"2nd Silesian Landwehr 1815" Topic

May I pick your brains, please?

I'm working on doing the Prussian IV Korps for Waterloo. Looking at the Mont St Jean website, it shows 2nd Silesian Landwehr in normal kit – except for stovepipe shakoes, with red plumes and Maltese cross.

Do you think this is right, or is it maybe a misreading of something else, like the regulation Landwehr cap with wire stiffening?

Footslogger,

The British supplied equipment to the Prussians in a similar manner they did to the Spanish. I'm sure it is correct.

I used this site for my Hanoverians. I also have quite a few Landwehr in British kits, my suggestion is to mix them up with different accoutrements.

Here are some additional sources that have some Silesians in those hats:

From: link

Hah, I bought a box of Perry Prussians on clearance thinking it would be the start of an easy project since the uniforms are pretty basic for Napoleonics. Instead it turns out there are three-four troop types in a division, which is called a brigade, with an array of potential uniform sources and minor distinctions that differ throughout a 3 year period, the best guide to which is two $60 USD books. Oh well, if it were easy it wouldn't be much of a hobby.

Rich

Footslogger

According to Dr. Summerfield's "Pr. Nap. Ldwr. Inf & Cav."
the Mont St Jean plate is correct.

The old 17th Silesian Ldwr. was renumbered the 2nd in Jan. 14.
The descriptions and plates in the book show a few variations.
ie. white or red shoulder straps with '17' on them and all blue cuffs in one plate (the top middle fig. in the first plate posted by the Commissar above).

Zagloba,

All I can say is "yep". That said, if you believe in painting "generic" units then it gets almost difficult to make any of them wrong…

Cheers,

The Bandit

Here the only quasi-contemporary (published in 1816) image of the 2. Schlesisches Landwehr-Infanterie-Regiment:

link

See also (with a commentary on this plate):

TMP link

Dear Sir
There is little that I could add. I had written an answer by my broadband fell over.
Stephen

Gentlemen,

Thank you very much. That clears that one up. I'd known that reservists were issued all sorts of British manufactured items, but not that any had found their way to Landwehr units.

Another conversion job beckons.

That's what is so fun about painting 1813-1815 Prussians. The reserve and landwehr units can wear an amazing mix of uniforms, sometimes even within the same battalion. You almost can't go wrong with them.

Jim

Remember to mix the uniforms and especially the hats. The Schirmutze would have been worn by some of the regiment. Remember the officers would be wearing more the regulation uniform.
Stephen

Agree with Jim. The mix of Prussian uniforms in this period is great fun.

Remember to mix the uniforms and especially the hats.

Unless you prefer uniformity, even for the Landwehr: For 1815 and the relatively well-off province of Silesia, a case could probably be made for each battalion wearing only one type of headgear?

In another context (25th IR) on another thread Oliver Schmidt mentions that soldiers were made to swap headgear to give a more uniform appearance for each company. I have assumed therefore that some effort would have been made to standardise headgear within subunits. However that won't stop me doing a bit of mixing to use my figure stocks more efficiently – since you can only buy them in standard quantities which never quite fix the unit sizes you have.

Incidentally I think I have also read on this forum that officers in a regiment would tend to harmonise their uniforms with each other. So they would all adopt a new uniform style at the same time. I guess that is less likely in the thick of the 1813/1814 campaigns than in the run-up to 1815.

The officers were likely to wear regulation uniform. The older officers could be wearing their old uniforms.
Stephen