Woftam wrote:Just to show my ignorance, what exactly is a "Hussar" ? Are they cavalry, mounted infantry, or something else ?
Hussars are a branch of light cavalry, owing much in their dress to their origins amongst the Hungarian irregular cavalrymen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in or about the time of the Seven Years War*.
The distinctive Hussar dress reached its peak in the 19th Century with the Napoleonic Wars and later into the Crimean period. The distinguishing features of Hussar uniforms (of all nations) was the short heavily 'frogged' Dolman or tunic and (more often than not) the similarly heavily frogged, fur trimmed 'pelisse' or over jacket, worn (when not in use) slung over the left shoulder, fastened in place with a cord, a throw-back to the traditional wolf skin**. A sabretache (a leather pocket, often faced with an embroidered face piece and heavily laced) served in lieu of pockedt hung on long sligh outside of the sabre. The headgear was usually a shako, Merliton (a tall peakless 'sugarloaf' type leather cap wrapped around with a binding or 'wing' often coloured the same shade as the bulk of the cap on the outside and the facing colour on the inside face, the wing often being worn partially unwound) or a low fur Colpac (spellings vary depending on nationality) - also called by some (wrongly) a 'busby', this last often bedecked with cords, plumes and a decorative 'bag'.
With the change of style of warfare in the mid 19th century, they became just another branch of light cavalry and with the move to 'ervice' dress, by the major nations, the distinctive Hussar dress was relegated to full dress only (although the German states had long since simplified their ornate dolmans to the'attilla', standard length jacket, frogged with about five rows of flat lace (with sewn in false end loops) and, on the introduction of Feld-grau merely chanced the colour of the uniform.
If I can remember at a more civilised hour, I'll scan in some line drawings of Hussar uniforms.
I'm sorry, I wrote a little more than I intended to.
(This is all off the top of my head at gone two in the morning, so don't take anything here as Gospel).
Tom
* There was a Polish force of heavily armoured horsemen , known as the "Winged Hussars", but there were far from the later light cavalrymen.
** The original Hussars were (reputedly) Magyar hersmen, or, more properly, the mounted hunters who kept the wolves from both flocks and people.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v14/j ... s/scan.jpg[/pic]
