Monday, July 29, 2019

Prussian Infantry Blankets from the Paintings of Hyacinth de La Pegna


Detail from La Pegna, Maxen, HGM
Dear Reader,

Today, we are going to look at examples of Prussian infantry enlisted-men's blankets as drawn in the paintings of artist Hyacinth de La Pegna. La Pegna is famous for his many excellent eighteenth century battle scenes, ranging from the Battle of Assietta to fighting in the Austrian Netherlands, to his most famous painting in the English-speaking world: The Ambush at Hochkirch.

La Pegna's Surrender at Maxen, HGM
The subject of Prussian soldiers' blankets is mentioned in contemporary sources A special thanks to Christoph Koester for sending me Musketier Dominicus' comment on blankets: "Then the Prince of Zweibruecken stopped by, and said that since the men had on an old clothing issue, it was getting cold, they should take the tent blankets. We were happy, and they issued them to us. Those who had no blankets carved up old tents, and took pieces of them."[1] An anonymous letter from an Unteroffizier in Regiment Nr. 3 (Anhalt) described the situation on the night of September 30th, 1756: "Our Tornisters were our pillows, the earth was our bed, and the heavens were our blanket." He had failed to retrieve blankets from the supply train for his Leutnant, as a result of a skirmish between the outposts of the army and enemy Grenzer. [2] We know that at least according to the infantry regulations, each Prussian tent squad was supposed to be issued with two blankets.[3]



La Pegna's Battle of Hochkirch, HGM



I had the opportunity to examine two of La Pegna's paintings up close  at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna a few weeks ago. In that museum, there are two paintings, both by La Pegna, which depict Prussian blankets. Both of these paintings, the Attack at Hochkirch, and the Surrender at Maxen, were completed during the later years of the Seven Years War. The first painting, rather well known, is the detail below from La Pegna's depiction of the Battle of Hochkirch. The detail shows an Austrian grenadier and two fusiliers chasing a woman from a Prussian tent, with a camp bed and blanket prominently depicted in the tent itself.


Detail from La Pegna, Hochkirch, 

The remaining images, as well as the image at the topic of the post, come from a second painting by La Pegna: the surrender of Finck at Maxen. Here, Prussian troops are shown grounding their weapons and surrendering to Austrian forces, in cold weather. The temperature is apparent from a number of factors including the fact that many Prussian soldiers have their hands thrust inside their coats. I'll continue the textual narrative below, after having allowed you to examine the images.


Detail from La Pegna, Maxen, HGM

Detail from La Pegna, Maxen, HGM

Detail from La Pegna's Maxen, HGM
Detail from La Pegna, Maxen, HGM
With the following images, I believe that it might be proper to conclude the following: La Pegna believed that in Prussian camps, and on surrender marches, the Prussian army was equipped with rectangular blankets, white or off white in color, surrounded by two blue stripes (one blanket appears to have three, but that it is an isolated example.) The images above seem to indicated that the blankets were available to Prussian soldiers, not just officers, as the officer in the first of the four images does not have a blanket. It does not appear, at least to me, as though the soldiers depict in this image have formally turned their blankets into blanket coats, but I am open to those with contrary evidence on that point. However, the blankets have been made to a size where it was quite easy to wear them while walking in cold weather.

Obviously, this has been a rather cursory investigation of blankets in the Prussian army during the Seven Years War-era. If you have more information regarding Prussian army blankets in the middle of the eighteenth century, please let us know via the comments below, or via email, found on the about the author page.

If you enjoyed this post, or any of our other posts, please consider liking us on facebook,  or following us on twitter. Finally, we are dedicated to keeping Kabinettskriege ad-free. In order to assist with this, please consider supporting us via the donate button in the upper right-hand corner of the page. As always:


Thanks for Reading,





Alex Burns



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[1] Tagebuch von Musketier Dominicus, s. 77
[1]Curt Jany, Urkundliche Beitraege und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Preussischen Heeres, section 2, pg. 2. 1901.
[2] Reglement vor die königl. preussische Infanterie, 1750, pg. 297. 


Friday, July 26, 2019

Is the Military History of Frederick the Great and George Washington still relevant in the 21st Century?

