Soldiers after the Battle of Dybbøl; ca. 1864
The Battle of Dybbøl was the key battle of the Second Schleswig War and occurred on the morning of 18 April 1864 following a siege starting on 7 April.
On the morning of 18 April 1864 at Dybbøl, the Prussians moved into their positions at 2.00. At 10.00 the Prussian artillery bombardment stopped and the Prussians charged through shelling from the Rolf Krake which did not prove enough to halt them. Thirteen minutes after the charge, the Prussian infantry had already seized control of the first line of defence of the redoubts.
A total massacre of the retreating troops was avoided and the Prussian advance halted by a counter-attack by the 8th Brigade, until a Prussian attack threw them back; that attack advanced about 1 km and reached Dybbøl Mill. In that counter-attack the 8th Brigade lost about half their men, dead or wounded or captured. This let the remnants of 1st and 3rd Brigades escape to the pier opposite Sønderborg. At 13.30 the last resistance collapsed at the bridgehead in front of Sønderborg. After that there was an artillery duel across the Alssund.
During the battle around 3,600 Danes and 1,200 Prussians were either killed, wounded or disappeared. A Danish official army casualty list at the time said: 671 dead; 987 wounded, of whom 473 were captured; 3,131 unwounded captured and/or deserters; total casualties 4,789. The 2nd and 22nd Regiments lost the most. Also, the crew of the Danish naval ship Rolf Krake suffered one dead, 10 wounded.
The Battle of Dybbøl was the first battle monitored by delegates of the Red Cross: Louis Appia and Charles van de Velde. Following the battle, the Prussians used the fort area as a starting point to attack Als in June 1864.
While the battle of Dybbøl was a defeat for the Danes the activities of the Rolf Krake along with other Danish naval actions during the conflict served to highlight the naval weakness of Prussia. In an attempt to remedy this the Austro-Prussians dispatched a naval squadron to the Baltic which was intercepted by the Danish Navy at the Battle of Helgoland. A peace treaty was signed on 30 October 1864 that essentially turned the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein into an “Austro-Prussian condominium, under the joint sovereignty of the two states.” The German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, had taken one of the first steps toward launching the German Empire that would dominate Europe until World War I.
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Russian trenches in the forests of Sarikamish, WWI; ca. 1914-15
The Battle of Sarikamish was an engagement between the Russian and Ottoman empires during World War I. It took place from December 22, 1914 to January 17, 1915 as part of the Caucasus Campaign.
The outcome was a Russian victory. The Ottomans employed a strategy which demanded that their troops be highly mobile and to arrive at specified objectives at precise times. This approach was based both on German and Napoleonic tactics. The Ottoman troops, ill-prepared for winter conditions, suffered major casualties in the Allahuekber Mountains.
Afterward, Ottoman leader Enver Pasha publicly blamed his defeat on Armenians and the battle served as a prelude to the Armenian Genocide.
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French Cuirassiers only a year before WWI would begin, looking much the same as they did under Napoleon; ca. 1913
And for most of that first year of fighting in WWI, they continued to look like this. French soldiers were massacred because of these dated outfits.
At the outbreak of war the French Army retained the colourful traditional uniforms of the nineteenth century for active service wear. These included conspicuous features such as blue coats and red trousers for the infantry and cavalry. The French cuirassiers wore plumed helmets and breastplates almost unchanged from the Napoleonic period. From 1903 on several attempts had been made to introduce a more practical field dress but these had been opposed by conservative opinion both within the army and amongst the public at large. In particular, the red trousers worn by the infantry became a political debating point. Adolphe Messimy who was briefly Minister of War in 1911-1912 stated that “This stupid blind attachment to the most visible of colours will have cruel consequences”; however, in the following year, one of his successors, Eugène Étienne, declared “Abolish red trousers? Never!”
