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FRANCE 1808

1° REGIMENT CUIRASSIERS

 

Conclusive up to the XVIII century, the heavy cavalry went then lose importance, relegated in second floor by the progress of the artillery that, with its power of draught, the violent it made positions superfluous to the thin gallop to then you use for upsetting the hostile lines. Napoleon was to favour the rebirth of the heavy cavalry that appreciated the strength of bump combined to a notable mobility of it.

Therefore, beginning from 1801, him I emanate a series of decrees that at first they transformed varied regiments of cavalry in others of cuirassiers, then they increased such units from one to twelve.

In 1808 the 1° provisional regiment of the heavy cavalry went to thicken the number of the units I give cuirassiers to bring to fourteen in 1810 with the creation of the 2° regiment of the Dutch cuirassiers.

These nucleuses of cavalry were nicknamed “regiments of acero” and their positions, legendary, they were so dreadful that did to tremble the ground and they threw disarrangement among the lines adversary. Napoleon served with good results in all of his great military successes, from Austeriliz, where the cuirassiers of the Armèe stopped the attack on the right wing of the Austrian cavalry, up to Jena, where they overwhelmed the brigades Saxons that tried to protect the retreat of the army Prussian.

UNIFORM

The cuirassiers of the Armée wore a metallic helmet with crest, mane of horse, a protected blue jacket from an iron cuirass, white pants of skin of fallow deer or sheep, black boots from covering, lengthened gloves.

At the end of 1805, when the regiments of the cuirassiers entered to belong to the unities of elite, it also made the appearance of a red plume, that constituted that preceding of black colour.

The colour of the edges of the jacket changed from regiment, that of the brooms that decorated them it was always blue.  

Between the jacket and the armour the cuirassiers wore a stuffing of red cloth to protect from the bumps and from the rubbing of the cuirass.

The cuirass was equal for all the regiments, built under the supervision of the general Direction of the French artillery. The sketch of the helmet was decided instead by the suggestion of every regiment and it varied a lot in the form, in the ornaments, in the height of the crest.

The native armament of the cuirassiers consisted in two guns and a sabre astute course in a metallic sheath. In 1805 it was tried to complete it with Austrian carbines, but the innovation was refused. In 1812 a musket and a bayonet were furnished to the cuirassiers.


Gruppo Murat