The excellent reenactors of Prussian IR12, Erbprinz Hessen-Darmstadt

Dear Reader,



In the course of completing my Ph.D, I have the distinct pleasure of teaching the Modern Military History course at West Virginia University. Students always sign up for the class in large numbers, expecting to hear primarily about the Second World War, or even the Vietnam War. They are almost always disappointed to hear that to historians, "Modern" Military History includes much of Military History after 1500.

As I believe that students learn better when their instructor is passionate about the subject under study, I spend approximately two and a half weeks (of a sixteen week course) covering the Kabinettskriege era, with particular reference to the era between the War of Austrian Succession to the American War of Independence. Every semester, I ask students to write a paper, comparing two of the great military leaders of the eighteenth century. (It's not Frederick II and Washington every semester, in fact, I prefer reading essays about Charles XII and Maurice de Saxe). However, students are always surprised that I spend so much time on an era of limited war, where (at least in their mind) tactics and technology were relatively static. As a result, I am writing this post, attempting to defend what I see as an incredibly relevant period in military history for our own time. So, why is the era of Frederick II and George Washington still relevant in the 21st Century?

Washington by Peale, 1779
1. The conflicts of Frederick II and Washington form part of the "canon" of modern military thought, and the Military-Civil relationship in our own time. In order to understand that, we need to understand them. 

If you read On War, you will be astonished by the easy familiarity which Clausewitz possesses with the campaigns of Frederick II. To understand the mind which produced On War, we need to understand the conflicts of Frederick II as he did. The debates about the relationship between armies and societies which continue into our own time were happening albeit in a slightly different form, during the eighteenth century. In my observation, there is a gulf today in the United States between many soldiers and many civilians, and neither seem to understand the other, or even have a desire to do so. A reading of Charles Royster's A Revolutionary People at War, will reveal that the exact same debates were occurring in the fledgling United States during the American War of Independence. The army and the society became disconnected from one another during the course of the conflict, and began to actively dislike each other in cases.  In essence, an understanding of eighteenth-century warfare allows for a greater understanding of our own world.

2. Studying Eighteenth-Century Warfare demonstrates that while technology is important, adaptability is more important. 

There were a number of military technological improvements during the Kabinettskriege era,  including the French development of cooper-bottomed pontoon-bridges in the 1670s, the refinement of mortars, the artillery systems of Shuvalov and Gribeauval, the rifles of Isaac de la Chaumette and Patrick Ferguson, to name but a few. However, with the possible exception of the pontoon bridges, none of these technological inventions fundamentally changed the shape of warfare.

In the Seven Years War, Frederick II was faced by enemies with vastly superior artillery systems. The British, not the Americans, experimented with breechloading rifles under Ferguson. Indeed, technological experimentation does not always lead to decisive results. In the 1749, John Muller wrote to the Duke of Cumberland, arguing that
"The French, who are continually aiming at improvements [in their small arms] have succeeded no better than others; One should be surprised to find in their last establishments several things changed which were better before, and Mr. Belidor who takes great pains in making experiments has been very much mistaken in his account of the Chambers in Mortars[.]"[1]
Napoleonic Prussian Generals made much the same observation, after seeing the results of tests which showed that the older Frederician musket was more accurate than their modern replacement.
Though Frederick II was in many ways technologically inferior to his opponents, his willingness to adapt and learn from them proved one of his strengths, as the result of the Battle of Burkersdorf shows. Technology is not always the silver bullet, especially in an era of limited warfare. As the development of light troops shows us during this era, innovation was often more important than invention.

Frederick II, later 18th century, by J.H.C. Franke


3. In both the case of Frederick II and George Washington, greater material and manpower did not necessarily equate victory. 


Both the allies arrayed against Frederick II in the Seven Years War, and the British forces confronting George Washington the early American War of Independence put many more soldiers into the field, and had greater supporting and logistical forces at their disposal. This did not prevent both Frederick and Washington from achieving their political goals in the final outcome of the conflict (though Frederick's success is much more qualified than Washington's.) Both generals marched quickly, unexpectedly took the offensive and initiative from their opponents, knew when to dig in, and when to retreat, and learned from their many mistakes.

