"Forage caps on Russians question" Topic

I am currently putting together some Perry Russians and im thinking about mainly having my battalions in forage caps with the odd officer or standard bearer in shako. is this acceptable? Is it feasible that the forage cap can be used like this? Or is it better to sprinkle them among the battalions?

FM

Pacing le Breton – I hope he did not leave in discust.

I would not mingle these, but what I would do paint a part of the miniatures in the grey conscript uniform along with the forage cap, seemingly this did happen, when conscripts did arrive at their parent battalions.

Viskovatov-translation of Mark Conrad:

Before 23 May 1808 recruits were accepted from their landowner donors wearing normal peasant caftan tunics [kaftany], breeches of coarse peasant cloth [sermyazhnye shtany], and peasant shoes [chiriki] or boots [upaki] (131). [Although the word "recruit" was used, men for the army were not voluntarily recruited, but compulsorily conscripted – M.C.]

23 May 1808 – So that recruits would have clothing suitable for service at the very start of their acceptance into the army, it was ordered that there be made for them gray cloth caftans or tailcoats [kaftany ili mundiry] of soldier pattern with covered buttons; pants and forage caps of plain peasant cloth; black neckcloths; peasant boots either smeared with clean tar [chistym degtem vymazannye] or made with the hair side of the leather on the outside [lichnye sapogi]; gray cloth pouches to substitute for knapsacks and hold any baggage. (Illus. 1843); and peasant shirts and winter coats [shuby] as before. Of these items the caftan coat, pants, neckcloth, and so-called knapsacks were made by the government and charged to the recruits' donors, while the rest, as well as underclothing and winter and summer foot cloths [podvertki] were provided by the donors in kind (132).

28 July 1809 – It was emphasized that recruits were to be received from their donors with new winter coats [shuby] without exception, and not half-coats [polushubki] (133).

27 June 1812 – The forage caps with hanging tassel prescribed for recruits was replaced by low caps without tassels, of the pattern used as this time in the Army (Illus. 1844) (134).

8 July 1812 – The cloth, linen, and other items stipulated for recruit clothing were ordered to be given by the donors in kind (135).

On a trouvé sur le champ de bataille dix-sept cents Russes, parmi lesquels onze cents recrues habillées de vestes grises, ayant à peine deux mois de service.

: link

I will mix in a few bonnets de police in my French, but my Russians are all in shakos with cords. For a camp or forage diorama, different story.

Our colleagues have given very good replies.

Russian army soldiers wore shakos on duty. They wore forage caps off-duty in camp or in barracks, when doing drills, construction or manual labor, etc. In small cities and rurual areas, the might be allowed the forage cap in walking out dress.

Really – put them in shakos unless thereis a special situation or vignette that you are wanting to model. Leave off the plumes and cords in bad weather (with greatcoats), for army units. I agree with Jeffrey.

Other exceptions : a pack of recently delivered recruits still in gray as mentioned by Von Winterfeldt (although really they should have received thier greens at the recruit depot of the first line associated with their divsion …. so we would be talking about late-arrving recruits whose divisional depot city had been taken by the French or some similar mischance), non-combatants, officers (especially jäger officers, it seems) – officer forange caps were supposed to have peaks (although in the cavalry they seem to have affected troopers caps), units long overdue for re-supply and thus lacking shakos (think late spring of 1813 or of 1814), most – but not all – militia (opolchenie) which never had shakos, many units of the internal guard and garrisons, flying columns far from friendly lines, the units that walked back through the Ukraine all the way from Serbia, etc.

Marines were like infantry, but naval crews outside of the guard had round hats (or round hats for petty officers and forage caps for sailors) and chapeaux for officers. Actual sailors of the 75th Black Sea crew fought with the Danube Army and various landings and raids were made by Baltic Fleet sailors based in Riga, and others supported the various sieges of the Baltic port cities in 1813.

By the way, I think Von Winterfeldt's quote is from the Bulletin after Marojaroslavets. The dead Russians in gray would be Moscow and Smolensk opolchenie who had volonteered for service in the actual "Army" after Borodino.

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By the way, I think Von Winterfeldt's quote is from the Bulletin after Marojaroslavets. The dead Russians in gray would be Moscow and Smolensk opolchenie who had volonteered for service in the actual "Army" after Borodino.

thanks for the information, so my assumption that those were conscripts in grey uniform – is wrong.

@Von Winterfeldt,
Not necessarily, but the recruits taken in to the main Army at that time most all came from the early 1811 "call" that had been sent 1st line depots (the divisional depots) where there were plenty of green uniforms. There might have been smaller detachments sent from seocnd and third line depots and still in the grays.

It is actually an interesting task to trace the recruits arriving and opolchenie integrated after Borodino, as well as the consolidations and rebuilding of the battalions sent back cadres. It is a rather big research effort, but I think most of the information is accessible now. It would make a great thesis or dissertation topic as it shows that the Russians were actually better, even during an invasion, at getting this part of their personnel system organized than were the French, whose units wasted away far more.

One would have expected the opposite from all the acclaim of the "highly developed French staff system" compared to the Russians who are alleged to have illitierate officers, no staff systems, incapable of reading maps, blah, blah, blah.