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British soldier with experimental body armor meeting with his medieval counterpart; ca. October 1917
Before the First World War, no military used true protective helmets; Pith helmets and Pickelhaubes technically are helmets, but offer very little protection against bullet fragments and shell splinters. Similarly, any armor used previously to the First World War would be of medieval-inspired designs, for instance in the armor found on heavy cavalry. Even the French helmet from that conflict was designed with medieval aesthetics in mind.
In the First World War context, modern body armor would have primarily been used for machine gunners and others in static positions exposed to heavy small arms fire. This, though, is the most modern in appearance and design that I’ve seen – the groin protector is surprisingly sophisticated.
The First World War was the true introduction of so much modern military equipment on a vast scale: helmets and body armor designed for modern threats, gas masks, tanks, fighter and bomber aircraft, light machine guns, submachine guns, semi-automatic battle rifles, and more. The Second World War, with the exception of the nuclear bomb, offered more incremental improvements than revolutionary ones.
Body of French boy blown into a tree by German shellfire at Avocourt Wood (Battle of Verdun); ca. 1916
How did Napoleon fund his wars?
One of the hallmarks of the Napoleonic tax administration was that it introduced a degree of efficiency and systematization that meant the Empire could count upon a steady stream of revenue. The recent memory of Revolutionary hyperinflation inhibited more experimental and flexible approaches to finance. For example, one of the achievements of Napoleon that his proponents frequently trumpet, the Banque de France, played a relatively marginal role in governmental finance. Napoleon’s aversion to short-term loans meant that ensured that the Banque’s contributions to French state financing was never more than 10 percent of total expenditures. The state’s commitment to metallism, another legacy born out of a painful Revolutionary experience, meant that the Banque adapted the “Palmer Rule” in which a third of its notes in circulation would be backed by metallic currency. The main sources of war revenue for France would be the systems of direct and indirect taxation from domestic sources and contributions from defeated or allied states.
There is a strong line of continuity between the tax policies of the later Revolutionary governments and the Napoleonic Consulate and Empire. Although the Directory resorted to paper currency and suffered from a repeat of hyperinflation, there was a strong corpus of administrators within the French state who advocated a more stable French economy and logical reforms. The Directory relied upon a series of land taxes, contributions, and later, indirect taxes to finance the French government. The main impact of Napoleon on the French tax structure was that his characteristic focus upon systematization and efficiency, coupled with the promotion of able servitors that were already advocates of reform. One of the unsung administrators of the Napoleonic period was Martin-Michel-Charles Gaudin, Napoleon’s Minister of Finance from 1799-1814, and 1815.
Gaudin directed an overhaul of the la contribution fonciere(land tax), an assessment based upon agricultural income. This form of direct taxation made up to three-quarters of all taxes derived from direct taxation for most of the Napoleonic period. The Ministry of Finance enacted systemic cadastral surveys in 1802, and expanded them into a massive project to catalog the whole of France in 1807. The grand cadastral surveys assessed France parcel by parcel, judging soil quality, buildings, and other factors to predict the ideal agricultural value of the land. The surveys rendered this particular tax burden more equitable, but also expanded both state power and control.
Another form of direct taxation in the Napoleonic period was la contribution personelle-mobiliere (taxes on personal or industrial incomes), which was a legacy of the Revolution and mostly hit towns. This somewhat progressive tax had a fixed sum, plus a variable amount based upon external signs of wealth like chimneys or the number of servants. In keeping with its principles of systematic reform and efficiency, Napoleon overhauled this highly arbitrary system between 1803-04. Its main replacement was the droits d’octroi which was a levy upon all goods entering into a town. There were also various taxes licensing trades and services and upon items like doors and windows.
Although these taxes introduced a steady and reliable stream of income to the French government, they could not cover all of the expenses of the Napoleonic state. Napoleon reintroduced various forms of indirect taxes to make up for this shortfall. These droits reunis were levied upon tobacco, playing cards, alcohol, and salt became increasingly important for French finance from 1806 onwards. The revenue from these indirect taxes increased some fourfold between 1806 and 1812. Again, in keeping with Napoleonic centralization, the state instituted a central excise office to enforce these indirect taxes. Additionally, the French government created a state monopoly on tobacco in 1810. Collectively, these excise taxes made up a quarter of France’s tax revenue in 1813.
