"Napoleonic Dutch and Belgian troops" Topic

Hey all

So I know absolutely nothing about the Dutch and Belgian troops during the napoleonic wars and I would like to know more. Can anyone point me in the direction of some good books? I'm more looking at the waterloo campaign at the moment

Any help would be very much appreciated

Cheers in advance
Bryan

Depends when you are talking about – they went from being French allies to French adversaries

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There are a number of good books in English about the Dutch Belgians at Waterloo. I happened to have one right here on my coffee table. "The Dutch-Belgian Cavalry at Waterloo" by Andre Dellevoet. There are several others published in the last five or ten years, but all my copies are in storage and I can't remember the names. A word search of Amazon or Abebooks will probably disclose them.

You may want to check out this site. It should provide quite a bit of information on the Dutch Belgians at Waterloo.

centjours.mont-saint-jean.com

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1815fieldarmy.nl

Thankyou very much. I'm more looking at them as french adversaries

I highly recommend the Erwin Muilwijk books (Dave's 3rd link). Brilliant stuff.

Theoretically, this book is coming out from \Helion. I say "theoretically" as it does not appear anywhere else on Helion's site other than my wish list!!

Worthy of Praise : The Dutch Army in the War of Liberation and the Hundred Days 1813-1815
MORE INFO

WORTHY OF PRAISE
The Dutch Army in the War of Liberation and the Hundred Days 1813-1815
From Reason to Revolution 1721-1815

Marc Geerdink-Schaftenaar

David

Just fiund out from Helion that the book I mention above in my last post has been cancelled.

Actually, there are no good books on Dutch-Belgian uniforms.
Around 1900 some people (Ten Raa, Hoynck van Papendrecht e.a.) did some research, including archive research. After that their material was inherited and rehashed time and again with little added. I can tell you: little that has been written until now is accurate.

I've been doing archive research for the last ten years and have been able to put together reconstructions of many articles of clothing and equipment. I now am able to determine what patterns an artist wanted to portray. Starting from the archives works much better than working from the prints or paintings as is done by most.

Of course there are still gaps in my knowledge. For instance, I have general info on flankers distinction, but little on specific units. This is because very early on the inspecteur of infantry was told that new uniforms were being designed, and there was therefore no need to have the bataillons remove the irregular items from the old uniform. Thereafter he generally did not mention them in his inspection reports.

DrsRob, can we find somewhere on the web (website or blog) your findings?

Yes please!

Well, I have not been able to publish much. There are some articles on a Dutch site.

Het kalfslederen petje

De Hongaarse muts van Belgisch model

De Hongaarse muts het commissie-model

Watertonnetjes en veldflessen

Het vaandel met het nummer 27

Dank U veel!

I'm planning a series of books. The first one would be Dutch Line Infantry 1813-1815 ( or -1819).
They ar e going to be in English so that they are accessible to a wider audience.

Please keep us posted! I would be very interested in these.

I will second that interest! I do suspect that for so much the answer will again be that "state of transition" and no-one will ever really know

The uniform was in a state of transition, but rank and file of the field army generally still wore the old uniform. A much greater percentage of the infantry officiers was in the new uniform, because when in October 1814 the infantry was reorganised and many officers were transferred to new units, they were told to await the adoption of the new uniform regulations before purchasing the uniform of their new unit.

Many staff officers were also newly appointed at the beginning of the campaign, so they too would often wear the new uniform.