believe) of some Hungarian hussars slotting in among his Prussian troopers in the dust clouds after hearing the "recall" sounded.

That said, wouldn't the trumpeters of the Life Guards and Blues have worn some form of Royal livery?

Try this link and click on "Gardes a Cheval" in box 1; then click on any regiment in box 2, and go to the "Uniformes" box in the details of that regiment.

link

Thanks a lot for the webpage Supercilius, fantastic link.

This is a very confusing subject. From about 1790 onwards, uniform regulations for British cavalry regiments were ignored more and more. By rights they were still governed by the warrant of 1768, which prescribed Royal livery (red coat faced blue with yellow/blue lace) for Royal regiments and reversed colours for non-Royal regiments. Grey horses were custom rather than regulation.
Contemporary pictures of the 1812-15 period show many regiments in reversed colours (including oddly the Royal Dragoons), but a number had regular uniforms,with various distinctions like red crests, lace loops on the sleeve and German style 'swallows nests' on the shoulders.
In 1811, a board of General officers recommended that reversed colours for trumpeters should be forbidden precisely because although it made them easier for the own officers to recognise them, it also made them targets for the enemy. This recommendation became an army Order in 1812 and should have resolved the situation but clealt it didn't!
If anyone would be interested I could collate the various contemporary refs I've got by regiment.