Yet even Napoleonic efficiency could not keep pace with the growing costs of France’s wars. The Napoleonic fiscal system became increasingly dependent upon making war pay for war. From 1806 to 1814, non-French states bore more than half of Napoleon’s military expenses. The quartering of troops in Italy, Central Europe, and Spain displaced some of the defense burden upon Napoleon’s allies and occupied states. Indemnities upon defeated powers became a normal means of the French to cover their budgetary deficits. Between 1806 and 1812, Prussia had to provide France with somewhere between 470 and 514 million Francs. To put that figure in perspective, the Banque’s contribution to the French budget peaked in 1805 with a figure of 80 million Francs and provided the campaign of 1805 60 million Francs. Even Napoleon’s allies were not immune from this system of contribution. Tax levels in the southern German states doubled from their 1806 levels, but this was often not enough to keep pace with fiscal demands. The Rheinbund states had to engage in a tricky shell-game of forced bonds purchases to pay for their upkeep. In the Kingdom of Westphalia, 1808 bonds that were due in 1811 were paid off with more bonds. The Hanseatic towns of the northern German coast, officially annexed to the French Empire in 1810, had the French system of indirect and direct taxes imposed, but imperial authorities were more diligent at squeezing out whatever wealth they could get out of these German cities than those in France. Due to their proximity to the Central European battlefields, it was more urgent to collect imperial taxes from these areas. In Hamburg, between 1810-13, approximately a third of all the city’s taxes went to outfitting the French military in Germany. The city’s support infrastructure for Hamburg’s indigent correspondingly suffered as orphanages and hospitals closed up shop.
While this system of contributions and making war pay for war was not unprecedented in European history, but it added another onerous burden upon the other middling and great powers of Europe and made it much harder for Napoleon to cement a lasting peace. The contributions system created a persistent grumbling about French exploitation and undercut Napoleon’s attempts to forge a working alliance with these small states. The disaster of 1812 made pushed this precarious economic system off a cliff as Napoleon had to wring yet more revenue from his allies, and increasingly, from metropolitan France. Despite his reservations about short-term financing, Napoleon assented to sale of short-term bonds within France and expanded the various indirect tax systems. By 1813, many of the states in central Europe were approaching physical insolvency and had an inability to pay their civil servants.
One solution for these European states to meet French demands was to implement French fiscal methods. In the Kingdom of Italy, Giuseppe Prina played the role of Gaudin by strengthening local fiscal institutions and conducting cadastral surveys to render the system more efficient. Although a mob murdered Prina in 1814, his methods lived on. During the post-Napoleonic period, many European states continued the trend of systematizing and streamlining tax revenue through the increase in state powers of regulation and control. The utility of a steady revenue stream and increase in state power often transected ideological barriers in ways that other legacies of the French Revolution, such as nationalism or popular sovereignty, did not. Even Piedmont-Sardinia, one of the most reactionary of the post-1815 governments, had no problem embracing the French-created system of tax inspectorates and gendarmes to enforce order as essential component for the operation of the state. In France, the Bourbon and Orleanist governments continued Gaudin’s cadastral survey would not be finished until the 1820s, but was one of the bedrocks of French tax policies up to the First World War. Napoleonic occupation created a need for an overhaul of revenue collection within continental Europe and this new found efficiency outlasted Napoleon. Although it lacks the drama of the corps system of Napoleon or other elements of martial glory, the reform of tax codes was a persistent legacy of the Napoleonic period and impacted the daily lives of Europeans for the coming century.
Sources:
Aaslestad, Katherine. “Paying for War: Experiences of Napoleonic Rule in the Hanseatic Cities.” Central European History 39, no. 04 (2006): 641-675.