This is not a lesson that the American Civil War, or the First and Second World Wars teach particularly well. In these wars, powers with more resources had time to learn from their mistakes and eventually crush their opposition. Obviously, none of this was achieved superior resources alone. Russian operational maneuvering on the Eastern Front was quite good, particularly in the later stages of the Second World War, while the victories achieve by the Union army in the middle-western theater of the American Civil War were fairly consistent throughout the conflict.

Superior resources mattered in the eighteenth century as well, of course, but the successes of George Washington and other American leaders brought powerful allies (the French, Spanish, and Dutch), into the war, not the other way around. Likewise, successes which Frederick II achieved early in the Seven Years War allowed him breathing space to continue the fight as long as he did, until eventually, as a result of chance, the enemy alliance collapsed.


4. Studying an era where the "rules of engagement" were limited compared to the 20th Century encourages thought about the nature of warfare. 


We live in an age where compared with the mid-twentieth century, violence against civilians by regular forces is frowned upon, and at least officially discouraged. Civilians still suffer in war today, obviously, as they did in the eighteenth century, but compared with the mass blood letting of World Wars 1 and 2, and even Vietnam, modern standing armies attempt to cause less civilian casualties, or at the very least, claim that they attempt to cause less casualties. In that way, the eighteenth century may offer a window into our own time.

This point always causes controversy when brought up in the classroom, as many students prefer the thinking of William Tecumseh Sherman ("You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it") and Bomber Harris to the more seemingly more gentle nature of eighteenth-century war. Indeed, compare Sherman's statement above to Austrian Marshall Daun's: "The purpose of war is to push back the unrighteous enemy, not to exterminate the human race."

Frederick II of Prussia, a truly prickly and acidic man at times, delighted in the ransacking of Saxon noblemen's homes during the Seven Years War. Wars with British could turn particularly ugly when rebellion was involved, whether that rebellion was in Scotland in 1745 or in North America in 1775. However, none of the atrocities of the eighteenth century approach the sustained scale and magnitude of the Thirty Years War or the Napoleonic Wars, to say nothing of the industrialized death of the twentieth century.

 In recent years, as a result of the excellent work of historians such as John Childs, John Lynn, Erica Charters, Hannah Smith, Eva Rosenhaft, and others, there has been a vigorous debate about the exact nature of this "limitation" (if it can even be called that), but I would argue that the numbers tell a clear story. Fewer civilians died from conflict related causes during the 150 odd years of the Kabinettskriege era than died in the 50 odd years of the Thirty Years War and Napoleonic Wars. I don't think that we necessarily have a specific answer as to why that was the case. 

Reenactors portray British Forces in the American War of Independence


5. Studying the Eighteenth-Century Warfare is relevant, because, in a popular sense, it is still very badly understood. 


 6. In many ways, the conflicts of the Kabinettskriege era decisively shaped the course of modern history, the history of the era in which we live. 


It is impossible to understand the course of nineteenth and twentieth-century European History without understanding the wars of the eighteenth century. The Kabinettskriege era saw the beginning of so many stories which continued into our own time, or at the very least, continued into the twentieth century. It is impossible to understand the power of Napoleon's Empire without the stories of Vauban and Louis XVI, and the foreign policy disasters which caused the French Revolution.  It is impossible to understand the creation of the nineteenth-century nations of Germany and Italy without the success which Prussia and Savoy enjoyed in the eighteenth century. It is impossible to understand the rise of the British Empire as a global phenomenon without understanding the Seven Years War. It is impossible to understand the modern United States as a global power without the American War of Independence, and equally impossible to understand the story of the Soviet Union and Russian Federation without the reforms of Peter the Great, to say nothing of the generalship of Suvorov. It is impossible to understand the tragic history of Poland and the Polish people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries without understanding the partitions of the late-eighteenth century. All of these are only reasons related to military history, to say nothing of the enlightenment and industrial revolution.

To some extent, this is true of every era. It is impossible to fully understand the eighteenth century without understanding the seventeenth century, etc. But, I must say, I am prejudiced and conceited enough towards my own field of study to argue that the eighteenth century deserves more of a share of attention than it currently enjoys in the public consciousness as we move into the third decade of the 21st century.

