A staged photo and a curious observation

[Bob Hunter]

Here we have a photo of Hussar Regiment 13 circa 1912 at their home station.

It features the commander, adjutant, drummer, part of the band and to the right some troopers from the regiment. The question is why would a hussar regiment be carrying lances??

Another question came to mind as I posted this. Why does the Adjustant wear his single cross belt over his right shoulder and everyone else in the picture wears it over their left??

I wonder if the Chief Wizard of New England knows...

Edited August 17, 2005 by Bob Hunter

[Guest Rick Research]

All German cavalry were armed with lances.

There, that exhausts my "expertise" in this area.

[Bob Hunter]

...don't tell me, let me guess, they had no lancer units per se?

[David Gregory]

Most statistics say that 80% of all men wear theirs on the left.

If cross belts were worn on the other side by the majority at that time, perhaps he is part of the photographic evidence supporting the statistics....

Errr, but perhaps not. Who knows? Something to do with turbulence when riding in formation?

Your answers on a postcard please to ......

[Bob Hunter]

I would love to see the derivation of those statistics. Is based on field research on Saville Row?

Edited August 18, 2005 by Bob Hunter

[Glenn J]

Why does the Adjustant wear his single cross belt over his right shoulder and everyone else in the picture wears it over their left??

Bob,

Bodenstedt was the Regimental Adjutant. As such he is wearing the Adjutant's sash which was worn over the right shoulder whereas the remaining personnel wear pouch belts which were worn over the left. Hussar Adjutants did not additionally wear the pouch belt.

Regards

Glenn

[byf]

I don't know much about Imperial stuff so my answer would be. Because he could.

byf

[Bob Hunter]

Ah ha! Very simple when the facts are known. Thanks for the insight, Glenn.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Most statistics say that 80% of all men wear theirs on the left.

Well... for once I am more to the right than the forum average!

But that is probably more info than is needed......

[W McSwiggan]

Uhlans were the German lancers. Rittmeister Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen comes to mind...

...don't tell me, let me guess, they had no lancer units per se? <!--emo&--><img src='http://gmic.co.uk/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[joerookery]

This is footnote 639 from the "Handbook of Imperial Germany" on page 310. Specifically the section deals with tactical changes in the cavalry and other branches between the Franco Prussian war and the first world war.

[Daniel Krause]

Nice quote with an interesting point. I did not know that Dragoons are now converted into light Cav and Uhlans are now heavy Cav...

Maybe somebody mixed something.....

Greetings

Daniel

[joerookery]

I don't know -- this really was a stretch for me to begin with as I was brought up with the Napoleonic understanding of Cavalry including middle cavalry. Then there was all the British influence in the combining of Lancers and Hussars. Dr. Buchholz' groupings were formed from German doctrinal writings. The German/English/French correlations do not seem to always work.

[joerookery]

As a further clarification of the heavy light cavalry conundrum here is a quote from Dr. Buchholz who wrote that section of the Handbook of Imperial Germany.

An answer to this question is not as simple as it seems, the views are divided even within Germany. Rather than distinguishing between light and heavy cavalry the difference was made between light and battle cavalry, counting cuirassiers and lancers as battle cav - cuirassiers because of their role in assaulting infantry and uhlans because they were supporting the cuirassiers by breaking up squares with their long lances. Hussars, Jäger zu Pferde and also usually dragoons were counted as light cav due to their recce role and their role as kind of a mounted cavalry (dragoons) carrying out raids.

This system can be found in the really instructing book by General Graf v. Bismark "Ideen-Taktik der Reuterei" published in Karlsruhe 1829. On pages 40-48 he clearly distinguishes cuirassiers (called: Harnisch-Reuterei) and lancers (Lanzen-Reuterei) as battle cavalry from all the other branches of light cavalry. He does so by giving minute details about sizes of horses, riders, their armament and details of their roles. According to Bismark's (he is really spelled "Bismark" not "Bismarck", but with regard possible spelling rules of the 1820s that seems to be the same family - also the later chancellor Bismarck kept the cavalry tradition and was reserve officer of the Magdeburg cuirassier regiment) systematic the lancers would be clearly perceived as heavy cavalry. Since I regarded Bismark's book as the kind of a cavalry bible this was also my source when I wrote the footnote on page 310.

Ortenburg (who is one of the most respected current writers on military history in Germany) rather breaks up cavalry into three different branches: light, medium and heavy cavalry with counting hussars and dragoons as well as the Bavarian Chevauxlegers as light riders, ulans as medium cav and the cuirassiers as heavy battle cav. He doesn't put Jäger zu Pferde into this system since they were built up only after forming cavalry into a uniform arm without assigning different roles to different arms. Please see: Ortenburg Georg "Waffe und Waffengebrauch im Zeitalter der Einigungskriege" Koblenz 1990, pp 116ff and Ortenburg "Waffe und Waffengebrauch im Zeitalter der Millionenheere" Bonn 1992, pp 151ff.

Since I happen to have all of them on shelf as original print I checked all cavalry manuals, the 1764, the 1812, the 1876, the 1886 and 1909 one. In all of them there is no particular distinction made between light and heavy cavalry, only between tactical roles such as recce, flank guard, battle cav assaulting in echeloned formation and dismounted fight - Interestingly non of the manuals assigned a particular role to a particuloar branch of cavalry. Regretfully I don't have the hussars manual issued by Frederick the Great before he wrote the cavalry manual of 1764 based upon the experience of the Seven-Years-War. Probably the hussars manual specifies the role of light cav a bit more.

Interestingly a Saxonian source I have available subscribes to the British point of view by clearly distinguishing between heavy cav including cuirassiers, usually dragoons and also mounted grenadiers (a particular Austrian and Saxonian form of mounted heavy infantry) acting as battle cavalry and light cavalry including chevaux legers, uhlans, hussars, Bosnian riders and cossacks (Author unknown, Handbuch für Kavallerieoffiziers über den Dienst im Felde, Dresden 1789, p 13). Traditionally the Saxonians rather subscribed to Austrian positions than to Prussian ones. We may therefore assume that also the Austrians shared the British point of view.

All of my military handbooks (Handbuch für Heer und Flotte / Scheibert, Illustrirtes Militär-Lexikon / Frobenius, Militär-Lexikon) were published after 1871 and therefore after reforming cavalry into a uniform cavalry featuring their different arms more or less as pure tradition. All three hanbooks make it clear that modern cavalry has to meet both roles: acting as a battle cav and acting as a light recce cav - regardless what branch their are from. All three hanbooks therefore refuse to clearly assign cav branches to roles. Also my last source, the "Handbibliothek für Offiziere oder: Populaire Kriegslehre für Eingeweihte und Laien" published with 20 volumes in the 1820s and 30s explains the different roles of cavalry without clearly assigning branches to roles.

I hope that helped throwing further smoke upon that matter :-)