Bergeron, Louis. France under Napoleon. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Bordo, Michael D., and Eugene N. White. “A tale of two currencies: British and French finance during the Napoleonic Wars.” The Journal of Economic History 51, no. 02 (1991): 303-316.
Chadha, Jagjit S., and Elisa Newby. ‘Midas, transmuting all, into paper’: the Bank of England and the Banque de France during the Napoleonic Wars. No. 1315. School of Economics Discussion Papers, 2013.
Ellis, Geoffrey James. The Napoleonic Empire. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Emsley, Clive. Napoleon: Conquest, Reform and Reorganization. Harlow, England: Pearson/Longman, 2003.
Kain, Roger J. P., and Elizabeth Baigent. The Cadastral Map in the Service of the State: A History of Property Mapping. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1992.
O’Rourke, Kevin H. “The worldwide economic impact of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793–1815.” Journal of Global History 1, no. 01 (2006): 123-149.
Planert, Ute. “From collaboration to resistance: Politics, Experience, and memory of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in southern Germany.” Central European History 39, no. 04 (2006): 676-705.
German soldiers on outpost duty near Antwerp, sharing their food with Belgian orphans, published in 1915.
The basic Pickelhaube, as seen in the photo, was made of hardened (boiled) leather, given a glossy-black finish, and reinforced with a metal trim. Starting in 1892, a light brown cloth helmet cover, the M1892 Überzug, was issued for use during manoeuvres and active service. The Überzug was intended to protect the helmet from dirt and reduce its combat visibility, as the metallic fittings were highly reflective. As you mentioned regimental numbers were then sewn or stencilled onto the front of the cover.
This photo was most likely staged to generate evidence that countered Great Britain’s aggressive propaganda campaign against the German occupation of Belgium. Given this assumption there would be little reason for these men to don their Überzug.
As the war progressed, and Britain’s blockade limited Germanys leather supply, the economic factors you mentioned drove the government to produce Pickelhauben from thin sheet steel. However by 1915, as demand rapidly outpaced supply, pressurized felt and even paper was used to construct pickelhauben
By 1916, the Pickelhaube was slowly replaced the the new Stahlhelm (steel helmet) which offered greater over-all head protection.
Today in 1918, Manfred von Richtofen, World War I’s greatest flying ace, was shot down in his Red Fokker Triplane by a single bullet through his heart. Here is the Red Baron in a sweater in happier times; ca. 1917
He landed in enemy territory, and the RAF gave him a funeral with full military honors, befitting a legendary military aviator such as himself. It’s strange how a sense of professional respect can transcend the hatred of enemies, especially in the case of an enemy who had personally killed so many RAF pilots.
He was a dangerous enemy, but he was truly admired.
German soldiers walk past fallen British soldiers, following heavy street fighting in the village of Moreuil; ca. 1918.
Troops of the eight allied nations during the Boxer Rebellion.
They are, from left to right: British, American, Russian, Indian, German, French, Austro-Hungarian, Italian and Japanese.
The Boxer Rebellion, Boxer Uprising or Yihetuan Movement was an anti-imperialist uprising which took place in China towards the end of the Qing dynasty between 1898 and 1900. It was initiated by the Militia United in Righteousness (Yihetuan), known in English as the “Boxers,” and was motivated by proto-nationalist sentiments and opposition to foreign imperialism and associated Christian missionary activity. The Great Powers intervened and defeated Chinese forces.
