European Uniform Colors during the Musket Warfare Age

[Knight-Dragon]

Fr the period fr just prior to the Napoleonic wars (I think, not sure) until almost the end of the 19th century, armies used brightly colored uniforms for easier identification of forces on the battlefield. Muskets (or whatever you called the guns used then) in those days were less devastating and accurate than modern weopans; the main consideration was not to get your force to attk another allied force due to mistaken identification. I'd wondered last night and it seemed to me that each European country adopted a specific color for itself. The ones I thought of...

Britain - red (the Redcoats)
France - blue
Austria - white
Russia - green
Prussia - prussian blue

Did I get any of the colors wrong? What about those uniforms for countries like Sweden, Spain, the Italian and German states etc?

 

[privatehudson]

Hmmm, allow me to comment?

France did use Blue for most of that period, but pre-napoleonic wars under the bourbons their armies mostly used white uniforms. Beyond this comment you have to presume you are talking about the bulk of the foot soldiers right? In that case your assumptions would seem accurate.

During the Napoleonic wars the Swedish used Blue edged with yellow. Spain is a difficult one to judge, they seem to have began using white before adoping other colours as the war went on, and given their nature of government at the time determining any one colour was hard. Italian states varied as did the german ones to a greater extent due to their origins being seperate armies to begin with. Dutch-Belgians mostly used blue throughout the wars and so on.

This obviously though would still lead to confusion on the field of battle. At Madia for example the French deployed a swiss regiment which were using Red uniforms as was traditional for them only to be shot at in confusion by their fellows thinking they were British! Napoleon also made an error at Borodino which angered his Saxon allies when he refused to acknowledge their achievements. The Saxon Gardes de Corps (in white) were the first to storm the Raevsky redoubt followed by the Polish and Westphalians curassiers in blue. Berthier said "The Saxon Cuirassiers are inside!" , but Napoleon being Napoleon saw those behind and seeing as how the French Cuirassier dressed also in blue declared "they must be my cuirassiers.

Interesting fact, in "german" states you probably mean the confederation of the Rhine right? Well the confederation of the Rhine seemed to have problems with geography back then. Either that or the Duchy of Warsaw was a hell of a lot larger than Poland is

The point I guess I'm loosely and vaguely making is that each army had it's own regiments that did not conform to the normal uniform of the country, be that the Rifles of the British army or the Swiss regiments in the French. Cavalry and so on though are another issue entirely Just imagine what a multi-coloured mob Napoleon's army of 1812 would have been

 

[storealex]

Denmark was red and white. Always.
________
Ebonygirl20

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Interesting fact, in "german" states you probably mean the confederation of the Rhine right? Well the confederation of the Rhine seemed to have problems with geography back then. Either that or the Duchy of Warsaw was a hell of a lot larger than Poland is

What do you mean?

 

[privatehudson]

Warsaw was in the confederation of the rhine despite being a fair distance from the rhine

 

[Stefan Haertel]

I think it's interesting that these colours have had an impact with future identification of these countries. For example, I have noticed that on many political maps of Europe, Britain tends to be red, orange or pink, Germany is almost always blue, Russia is green (except for the Soviet Union, which sometimes was green and sometimes pink), France is usually purple, Turkey/Ottoman Empire is brown in most cases. The only major difference I've noticed is a big wall map of Europe I have hanging in my room, in which Germany is light pink. On historical maps, Prussia is usually light bluie.
The other countries usually differ. There is never a white country on a map (as white is usually reseved for glaciers and shallow water), so Austria isn't white.
Compared to the colour scheme of European uniforms, I think this is not accidental.
Of course, this is only true for old atlases, where maps were not yet computer made and actually looked good. Today, nobody seems to give anything for colour schemes anymore.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Anyone knows why particular countries chose those particular colors for themselves? Like red for the British Recoats?

 

[Stefan Haertel]

Unfortunately, I don't. What puzzles me even more is the fact that these uniforms often differed dramatically from the considering flags.

 

[Verbose]

Private Hudson has a point. The nations adopting a specific colour were rather few. British redcoats are perhaps the most well known, but they were the exception rather than the norm.

Still, the Austrians wore mainly white. So did the Royal French armies of the Ancien Régime, when they didn't wear other colours. The Irish regiment fighting in the French army wore green. (I wish I could remember the colours of the Royal Suédois as weel at this point.) The French revolutionary army used the colours of the tricolor.

The Russians adopted green. Danes have used red and white since the crusades in the Baltic since the 13th century. (The Danish flag is to have fallen from heaven as a miracle after the Danish arch-bishop prayed for a sign in an upcoming battle against the Esthonians.) Swedish colours have been blue and yellow since at least the 15th century (the flag came later, and these colours were used by one royal family, there haven been a number, as early as the 12th century), but regimental uniforms could be all kinds of colours. In the napoleonic wars they were as described by Private Hudson, but only in the German theatre of war. In the war in Finland 1808-1809 they were grey.

Prussian uniforms were often blue, but the Guards wore black (the Prussian, later Imperial German colours are black, white and red) and I think that might be every bit as representative for the Prussians as blue.

 

[storealex]

The Swedish coulers came from the old sign of a noble family which had tree golden crowns on a blue background. Thus it became yellow and blue, and they coppied the Danish flagdesign with the cross and all.
________
Volcano Vaporizers

 

[Verbose]

The Swedish coulers came from the old sign of a noble family which had tree golden crowns on a blue background. Thus it became yellow and blue, and they coppied the Danish flagdesign with the cross and all.

