"Napoleonic Generals Uniforms Guide?" Topic

Is there a good guide out there for Generals/ADCs? This group always gets missed in the various guides for infantry/cavalry/artillery – whilst it's easy to have a stab, the hat decorations, collars/cuffs and shabraque can be more varied. I'd like to get them right. Any pointers?

Also brigade commanders – especially cavalry – did they typically adopt the uniform of their brigade I.e. cuirassier or dragoon; or just do their own thing?!

Thanks!

Osprey books should help you out, especially for French and British.

There are very good plates showing the uniforms of generals and ADCs during the Waterloo campaign on the excellent Mont St Jean site: link

Depending on which armies you are interested in, you may also find some useful plates on the Histofig site: link

Take a look at some of the painted examples on the Perry site.

SJDonovan thanks – been using that site for ages and never realised they did generals uniforms as well! Doh!

Try this site: link
Pick your country, then the year. In most cases you will find Generals Uniforms.

Example: France 1809, link

Uniforms of Spanish Generals

Druzhina
sites of wargaming interest

Some good sites have been listed.
The beauty of the Ospreys is that they explain what you are seeing.

This site has been linked to before

link

Loads of stuff on here, no index so searching is tedious. n.b. there appears to be little regard for copyright.

rabbit

Dear "rabbitt":

"little regard for copyright"
Errr, not really.

The site is on a .ru Russian domain, registered to a Russian citizen and his registered Russian physical address, hosted on Russian servers located in Petersburg, in Russian language, etc., etc. All sorts of Russian "документы" with ink signatures and registerd, official ink stamps covering the signature, be assured.

The site is accessible from IP addresses outside of the Russian Free Trade zone (not all such sites allow this, fearing hassles from western companies with big legal budgets). But they are not forcing any foreigner to go to the site.

The site's activities are governored by Russian law (not US or UK or anywhere else). Under Russian copyright law, there is a rather broader (some would say more reasonable) definition of "Fair Use" for non-commercial purposes. The site and its contributors look to me to be fully in compliance (and I went to a decent law school, and specialized in intellectual property law).

Now, if you download from that site an image that is protected by a US or UK copyright to your computer in the US or UK, then maybe that would be a violation of someone's intellectual property rights in the UK or the US. That might include the download that the cache on your web browser does when you surf over to the site. But, in this case, you would be the violator, not the poor Russian saps running that website.

In general, even for signatories of the Berne Convention, a nation recognizing a foreign copyright confers on the copyright holder only (and exactly) those rights conferred on their own copyright holders, not the rights conferred in the country where the copyright protection arose.

Just saying ….
:-)

P.S. – The site, correctly, performs their responsibility to protect Russian copyright holders (they can't claim in Russia that "I am just the host, a communications device, not repsonsible for the traffic on my site or my network"). Here is their invitation to copyright holders to ask them to act to protect/enforce Russian copyright:

В случае нарушения автором любой статьи действующего
законодательства РФ, вы можете связаться с администрацией 
форума «Империал» посредством формы Обратная Связь или 
написать письмо на электронную почту.

There are active links in that text on the site itself, to send in the request.

But what year are you trying to replicate?

Thanks Seroga, I apologise if I misconstrued the situation

rabbit

No need to apologize! …. or maybe I should apologize (after re-reading). I wasn't pinging on you at all – I just thought folks might be interested in a little info on why you can find this stuff "for free" on the "Russian internet".

By the way, if you see a Russian or Ukrainian website selling stuff from the west, then it is very likely (i) an illegal violation of copyright, and (ii) of very questionable quality.

The guys on "Imperial" forum are real OK folks. More relaxed than "Re-enactor.Ru" …. like TMP compared to "Napoleon-Series.Org".

For French, key distinctions I've worked out the following from various sources (please feel free to correct me!):
General de Brigade: red/gold shabraque, bicorne plain fore and aft;
General de Division: red/gold shabraque, bicorn fore and aft, gold trim;
General de corps: red/gold shabraque, bicorn fore and aft, white feather trim;
Marshall: same shabraque, bicorn left-to-right, white feather trim.

Thoughts welcomed!

General de Brigade usually a sky blue en gold waist sash
General de division a red and gold waist sash (and black plumes on on bicorne)
Maréchal White and gold waist sash, White plumes, I never hear dthat the way the bicorne hat was worn could be an indication of rank but then I don't know.

I think the orientation of the chapeau was mostly a matter of personal choice, and that most maréchals chose to wear the chapeau en colonne.
Here are a few references, none at all really answering the question ….

From a rather romantic book written in 1889 :
"Ses maréchaux, l'habit bleu brodé d'or, le haut chapeau en bataille "
link
(implies that maréchals wore the hat left-and-right)

And from another romantic work, this one from 1894:
"Le grand chapeau à plumes, porté en colonne, Napoléon se réservant le droit de porter le chapeau en bataille, ainsi que la postérité le voit toujours, avec la redingote"
link
(implies that Napoléon reserved for himself the right to wear the hat left-and-right)

From link page 412
"Lefebvre, le chapeau en bataille enfoncé jusqu'aux sourcils"

From link page 42
The young Murat – " Il gagne Gênes d'une traite, exige la réunion du Sénat et y paraît tête haute, le chapeau en bataille, sanglé dans un uniforme rutilant"

From 1835-1844, the chapeau was supposed to worm en bataille by officers of the corps de l'état-major except when leading formed troops, when it would be worn en colonne.
link
link

The maréchal de Castellane wore his chapeau en bataille in the mid-1800's, a fact remarked upon by many memorialists, including de Canrobert. This may be the source of an idea that a maréchal of 1st Empire did wear the hat this way.

- Sasha