"Why didn't French horse artillery wear green?" Topic

There is a general overall logic to French uniforms in this era.

Line infantry wear blue uniforms. Lights wear a bit more blue, perhaps to be less conspicuous. Elite infantry wear blinged-up line or light uniforms.

Line cavalry wear green uniforms: chasseurs, lancers, dragoons. Elite cavalry wear blinged-up line uniforms: chasseurs of the Guard, Empress dragoons. Hussars and Guard lancers are the obvious exception, but both are explicitly foreign uniform-wise at least – Hungarian or Polish or Dutch – so they don't have to follow the convention. Guard horse grenadiers wear Guard foot grenadier uniform, but on a horse.

Cuirassiers aren't Guard, but are set apart from other line cavalry. So they get a dragoon uniform but in blue, so they won't be mistaken for dragoons when not wearing their cuirass.

Carabiniers looked like mounted foot carabiniers until they didn't. A bit of an odd one out.

So now line artillery. Evidently the artillery wore blue, whether foot or horse. Why didn't the foot wear blue and the horse green, following the conventions of the other foot and horse?

Horse artillery weren't cavalry in the same way that foot artillery weren't infantry. They were a separate corps with their own structure and officers.

Why didn't British foot artillery wear red? 🙂

Why didn't British foot artillery wear red?

They did but it was a long time ago.

My understanding is that all artillery of the period wore dark colored uniforms due to how dirty one gets working the guns. Green might not been an option for showing too much black powder grime.

British Gunners did wear red ‘back in the day' However, with the formation of the Royal Regiment of Artillery in 1717, they were part of the Board of Ordnance rather than the Army ‘proper'. They were still ‘Royal' so were clothed in red and blue like all Royal regiments but reversed to signify their Board status. (As with many armies, dark blue was found to make powder stains less obvious.)

I know British artillery wore red 'a long time ago', but as this was posted on the Napoleonics boards my reply was accurate. 🙂

Dark blue was the French artillery branch color. When horse artillery was formed they were also assigned dark blue as their branch color, but used a hussar and/or chasseur 'cut' to their uniforms as a distinction.

The all dark blue artillery uniform was adopted with the Gribeauval reforms in the 1760s-1770s.

For the artillery uniforms of other European nations, the following might be helpful:

Confederation of the Rhine:

-Baden: dark blue.
-Bavaria: dark blue.
-Cleves-Berg: dark blue.
-Hamburg: dark blue.
-Hesse-Darmstadt: dark blue.
-Mecklenburg-Schwerin: dark blue.
-Saxony: green.
-Westphalia: dark blue.
-Wurttemberg: light blue.
-Wurzburg: green.

-Denmark: red.
-Kingdom of Italy: green for line, blue for Guard horse artillery, green for Guard foot artillery.
-Naples: dark blue.
-Kingdom of Holland: dark blue.
-Duchy of Warsaw: green.
-United States: dark blue.

-Austria: brown.
-Great Britain: dark blue.
-Brunswick: black.
-Holland: dark blue.
-Prussia: dark blue.
-Russia: green.
-Sweden: dark blue.

For the artillery train troops, the colors were different, usually a grey, green, or an iron grey in most armies. It should be noted that artillery train troops were not artillerymen, with the exception of the United States, but train troops.

Brechtel is quite right. Artillery is in a coat color which conceals or at least minimizes the effects of dirt and black powder, and is almost always the same for foot and horse artillery. The horse artillery distinctive is in cut as they borrow items and styles from the light cavalry--headgear, shape of boots, lace and cuffs are all usually on the list.

Oh. You might add Spain, Portugal and the United States to his list: all in dark blue. It sticks in my mind that there was a hint of gray to the Wurttemberg artillery light blue, but I don't want to think about those poor Danes.

Strictly, of course, dragoons weren't cavalry at all; they were mounted infantry. So had consistency been the goal, there is an argument that French dragoons and cuirassiers should have swapped coats with each other. Dragoons should really have worn the infantry's blue because they originated as mounted infantry and quite often fought on foot, whereas cuirassiers should have worn line cavalry green because they were pukka cavalry all the way.

The British artillery were a separate corps, like many countries' artillery, but they did at least acknowledge the foot / horse distinction. The foot wore infantry uniforms and the horse wore cavalry uniforms. I am not sure why they didn't follow the cavalry in dropping the Tarleton, but maybe they just figured they were a separate corps, and would do whatever suited them.

@ Brechtel: thanks. There does some to have been an inclination to darker colours for one's artillery corps. It's hard to think why else the Austrians put their gunners in a fetching shade of brown.

You might add Spain, Portugal and the United States to his list

The United States is on the listing…right below the Duchy of Warsaw.

Strictly, of course, dragoons weren't cavalry at all; they were mounted infantry.

Dragoons certainly began as mounted infantry, way before the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period in the 17th century. But they had evolved into line cavalry 'expected to handle any sort of mounted mission.' They were no longer mounted infantry.

In the Peninsula the French dragoons, with the exception of the 13th Cuirassiers who served under Suchet in eastern Spain, were the French heavy cavalry against the Spanish and the British.

'I know British artillery wore red 'a long time ago', but as this was posted on the Napoleonics boards my reply was accurate. 🙂'

Absolutely. Just adding some background.

I imagine the Royal Horse Artillery retained their crested helmet-caps because this was a more stable headgear and offered a degree of protection to a branch that might be more likely to find themelves hard pressed by enemy cavalry. This served them very well for a further fifteen years or so, until somebody pointed its practicality out to William IV who immediately ordered them into top heavy Light Dragoon shakos.

"… but I don't want to think about those poor Danes."

Spare a thought for the poor Austrian Grenz artillery in their spiffy white infantry coats :~)

Cheers,
John

"Spare a thought for the poor Austrian Grenz artillery in their spiffy white infantry coats."

I have, Johann. And that thought is "pipeclay."

Another thought on red-coated gunners: how much of the end of red as an artillery coat color is related to use of brighter red dyes over the 18th Century? A brick-red coat is not so bad. A scarlet red coat is another matter altogether. Which makes me wonder about how the Danes were dying their wool.

And my apologies, Brechtel. Don't know how I missed the US line. There were a few grays among the US militia artillery, come to think, but that doesn't depart from the overall trend.

During the period white uniforms were the easiest to clean as they hadn't been dyed. And any permanent marks on the uniform could be covered with pipeclay.

Don't forget that in this era "brick red" meant "orange red". Dirty brown-red bricks were a late Industrial Revolution thang.

I'm aware of the pipe clay method. I still think they'd look pretty grey by the end of a day firing cannons :~)

Cheers,
John

Probably darker than that…

Just as an addendum, the French artillery arm was considered 'elite' as a whole, not merely the horse artillery. French artillerymen were chosen for their strength and intelligence, handling artillery equipment, from the guns themselves to the vehicles, required strength and above average intelligence.

And it should also be mentioned that field artillery, up to and including 12-pounders, were also considered as light artillery as a whole, not just the horse artillery arm.

Why didn't British foot artillery wear red? 🙂

I seem to recall they did in "The Patriot"…..