If you enjoyed this post, or any of our other posts, please consider liking us on facebook,  or following us on twitter. Finally, we are dedicated to keeping Kabinettskriege ad-free. In order to assist with this, please consider supporting us via the donate button in the upper right-hand corner of the page. As always:


Thanks for Reading,





Alex Burns



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[1] Letter from John Muller at Woolrich to His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, June 28th 1749.

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Series Introduction: Piquet to Chasseur


Interpretive Staff Portray French Troops defending Niagara, 1759
Photo Credit, Davis Tierney

A Plea for the Armies of Ancien Régime France

Dear Reader,

This is not at all meant to be an academic dissection of current historiography regarding the French Army from the Kabitnettskriege era, or even the era from the War of Austrian Succession until the French Revolution. Frankly, it is something that I have long been interested in, but only now am I engaging the topic academically. My background, like many other Americans, turned into Eurocentric military historians, focuses primarily on the British Military. As well, while I’ve had the amazing privilege of work at Fort Ticonderoga, for Campaign 1776, and partaking in several educational projects around 1740-1790 timeframe, I first and foremost would weigh my expertise on the First World War of 1914-1919.

One theme that I have begun to pick up on as I continue my work with the Great War is the deeply rooted national narratives which define the wartime experience. With those narratives so ingrained in modern society, it is only now becoming mainstream to incorporate topics and research to create an international military history of a particular engagement or theme. While British military historians, and in fact, all those of the Anglophone world have grown an appreciation for topics involving the primary enemy power of Imperial Germany, relatively few have thoroughly dissected the Allied heavy hitter of the Western Front, France.

This is unsurprising. As so many modern narratives of the major Allied powers gain traction from their sacrifices during the First World War, it is inevitable that for many Britons the BEF was the elite force on the Western Front, or for Americans the AEF. In Anglophone public perception, those were forces which many times had to pick up the slack of the conscripted masses of the French Army. This is, of course, untrue and fails to appreciate the weight of the war which fell on French shoulders. Yet this opens a theme which brings us back to the wars of the 18th century.

Louis-Nicolas Van Blarenberge, The Siege of Yorktown, 1786;
(Private Collection of Nicholas Taubman)



In the case of the many wars fought during the reigns of Louis XV, and Louis XVI, France and its army have become a force which exists only to teach the British a lesson in warfare on the frontiers of America, only to be outmaneuvered and battered by the Royal Navy at sea and the Germanic forces on land unless in direct coordination with American efforts. Any professional historian would find the fault with this, yet only now is the historiography of the French Army during the Kabitnettskriege-era expanding. The French Army which suffered from “Victor’s Disease” after the War of Austrian Succession went on to be defeated in the Seven Years War. The changes which were introduced to the Troupes de Terre following this debacle did not only modernize the French Army and bring it to victory in the American Revolutionary War/Eight Years War. It also formed the groundwork for France’s (and arguably all of Europe’s) most successful military force, Napoleon’s Grande Armée. The French Army both started and ended the Enlightenment era as the predominant land force in Europe, starting in size and ending in quality. Therefore, they deserve much more of our attention. However, our biggest hurdle is ourselves in our narrowly Anglophone world.

I’ll be the first to admit, I have limited French. I took some French in college, and used it while working overseas on First World War battlefields. I am not alone in saying this is my biggest impediment to further research on the Ancien Régime. A younger generation of historians such as Dr. Jonathan Abel, William Raffle, Andrew Bamford, and Charles Mayhood have all recently (Standby for the reviews of their excellent books soon!) However, these works only form the tip of the iceberg if we are to begin to fully understand the military, political, and social mechanisms which made the French Army operational.

Jonathan Abel's work on French theorist Guibert is one of the newer studies of the French Army during this time period.


Therefore, I put out a plea to the readers to join with me in pursuing the study of the French Army of the Ancien Régime. As a British focused historian, I for one can’t fathom understanding the Redcoats who fought at the Plains of Abraham and Brandywine, without understanding the foe they considered to be their greatest, the French soldiers of Fontenoy, Minden, and Yorktown. We must break free of our Anglo-American biases and preconceptions and open ourselves to truly be experts in the field we all love.

