"Facial Hair of Staff Officers" Topic

I have never thought about this before, but having looked at some portraits of SYW generals, and then of some from the ACW, I realised that none of the former had beards. Where there any, and if not, was there any regulations. I seem to remember reading that they were forbidden to Prussians, but I may be wrong. – And what about the other armies

Not sure what the rules were but it seems from looking at contemporary plates most Austrian generals and senior officers were clean shaven except for those in the cavalry like Nadasdy, who came up from Hussars

Throughout history military fashions have generally evolved in parallel with civilian fashions. There have been bearded periods, moustached periods, and clean shaven periods. Interestingly, it seems that we are going from a clean shaven into a bearded period according to what I see around me.

I remember reading somewhere that Alexander the Great shaved during a bearded period, but then most of his generals started shaving too. It became "fashionable".

In the 18th century gentlemen didn't have beards as facial hair was deeply unfashionable and all officers were gentlemen. Beards are yet another thing I hate to see in historical dramas set in the 18th century. I stopped watching Frontier(nominally set at the end of the 18th century) because I couldn't take the British officer Character who had a modern beard and said in one episode "let's go to the ing pub". No gentleman would ever behave like that.

From the late C17th the previous fashion for facial hair waned; first beards declining in popularity then moustaches. Throughout the rest of the C18th the general custom in western society was for men to go clean shaven. One exception was in the armies of the west where a fashion for certain bodies of troops to display exotic military styles associated with the barbarian fringes of Europe bordering the Ottoman and Persian empires and the steppes of Asia. We might think of the infantry grenadiers, imitating the Turkish janissaries, and hussar regiments formed in imitation of the Croat and Hungarian light cavalry that had made their appearance in the west during the 30 Years War. In all of these cases flowing moustachios were de rigeur and remained so for much of the next 200 years or so. The moustache came to be seen as a military style in general, waxing and waning in popularity, alternating with a full beard phase, throughout the C19th and into the C20th. `By the late C19th, the moustache was also a popular civilian fashion.
Civilian facial hair saw a resurgence in the 1960s-70s then after a period out of favour, in the wake of the millenium the 'hipster beard' became all the rage among- well- hipsters. Whether the sporting of beards by troops in Afghanistan for practical reasons had an influence is probably too soon to say, but the Covid 'lockdown beard' gave the fashion a new lease of life, sprouting on men of all ages and we now seem to be experiencing an era of maximum beard similar to that seen 1850-1875, perhaps before a slow wind-down similar to the period leading up to 1914. I am looking at you, Prince Henry Charles Albert David Sussex.
(See- Edward VII, Czar Nicholas, George V, George Bernard Shaw et al, but not Edward VIII or George VI).

I hope muttonchops don't come back into style (I think they're just silly… ;-)

Ah, well, that's a shame. Because…

I think it's more fashion as well, during the 7YW hair seems to be the main attraction, mustaches were specialized mostly, Hussars, Grenadiers for example.
Napoleonic era the sideburns seem to be growing, hair much less
By ACW that beard grew to be the mainstream.

I'm with bong67, not fashionable in this period and any officer from colonel upwards would have had access to a man to shave him even if it had to be in cold water.