Danish Army c.1704

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janner
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Danish Army c.1704

Post by janner » Sun Jan 05, 2014 6:43 pm

Does anyone have an idea if there was a standard colour for officer's sashes in the early 18th century Danish army?

Thanks in advance :D
Last edited by janner on Wed Jan 08, 2014 7:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by Tacitus » Sun Jan 05, 2014 11:29 pm

There was no standard colour for Danish officers' sashes until 1732 when red-yellow was adopted. Before then a variety of colours were used by the regiments and none of them are known to have been red-yellow.

The Queen's Regiment (Dronningen) had 1702 white sashes and this was probably also the case for the Foot Guard. Prince Christian's Regiment had red sashes 1702. Danish regiments in Dutch service wore orange sashes which they retained when they returned home.
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by janner » Mon Jan 06, 2014 8:23 am

Many thanks Tacitus.

Of interest on the timing of the introduction of the red/gold Oldenburg sash, a Danish college just sent me this link with a painting of Peder Wessel, a Norwegian-born naval officer, during the GNW:

http://forsvaret.dk/ssg/sotraditioner/d ... fault.aspx

I also need to test my Danish with this one:

http://archive.org/stream/dendanskehaer ... g_djvu.txt

I'm aiming at putting together Bielke’s Brigade c.1704 to compliment my budding British force :-)
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by Churchill » Mon Jan 06, 2014 3:13 pm

Ray.
Last edited by Churchill on Thu Feb 27, 2014 12:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by janner » Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:22 pm

Hi Ray,

I may well move onto doing both Bde's with supporting Danish Horse, but with a host of Swedes due in May, I want to try and crack the majority before they turn up. :)

Anyway, back the first of my English battalions - North and Grey's...
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by Tacitus » Mon Jan 06, 2014 5:45 pm

janner wrote:Of interest on the timing of the introduction of the red/gold Oldenburg sash, a Danish college just sent me this link with a painting of Peder Wessel, a Norwegian-born naval officer, during the GNW:

http://forsvaret.dk/ssg/sotraditioner/d ... fault.aspx
That painting is most likely from the late 19th century and has no value as a source. The painters of that time were very fond of historical motifs but had little knowledge of historical uniforms and frequently filled the gaps with information from later periods.
janner wrote:I also need to test my Danish with this one:

http://archive.org/stream/dendanskehaer ... g_djvu.txt
It does not help that the text has not been proofread after it was scanned!

But regardless of that it might not be worth the effort to read it. That is the book Otto Vaupell wrote 1872-76 and it is infamous for being a highly unreliable source. Although wargamers find it irresistible because of its abundance of that sort of detailed information that they like. But unfortunatly Vaupell got his facts wrong so frequently that you just can't use it as a source. For example I believe that Vaupell claims that all Danish officer sashes were red-yellow in the GNW even though there is no evidence for it ever being worn and that other colours were known to have been used by the high ranking regiments.
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by Graf Bretlach » Mon Jan 06, 2014 6:35 pm

It does not help that the text has not been proofread after it was scanned!
It is produced by some software called OCR Optical Character Recognition - not normally very successful with scans of old books, if you want the books download the pdf version (b/w if no pictures) no one is going to pay for someone to proof read and correct all the errors, just maybe in time OCR software will get better.
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by Dfogleman2 » Mon Jan 06, 2014 8:17 pm

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Danish regiments in the sea powers' service (England and Dutch), wore sashes in the color of country they were contracted with. Since there was apparently no standard sash at the time, this would make sense. If your figure has a sash, you have to paint it some color, so absent some specific information, I would go with crimson for those in English service, orange for those in Dutch, and red for those in Imperial service.
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by janner » Mon Jan 06, 2014 8:58 pm

And I thought medieval research required one to deal with source with more - than a tea bag :lol:

I can feel a white sash in order for my foot guards officer.

On that note, I see many give the officers of the Livgarde tils fods reversed coats. Based on this, http://www.thewaroffice.co.uk/Blenheim/ ... 9-1720.pdf
I'm of a mind that they wore standard coats in the field and only used red coats whilst at court.
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by Tacitus » Mon Jan 06, 2014 9:33 pm

janner wrote:On that note, I see many give the officers of the Livgarde tils fods reversed coats. Based on this, http://www.thewaroffice.co.uk/Blenheim/ ... 9-1720.pdf
I'm of a mind that they wore standard coats in the field and only used red coats whilst at court.
That seems to be Torstein Snorrason's interpretation. Karsten Skjold Petersen on the other hand writes that Livgarde officers had ponceau red coats from 1708 and he does not seem to believe they wore paille coats in the field.

A Swedish spy report from december 1709 states that the Livgarde wore red coats and cloaks with yellow facings even though the privates (according to official documents) did not recieve red coats until 1713. The author of the report probably got something wrong. But was it that he described officers uniforms thinking that they were used by privates as well, or was it that the cloaks had reversed colours and he did not notice that the coats underneath were paille-yellow?
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by Churchill » Mon Jan 06, 2014 9:54 pm

Ray.
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by Tacitus » Mon Jan 06, 2014 10:44 pm

Churchill wrote:In 1707 the uniform changed throughout the Army, since the cassock and coat were changed to a more modern surtout (single brested coat) and kamisol (vest).
The new coats (surtouts) were also double brested. The Livgarde was first to get them (already in 1702) and it was then followed by the Grenadier Corps and the national regiments. Finally all enlisted regiments were ordered to get them in 1707.
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by janner » Tue Jan 07, 2014 8:05 am

I'd understood the two foot brigades were under Imperial and British pay respectively with only a brigade of horse contracted to the United Provinces.

Is there a reliable source on this one?
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by Tacitus » Tue Jan 07, 2014 8:57 am

From what I can tell all Danish regiments at Blenheim were paid jointly by England and the Netherlands. The Danish contingent was not seperated in regiments solely in English or Dutch pay.

The Danish regiments hired to Austria (both infantry and cavalry) fought in Italy and Hungary and they were not present in any of Marlbourough's battles.

The following OOB gives a good overview over the Allied infantry regiments at Blenheim and their paymasters:

http://www.spanishsuccession.nl/maps/fo ... m_oob.html
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Re: Sash colours - Denmark

Post by janner » Tue Jan 07, 2014 11:08 am

More really useful material, Tacitus, my thanks, as well as to everyone else who has commented.

Secondary Danish works also point towards them being paid by 'the Maritime powers', but there must have been some form of financial arrangement in place as to who picked up the bill for what. I suspect there's an academic paper on this hidden somewhere or other :D

Edit. I think your argument on the Livgarde is persuasive. A mistake could easily have been made if the officers' wore yellow cloaks (or retained the old cassocks). I've ordered Karsten Skjold Petersen's book on Danish Army Uniforms and will drop him a line in due course :-)

In the meantime, how reliable do you think this page is?

http://www.thewaroffice.co.uk/Blenheim/ ... rigade.jpg

Despite coming many centuries after my 'own period' of study, and coming with an anticipation that there would be better/more extensive record keeping, it's interesting to see that there is still often no right or wrong, just informed guesswork ;-)
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