The Uniforms of the Napoleonic Era Quiz

Answer: Austria

Although the Austrian infantry were long known as 'The Whitecoats', the coats themselves were made from undyed wool and could be anything from dark tan to mid-grey. White was saved for officers, and then only for parades.

The heavy cavalry mainly wore white or dark green coats, usually with grey overall trousers on campaign. The light cavalry regiments were much the same except for the Hussar regiments, who were a wide range of colours.

Answer: Facings

They are known in the English-speaking world as facings and were originally invented to identify units within an army once armies had all started to wear coats of a uniform colour. Although most countries followed a small palette of colours for their main uniform shades, the choice of facing colours were far wider, with Great Britain having over fifteen shades and Austria nearly forty!

Answer: Yellow

In the case of the first three mentioned, the yellow coats were meant to recall the armoured buff leather coats that cavalrymen would have worn a hundred years before Napoleon's time. The Neuchatelois' had yellow coats due to yellow being the Neuchatel Cantonal colour.

Answer: Kingdom of Bavaria

The Bavarian infantry had worn pale blue since at least the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), and carried flags in blue and white with a distinctive sloping checkerboard pattern, a variation of which is Bavaria's state flag to this day.

Answer: False

Although a large majority of the British infantry regiments did indeed wear red, and had done so since the days of the New Model Army in the English Civil War (1642-1660), the light infantry skirmishers of the 95th (Rifle Corps) regiment and the 5th and 6th Battalions of the 60th (Royal American) regiment all wore uniforms of dark green in an early attempt at camouflage.

Answer: Bicorne

Apart from their Light Hussar regiments (Hussars always have to be different) who wore the tall cone-shaped mirliton, you would be hard-pressed to find a Spanish regular soldier on the eve of the Peninsular War who wasn't wearing a bicorne. Many of the militia regiments, when they were uniformed at all, however, preferred the round hat, which looked like a slightly shortened top hat.

Answer: Blue and grey

Naturally, it was blue and grey! The regulars favoured blue, although not exclusively, just as the militia and newly raised regiments usually went for grey (again, not exclusively). There were huge State variations, and red, green and tan uniforms were sometimes seen. It was more important to raise and equip an army in the field than project a uniform appearance.

Answer: Brunswick

They were the famous Black Brunswickers, most of whom wore a uniform of black, chosen by Duke Frederick William of Brunswick to honour the death of his father who fell in battle at Auerstadt in 1806. They certainly made an impression during the Waterloo campaign; the Scottish diarist Lady de Lancey described them as 'a mournful sight, resembling a huge walking hearse'!

Answer: Netherlands

The 2e Régiment de Chevau-Légers Lanciers de la Garde Impériale were formed from the remains of the Dutch cavalry, after the Kingdom of Holland was absorbed into France in 1810. Napoleon himself decreed that they would wear the same uniform as the Polish Guard Lancers, only in red. In this uniform they served until Napoleon's downfall at Waterloo.

There was a third Lancer regiment in the Guard, raised in Lithuania. They lasted less than a year and were destroyed along with so much of the Grande Armee on the retreat from Moscow.

Answer: Mamelukes

The Mamelukes of the Imperial Guard were formed from volunteers who had accompanied Napoleon back to France after the end of the 1799 Egyptian campaign. Never more than a hundred men in strength, they made up for it in visual impact, being dressed in an Egyptian-style uniform of green, blue and red topped by a red turbaned fez.

Napoleon's personal valet, Rustam, was a member of the Mamelukes.