joe serge | 29 Aug 2014 12:07 p.m. PST |
guys, Who provided al leather in every armee in europe? greetings joe serg |
joe serge | 29 Aug 2014 12:14 p.m. PST |
Not that many cows or bears around huh? ,wolves greetings joe serge |
zippyfusenet | 29 Aug 2014 1:16 p.m. PST |
Pigskin leather! Lotsa piggies, eat 'em up, yum! Tan the hides in a bucket of pee. Drink more beer, make plenty of pee. Back at'cha. Yur frend, Zippy! |
joe serge | 29 Aug 2014 1:33 p.m. PST |
first cut out the bacon part!! joe serge |
rmaker | 29 Aug 2014 4:18 p.m. PST |
Joe, I think you're badly underestimating the quantity of livestock in 18th/19th Century Europe. Fewer people meant more room, and lack of refrigerated steamships meant no cheap meat from overseas. |
zippyfusenet | 29 Aug 2014 7:01 p.m. PST |
It's a lonesome, sad ditty I'll sing you right now. It's about an old man and he had but one cow. He had just sent his cow to the field to be fed, When they brought him the word that Drinnan was dead! Oh, musha, sweeter than thou! Oh, musha, sweeter than thou! When they told the old man that his cow was dead, Over hedges and bushes and fields he fled. Over hedges and bushes and fields that were plowed, And he never said "quack" till he came to his cow. Oh, musha, sweeter than thou! Oh, musha, sweeter than thou! "I'd have rather lost Patsy, my only first born, Than to part with you, Drinnan, now that you are gone. So I'll sit myself down and I'll eat my dry bread, For I'll have no butter, now Drinnan is dead. Oh, musha, sweeter than thou! Oh, musha, sweeter than thou!" |
zippyfusenet | 29 Aug 2014 7:16 p.m. PST |
My point being: Europeans used to eat a *lot* less animal flesh. Bread or grain gruel was the staple diet up until just a few generations ago; potatoes revolutionized nutrition when they were introduced. Animal fat, what there was of it, came from whole milk. Cows and goats were kept for dairy, sheep for wool, poultry for eggs, and many families kept livestock for the benefit of these products, even in towns and cities. You didn't eat old Bessie the cow until she dried up. It used to be said, "If a Jew eats a chicken, one of them is sick." A family could feed a pig on table scraps and household garbage. The butchering, once a year, was a big event that provided a feast of fresh pork. Then the choicer cuts were smoked and the rest ground into sausage for long-term storage. Okay, there were butchers, and flesh was eaten, more by the rich than by the poor, and there were hides as a by-product, but on a fraction of the scale of modern times. As late as the 1840s, it was worthwhile to ship hides from California all the way around Cape Horn to make leather in the eastern United States (see Dana Two Years Before the Mast). |
joe serge | 30 Aug 2014 2:22 a.m. PST |
dear gents, Please, stick to the topic joe serge |
Major Bloodnok | 30 Aug 2014 2:29 a.m. PST |
Are you asking about the tanners who make the leather or contractors / merchants who supply the tanned hides to the Gov't? As Zippyfusenet wrote the hides can come from all over the world |
joe serge | 30 Aug 2014 2:44 a.m. PST |
Even whole hides over the world came after 20 years or so to an end? greetings joe serge |
zippyfusenet | 30 Aug 2014 4:49 a.m. PST |
Are you asking whether the vast Napoleonic era armies used up the entire supply of leather in the world? No, they didn't. I know of no evidence that Napoleonic armies ever resorted to leather substitutes, like the wooden-soled shoes and cotton belting that Confederate troops used when the Confederacy ran out of leather during the ACW. Market economics suggests that the armies' vast use of leather must have encouraged increased production and driven up the price. No doubt some peasants and townspeople in the poorest regions went barefoot or wore wooden clogs because leather shoes were too expensive. I admit, I don't have any studies specifically on this topic. Cutting off imports of hides and other agricultural and industrial products was precisely the point of the British blockade of continental Europe. From the way the Yankees cried about it, it was a pretty effective blockade. Must have driven up the price of hides as well as other commodities. But they never ran out. Who provided al leather in every armee in europe? My family, among others. We were cattle brokers in Poland at the time. |
joe serge | 30 Aug 2014 12:55 p.m. PST |
So every nation was breeding a lot of livestock bears, wolves and so on greetings joe srge |
Beeker | 30 Aug 2014 4:35 p.m. PST |
Ah – this is not animal husbandry or farming. What you are referring to is the trapping of wild animals. During this time bears and wolves were still being trapped in western and central Europe.. probably close to extension with many species killed-off by the end of the 19th century. Britain acquired its furs (post Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Quebec City) mostly through the Hudson Bay and North Western Companies that had exploited French-First Nations trapping networks (that ran south to Louisiana in the south to the edge of the tundra in Canada's North West Territories) and also created new networks that connected the Canadian West coast First Nations. The Russians were also beginning to expand their presence in Siberia, the Caucuses and Central Asia, giving them access to furs of every type. Cheers! Beeker |
Beeker | 31 Aug 2014 5:21 a.m. PST |
… extension … *franchement* … I meant "extinction" LOL! A colleague also reminded me that HBC was involved in trapping and other commerce in North America well before the defeat of the French in Quebec – I stand corrected! : ) |
Brian Rix | 31 Aug 2014 9:57 a.m. PST |
Leather from bears – I get you, bearskins, there were bears in Scandinavia and Russia a plenty, the armies of the day would also wear "bearskins" made of goatskins; backpacks in French army were treated cowhide with the hair left on, in Spain they also used goat skins. A lot of the apparent products used were in fact not what they seemed to be, a more common and easily accessible substitute obtained, people can be pretty ingenious, it was the appearance for that sort of thing; plumes of chicken feathers, the crest of a tarleton or the like made of a sausage of material stuffed with straw made to look like a fur crest, paper paste mirletons that dissolve in the rain. |
spontoon | 31 Aug 2014 6:04 p.m. PST |
Actually in wartime the raising of cattle increased. Cattle were easier to move around alive than barrels of salted beef. Plus they could be used as extempore draught animals. The British army moved with vast herds of " bullocks". Remember, at this time, Scotland was mostly a " black-cattle" economy, and most of them were driven south. Hence " the roast-beef of Old England"! |
joe serge | 01 Sep 2014 10:35 a.m. PST |
gents I tried to ask where there specialized firms who made al the leathers like musket slings and sabre slings and so on greetings joe serge |
Lion in the Stars | 01 Sep 2014 10:46 a.m. PST |
Sure there were specialized firms, but most of them were not the monsters of commerce like we'd expect today. Companies were generally much smaller early in the Industrial Revolution. Hudson's Bay Company was a monster, but I haven't heard about any companies on that scale in continental Europe. Besides, you'd really be surprised how much leather you can get from one cow. I could probably fit an entire infantry company from two or three cows. |
Mike the Analyst | 01 Sep 2014 11:00 a.m. PST |
@zippfusenet – Davout equipped his corps with clogs in the camp at Boulogne to ensure that his men would last longer without needing resupply of boots in the pending campaign. Joe, there was little organised mass production at this time. Every small town would have leatherworkers, woodworkers and blacksmiths. There are often references in Napoleon's correspondance ordering the staff to order a number of sets of harness etc. from towns serving as concentration points for new troops and cavalry remounts. |