From: Neal Smith <sasrns@unx.sas.com>
Subject: Re: Prussian Military
Keywords: books history prussia
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 16:04:37 GMT


From Neal Smith <sasrns@unx.sas.com>


In article <BzH4ux.AK3@law7.DaytonOH.NCR.COM>, patter@dasher.cc.bellcore.com (patterson,george r) writes:
|>
|> According to "Battledress", the dragoon's "roots were in the infantry",
|> all right, but this is a far cry from being just "mounted infantry". In
|> the early 18th century, he was armed with carbine and bayonet and given
|> poor horses and no armour. He also wore the grenadier's hat. By the mid
|> 1700s, however, they were allowed to adopt the cocked hat, and by the
|> end of the century were allowed trumpeters (rather than the infantry's
|> drummer).

   This is true.  How does this make him more of a cavalryman then mounted
infantry?  The hat is another issue, but it doesn't pertain to the cavalry 
vs. mtd. inf. issue so I'll drop it in favor of the more pressing problem.
The "poor horse" actually would seem to be a point in my favor.  If these 
were meant to act as heavy horse on the battlefield, would they be given
such poor horses?  Granted, that during a campaign most horses would 
deteriorate and become "poor" compared to their original condition.  
BTW, I'm not familiar with "Battledress".  Who is the author?  I wonder
which sources he is drawing from?

|> As I said, the Prussian dragoon of the mid 1700s wore heavy boots which
|> came to mid thigh. They had a cutout at the rear to allow the knee to
|> bend. The illustrations I have show spurs. This is the footgear of
|> someone who rarely gets off a horse and does not walk far when he does
|> dismount. I'd sooner take a hike in hip waders.

   Well, I believe that I said they still dismounted only about 50% of the 
time.  I didn't say that they were still only mounted infantry.  This period 
is the "changeover" period for dragoons.  It also depends on the army and the
Prussian army did adopt more of the cavalry tactics which we are familiar with
today.  They were the ones that adopted the cavalry charge that we are familiar
with and they began to have their dragoons fight mounted more often than before.
The Napoleonic French army had dragoons that fought on foot too.  This was 
because of a lack of horses, but they didn't issue them with any special footwear!
Their official uniform still had the thigh high boots, with the cutout.  BTW, all
boots of this kind had the cutouts.  Can you imagine trying to sit on a horse 
with thigh high boots with no cutout?  The boots themselves actually only came up
to the back of the knee and the other parts were just stiff flaps that tried 
to protect the knee from incidental injuries.

|> By contrast, the hussars wore light boots which came to just below the
|> knee in front and to slightly above mid calf in the rear, also equipped
|> with spurs. The heel is lower than the dragoons' boot, which one would
|> expect, since light calvary would spend more time dismounted than dragoons
|> would.

  The funny thing is that hussars probably never left their horses, except 
to start fires, loot, etc.  A hussar who left his horse was easily captured
because of the nature of his work, and his need to range over large areas of
territory.  

  I think you are making a minor mistake by inferring too much from the pictures
of these troops.  What kinds of things would one expect of troops dressed in 
bearskins?  Would they be elite guardsmen?  Well there were a lot of troops 
dressed in bearskins during the Nappy wars that were pretty bad troops, but some
would say that they had to be good troops just because they wore a funny hat and
were titled "guard".  

Later
Neal Smith
sasrns@unx.sas.com




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