If you enjoyed this post, or any of our other posts, please consider liking us on facebook,  or following us on twitter. Finally, we are dedicated to keeping Kabinettskriege ad-free. In order to assist with this, please consider supporting us via the donate button in the upper right-hand corner of the page. As always:

Thanks for Reading,


James Taub[1]


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[1] James Taub is a military historian specializing in the Modern Era, with an interest in World War One and Early Modern Warfare. He is currently finishing a tenure as the Education Coordinator for the US World War I Centennial Commission. He took an undergraduate degree in History from Dickinson College, and a Master's Degree from the University of Glasgow in War Studies. He is pumped for Top Gun 2.



Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Austrian and Prussian Items at Burg Forchtenstein

Officers Austrian Infantry Regiment 33 (Note the chaplain in the upper left)
Dear Reader,

Over the weekend, I had the distinct pleasure of being able to visit Burg Forchtenstein, just south of Vienna, near the border with Hungary. While there, I took the standard tour, and then as a result of the kindness of my guide, Zoltán Kacsmarik, was able to return to the eighteenth-century rooms for some additional photos.

Burg Forchtenstein from the Southwest

Prussian Enlisted Tent, with officers of Austrian Hussar Regiment Nr. 24 (Esterhazy)


Prussian Officer's Tent, captured 1758, front

Prussian Officer's Tent, captured 1758, interior
Plug Bayonet, late-17th/early 18th Century

More officers of Regiment 33, Austrian (Grenadier) Cartridge Pouches

Sword Belts, Late 18th Century/Napoleonic

Drum, Austrian, mid-to-late 18th Century


Sabertaches, Hussar Regiment 24 (?) Austrian, 18th Century
Artillery Train Wagon, late 18th century, likely Austrian
Various Prussian items, captured at Hochkirch, 1758

Austrian camp kettles and cartridge pouches, 1797 (?)
Like my recent post regarding the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, this is very much the highlight reel of my visit, I took over 260 photographs of mainly eighteenth-century items. I'll attempt to give a more full accounting when I return from Europe at the end of the summer.

If you enjoyed this post, or any of our other posts, please consider liking us on facebook,  or following us on twitter. Finally, we are dedicated to keeping Kabinettskriege ad-free. In order to assist with this, please consider supporting us via the donate button in the upper right-hand corner of the page. As always:


Thanks for Reading,




Alex Burns


Saturday, July 13, 2019

Eighteenth-Century Items in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna





Battle of Maxen, Franz Paul Findenigg,


Dear Reader,

I had the wonderful pleasure of visiting the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna on Saturday, and took a number of photos of items from the eighteenth century.


Museum Entrance

Ottoman Firelocks, late 17th Century



Late-Seventeenth-Century/Early Eighteenth Century Coat, 

Late-Seventeenth-Century/Early-Eighteenth Century Coat, Button Detail

Late-Seventeenth-Century/Early Eighteenth Century Coat, Pocket Detail
Late-Seventeenth-Century/Early Eighteenth Century Coat, Collar Detail
Prinz Eugen von Savoyen with Papal Gifts, 1716

Prinz Eugen's coat and waistcoat, with mail over linen sleeves
(useful in fighting against the Ottomans)


Captured Prussian Grenadier and Fusilier Caps, Seven Years War
Captured Prussian Infantry Flags, Seven Years War

Captured Prussian 10-Pound Howitzer, Seven Years War


Attack at Hochkirch 1758 (Pegna, painted 1762)


Collection of Austrian Uniform Plates, 1762 



Austrian Infantry Working Axe, 1760s

Selection of Austrian Infantry Muskets, entire 18th century



Hat, Sword and Cane of Austrian Artillery General,
2nd Half of 18th century

Hat, Sword and Cane of Austrian Artillery General, 
2nd Half of 18th century
This is a relatively small sample of the over 500 pictures taken at the museum. Look for future posts with more photographs of more items.

If you enjoyed this post, or any of our other posts, please consider liking us on facebook,  or following us on twitter. Finally, we are dedicated to keeping Kabinettskriege ad-free. In order to assist with this, please consider supporting us via the donate button in the upper right-hand corner of the page. As always:


Thanks for Reading,




Alex Burns