The three crowns actually represent the three kingdoms that originally made up Sweden; The kingdom of the "svear" and the two kingdoms of the "göter" (possible to translate as "Goths"), eastern and western. (Svealand, Östergörland and Västergötland are still Swedish counties.) The three crowns are still on the official Swedish seal.
Getting the design of the flag from the Danes is correct though. The Swedes had nothing better to do than playing catch up with the more powerful neighbour to the South, eventually overtaking them.

 

[privatehudson]

Anyone knows why particular countries chose those particular colors for themselves? Like red for the British Recoats?

There was a rumour that the British chose red because it hided the blood well...

One thing I do know is that these colours were very popular, sometime prior to the first world war the attempts to dress the french in something slightly less obvious then the red and blue traditional uniforms was met with staunch conservative insanity. Comments like "Les Pantalons Rouge Cest France!"* and similar did the rounds

*sincerest appologies to french speakers if the grammar and spelling is bad here High school french didn't teach me that much

However I would strongly suggest that the Blue of the French army links heavily to the Tricolour flag

 

[Verbose]

One thing I do know is that these colours were very popular, sometime prior to the first world war the attempts to dress the french in something slightly less obvious then the red and blue traditional uniforms was met with staunch conservative insanity. Comments like "Les Pantalons Rouge Cest France!"* and similar did the rounds

That's right, in 1911 the French army, bless their little hearts, actually looked at the British experience at the beginning of the Boer war, and came to the conclusion that khaki was very smart and practical, and would mean getting shot at a tad less.
Only problem, this ran into massive political opposition in parliament, pretty quickly backed by popular protests along the lines that the French people would no longer recognise their French army without their blue coats and red pants. So they kept them, knowing full well that it was idiocy from a military point of view.

(The real problem with the French army back then was the "attack school", Foch's bloody stupid notion that "cran/guts" and "l'offensive à l'outrance/the offensive to the extreme limit" would win battles. It made one French artillery officer in all earnest comment (when complimented of the rate of fire and power of the 75mm field guns by a British officer I think) that the battle would really be won by the bayonets of charging French infantry. That kind of attitude lead to suicide attacks, and the idea of not using the machine guns in the front line etc. It would only have been marginally less terrible without the pretty uniforms. And Pétain was already saying things like: "Fire kills" but not many listened to him back then. De Gaulle did though.)

However I would strongly suggest that the Blue of the French army links heavily to the Tricolour flag

Yup!

 

[privatehudson]

All perfectly true, I would also add that there was considerable opposition at the time to the adoption of Helmets, one general (who's name I forget but must have lead the french at the begining Foch maybe? My WWI knowledge isn't that good) saying he will beat the germans so fast that there "simply won't be time to make any" There's also the problem that despite all the changes some anecdotes of the first months of the war tell of french units attacking in columns into machine gun fire

I mean it's coming to something when the likes of Petain is the only guy talking any common military sense

On the machine guns, I believe it was also standard British procedure to limit their number, one general remarking that two to a battalion would be enough! Not that it made much difference, when the Germans ran into Lee Enfield fire from the BEF they thought it was machine guns anyway

 

[mrtn]

...
Getting the design of the flag from the Danes is correct though. ...

Actually I much prefer the older version of the flag, with a much darker blue, and the cross almost orange. The current washed out colours is just a 19th century "fad".

 

[Verbose]

I mean it's coming to something when the likes of Petain is the only guy talking any common military sense

Pétain was an infantry officer, the only one in higher command in WWI on any side it seems. The rest seem to have been mainly cavalry, and horse soldiers have always been known to be a bit dense. (Well Nivelle wasn't, he was arty, but that didn't help in his case.)
And whatever can be said of the French army in WWI, they did learn, even if it ALL had to done the hard way. (Groan. )

On the machine guns, I believe it was also standard British procedure to limit their number, one general remarking that two to a battalion would be enough! Not that it made much difference, when the Germans ran into Lee Enfield fire from the BEF they thought it was machine guns anyway

True, very... particular... machine guns the Germans realised. They definately favoured officers. Having had a few more of them around in 1914 would have been nice.

 

[privatehudson]

Pétain was an infantry officer, the only one in higher command in WWI on any side it seems. The rest seem to have been mainly cavalry, and horse soldiers have always been known to be a bit dense.

True, true, especially in the British army where the cavalry has a rather bad record at times. All armies had a rather disgusting habit though of still, despite all the evidence to the contary persisting in the belief that cavalry were the battlefield winners

 

[Verbose]

We seem to be drifting of topic here. Maybe we should start a thread on cavalry (stupid and otherwise)?

 

[Adler17]

he Prussian uniforms of the Frederician era were mainly blue, in the wars of Liberation against Napoleon they were black. Later they become blue again.

Adler

 

[Mrogreturns]

There was a rumour that the British chose red because it hided the blood well...

True- and when Nelson was informed that enemy sharpshooters were targeting him, he ordered that his scarlet jacket be brought to him so that if he were wounded the blood would not show and cause the men to become dispirited. Less known, however, is the fact that he also called for his brown trousers for somewhat similar reasons.