The uprising took place against a background of severe drought, and the disruption caused by the growth of foreign spheres of influence. After several months of growing violence against the foreign and Christian presence in Shandong and the North China plain, in June 1900 Boxer fighters, convinced they were invulnerable to foreign weapons, converged on Beijing with the slogan “Support Qing government and exterminate the foreigners.” Foreigners and Chinese Christians sought refuge in the Legation Quarter. In response to reports of an armed invasion to lift the siege, the initially hesitant Empress Dowager Cixi supported the Boxers and on June 21 declared war on foreign powers. Diplomats, foreign civilians and soldiers as well as Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter were placed under siege by the Imperial Army of China and the Boxers for 55 days. Chinese officialdom was split between those supporting the Boxers and those favoring conciliation, led by Prince Qing. The supreme commander of the Chinese forces, the Manchu General Ronglu (Junglu), later claimed that he acted to protect the besieged foreigners. The Eight-Nation Alliance, after being initially turned back, brought 20,000 armed troops to China, defeated the Imperial Army, and captured Beijing on August 14, lifting the siege of the Legations. Uncontrolled plunder of the capital and the surrounding countryside ensued, along with the summary execution of those suspected of being Boxers.
The Boxer Protocol of September 7, 1901 provided for the execution of government officials who had supported the Boxers, provisions for foreign troops to be stationed in Beijing, and 450 million taels of silver—more than the government’s annual tax revenue—to be paid as indemnity over the course of the next thirty-nine years to the eight nations involved. (Source)
Australian soldiers blinded in a German gas attack at an aid station near Villers-Bretonneux, France; May 27, 1918.
The differences in their body language is really interesting. You have everything from just totally dejected to a couple guys who might as well just be laying out sunbathing for all the concern they’re displaying.
The Germans were using mustard gas at Villers-Bretonneux. A mild dose would result in the eyelids swelling up to the point where the casualty would be temporarily blinded, more severe exposure could damage their eyes to the point where they’d be blind permanently.
Fanny Duberly who travelled along with British troops throughout the Crimean War, is seen here with her husband Captain Henry Duberly in Crimea; 1855
Frances Isabella (“Fanny”) Duberly (27 September 1829 – January 1903) was an English soldier’s wife who published a journal of her experiences on campaign in the Crimean War and the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Her husband, Captain Henry Duberly, was paymaster to the 8th Royal Irish Hussars, part of the British light cavalry that took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade. Duberley’s journal of her time in the Crimea was published as Journal Kept During the Russian War. It not only includes eye-witness accounts, but is also a record of gossip and rumours circulating in the British Army.
Duberly’s adventures did not always sit well with society. She was pointedly snubbed at the Royal review of her husband’s regiment after the war. The journal she published after the war had originally been intended to have a dedication to Queen Victoria, but this was refused, much to her dismay. Nonetheless she was popular with the troops (who nicknamed her “Mrs. Jubilee”) and many people in England. Her published journal met with some success and prints of a photo of her taken by Roger Fenton sold quite well. (Wikipedia)
An interesting article about her in The Telegraph: She wanted to cause a stir… and she did.
Generalfeldmarschall August von Mackensen, officer in the German Army, wearing the Totenkopf (skull and cross bones) which was part of German military gear since the 18th century
Anton Ludwig August von Mackensen (6 December 1849 – 8 November 1945), born August Mackensen, was a German soldier and field marshal. He commanded with success during the First World War and became one of the German Empire’s most prominent military leaders. After the Armistice, Mackensen was interned for a year. He retired from the army in 1920 and was made a Prussian state councillor in 1933 by Hermann Göring. During the Nazi era, Mackensen remained a committed monarchist and sometimes appeared at official functions in his First World War uniform. He was suspected of disloyalty to the Third Reich, although nothing was proved against him at this time.
I’ve always found it a nice detail how he continued to show up in his old imperial Prussian officers uniform long after the empire had fallen. (Prussia was one of several states that unified and became Germany in the late 1800s. Before that there was no one country called Germany, it was Prussia, Bavaria, etc.)
Here he is at the funeral of Wilhelm II in 1941:
The nine European Monarchs who attended the funeral of Edward VII, photographed at Windsor Castle; May 20, 1910
I always enjoy identifying where people are situated to identify who was perceived to be the most powerful. Obviously UK front and center, flanked by Spain and Denmark with Germany behind and Belgium relegated to the outside…
I hope to be remembered for my atrocities! 