"French generals' shabraques" Topic

Ok, I'm confused. At what rank did shabraques change from blue to red. And is crimson that I see with marshals different or is it one and the same with red?

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks

As far as I'm aware, all generals have a red shabraque (Division, Brigade). Infantry Colonels have it blue. For cavalry colonels it may depend on the regiment colours.

By regulation, regimental officers in the infantry had blue shabraques (trimmed silver for leger and gold for ligne) while general officers had red i.e. the change came after colonel. Cavalry officers had different colours depending on their regiment and those with general rank had all sorts of variations. However, as with all things in Napoleon's army, regulations were one thing and reality another and I have seen a few examples of ligne officers with red shabraques. As a bottom line if you keep infantry officers with blue and generals in regulation uniform with red you cannot go wrong.

With regard to red or crimson I would stick with red as the 'crimson' usually refers to better quality material.

Hope that helps.

For parade anyway, red velvet. Which is tricky. Very dark recesses, but very bright highlights. So much depends on the angle viewed, degree of illumination. Red and crimson both correct on a good day!

Cool. Thanks guys. I was settled until recently when I saw some very nice pics of figures with cloths in colours I wasn't expecting.

That helps a lot

Marc the plastic fan, hope you don't mind a further question on the same topic. I may be way off base here and I don't have my sources at hand now but I seem to remember seeing one source that depicted the shabraques of Napoleon's ADC's, (they were general officers I believe), as being blue. Because I have my Imperial ADC's with red shabraques this has left me wondering. If anyone can confirm or deny this I would be very grateful. Thank you, John Miller