Military Uniform - History - Nineteenth Century

Nineteenth Century

See also: Uniforms of La Grande Armée

The first fifteen years of this century influenced the appearance of military uniforms for much of the rest of the century. Some French uniforms - notably those of the cavalry regiments of the Imperial Guard - are considered amongst the most elegant and beautiful of the time. The cost varied widely, going from 200-250 francs for a line infantryman's outfit to 2000 francs for a cuirassier's uniform. Cavalrymen of the Guard had not less than 10 different uniforms. One justification for the expensive parade dresses of the Guard was that they would "lead the people of the conquered nations to regard the French uniforms with unreserved astonishment". As a general trend France and other European states replaced their bicornes by feathered shakos or crested helmets

The ornamental peak of the military uniform was reached in the early 19th century in Western Europe. Sometimes the Napoleonic Wars are identified as being the acme of colourful and ornate uniforms, but actually the several decades of relative peace that followed were a time of even more decorative styles and embellishments. The Napoleonic soldier on campaign was likely to present a shabby and nondescript appearance as unsuitable peacetime dress quickly deteriorated or was replaced with whatever local substitutes were available. Until later on in the century dyes were primitive and different batches of uniforms worn by the same unit might present differing shades, especially after exposure to rain and sun. The white uniforms popular amongst many armies through the eighteenth and early 19th centuries soiled easily and had to be pipe clayed to retain any semblance of cleanliness. Green as worn by Jäger and Rifle regiments proved particularly prone to fading until suitable chemical dyes were devised in the 1890s. British soldiers were known for their striking red clothing (hence the name "Redcoats"). This was actually a fairly dull shade of madder red until the general adoption of scarlet for tunics in the 1870s. The American industrial revolution began in the Blackstone Valley, of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, with early textiles, from 1791. Among the earliest manufacturers of US military uniforms was the Capron Mills at Uxbridge, Massachusetts from 1820.

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Famous quotes related to nineteenth century:

    “The taste for freedom, the fashion and cult of happiness of the majority, that the nineteenth century is infatuated with was only a heresy in his eyes that would pass like others.”
    —Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)

    “The nineteenth century planted the words which the twentieth ripened into the atrocities of Stalin and Hitler. There is hardly an atrocity committed in the twentieth century that was not foreshadowed or even advocated by some noble man of words in the nineteenth.”
    —Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)

    “The nineteenth century was completely lacking in logic, it had cosmic terms and hopes, and aspirations, and discoveries, and ideals but it had no logic.”
    —Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)

    “If the nineteenth century was the age of the editorial chair, ours is the century of the psychiatrist’s couch.”
    —Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)

    “American family life has never been particularly idyllic. In the nineteenth century, nearly a quarter of all children experienced the death of one of their parents.... Not until the sixties did the chief cause of separation of parents shift from death to divorce.”
    —Richard Louv (20th century)