Table Of ContentHinterland Warriors and
Military Dress
Dress, Body, Culture
Series Editor Joanne B. Eicher, Regents’ Professor, University of Minnesota
Advisory Board:
Ruth Barnes, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Helen Callaway, CCCRW, University of Oxford
James Hall, University of Illinois at Chicago
Beatrice Medicine, California State University, Northridge
Ted Polhemus, Curator, “Street Style” Exhibition, Victoria & Albert
Museum
Griselda Pollock, University of Leeds
Valerie Steele, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology
Lou Taylor, University of Brighton
John Wright, University of Minnesota
Books in this provocative series seek to articulate the connections between
culture and dress which is defined here in its broadest possible sense as any
modification or supplement to the body. Interdisciplinary in approach, the
series highlights the dialogue between identity and dress, cosmetics,
coiffure, and body alterations as manifested in practices as varied as plastic
surgery, tattooing, and ritual scarification. The series aims, in particular, to
analyze the meaning of dress in relation to popular culture and gender
issues and will include works grounded in anthropology, sociology, history,
art history, literature, and folklore.
ISSN: 1360-466X
Previously published titles in the Series
Helen Bradley Foster, “New Raiments of Self”: African American Clothing
in the Antebellum South
Claudine Griggs, S/he: Changing Sex and Changing Clothes
Michaele Thurgood Haynes, Dressing Up Debutantes: Pageantry and Glitz
in Texas
Anne Brydon and Sandra Niesson, Consuming Fashion: Adorning the
Transnational Body
Dani Cavallaro and Alexandra Warwick, Fashioning the Frame:
Boundaries, Dress and the Body
Judith Perani and Norma H. Wolff, Cloth, Dress and Art Patronage in
Africa
Linda B. Arthur, Religion, Dress and the Body
Paul Jobling, Fashion Spreads: Word and Image in Fashion Photography
Fadwa El-Guindi, Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance
DRESS, BODY, CULTURE
Hinterland Warriors
and Military Dress
European Empires and
Exotic Uniforms
Thomas S. Abler
Oxford(cid:127)New York
First published in 1999 by
Berg
Editorial offices:
150 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JJ, UK
70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012, USA
© Thomas S. Abler 1999
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form
or by any means without the written permission of Berg.
Berg is an imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1859732011(Cloth)
1859732062(Paper)
Typeset by JS Typesetting, Wellingborough, Northants.
Printed in the United Kingdom by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn.
Preface
This is a book that owes its birth to Berg Publishers. I had not the faintest of
intentions of picking up this topic academically before a brochure came across
my desk announcing Berg’s series under the editorship of Professor Joanne
Eicher concerned with ‘dress, body, culture’. Having long had an interest in
the history of military uniforms, albeit an interest I was sometimes reluctant
to admit to fellow anthropologists, I was spurred to send off an outline and
copy of my curriculum vitae, and to my surprise Berg’s managing director,
Kathryn Earle, responded that Professor Eicher and Berg were interested.
Thus I never would have been involved in the task of producing this work
had Professor Eicher and Berg not launched their series. I also owe a consider-
able debt to Professor Eicher and Ms Earle for their patience as the production
of drafts of this study failed to meet deadlines which I had been convinced
were reasonable and which I had been certain that I could meet. I must also
thank Berg’s external reader, Dr Malcolm Young, who undertook the referee-
ing process with far greater enthusiasm than is usual and whose extensive
commentary has led to a much improved final draft.
Many individuals and institutions aided in the acquisition of the illustrations
used here. These include Peter Harrington, Curator, the Anne S. K. Brown
Military Collection, John Hay Library, Brown University; Sue Fletcher, the
Royal Collection, Windsor Castle; Christina La Torre, the National Army
Museum, Chelsea; Kathleen D. Stocking, New York State Historical Assoc-
iation, Cooperstown; Kim Walters, the Southwest Museum, Los Angeles;
France Duhamel, the National Gallery of Canada; Leslie Redman, the
Canadian War Museum, Ottawa; and staff at the Toronto Reference Library,
the British Library, the New York Public Library and the Dana Porter Library,
University of Waterloo. Photographs of items in my own modest collection
were made by my colleague, Dr Maria Liston.
Computing support was provided by the Dean of Arts, University of
Waterloo, and Keith McGowan of the Arts Computing Office fixed two
computer crashes that would have delayed the production of this work even
longer. Faye Schultz, secretary for anthropology at the University of Waterloo,
runs our lives with great efficiency, leaving the department faculty the time
and energy to pursue scholarly goals.
vii
Preface
My interest in military uniforms began as a hobbyist, and I must also thank
the members of the various hobbyist groups that I have joined from time to
time for sustaining my interest and enlightening me over the years. These
include the Ontario Model Soldier Society, the British Model Soldier Society,
the British Flat Figure Society and the Illinois Military Miniature Society.
Thirty-five years ago, when I was a graduate student at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Dr Nancy O. Lurie saw some of the notes on military
dress that I had been making from holdings of the Milwaukee Public Library.
I disregarded her advice that I pick up military uniforms as a topic for my
master’s thesis. Among other issues, information was not readily accessible
on the topic. This study owes a large debt to the efforts of numerous students
of military dress whose work has been published over the last three decades.
I hope at least some readers will proceed from this effort to the items I list in
the bibliography. If they do, a great deal of pleasure awaits them.
viii
1
Introduction
Introduction: Empires and
Hinterland Warriors
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Prologue
The charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava in the Crimea, immortalized in
the poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ranks as one of the best-known episodes
of glory (and disaster) in British military history. In addition to Tennyson’s
poem, the famous charge has been the subject of at least two feature-length
films (one, from 1936, starred Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland; the other,
produced in 1968, was directed by Tony Richardson and featured Trevor
Howard, David Hemmings, John Gielgud and Vanessa Redgrave). The event
also has been the focus of one of the rare historical studies that successfully
bridge the gap between popular and scholarly history (Woodham-Smith
1953). Countless schoolboys in English-speaking countries have been stirred
by Tennyson’s description of the charge of the 600 at the Battle of Balaclava
on 25 October 1854; those who continued to pursue military topics learned
the judgement of French General Bosquet who watched the cool, parade-
ground precision of the charge from the heights above the Valley of Death:
‘C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre!’ [‘It is magnificent, but it isn’t
war!’] (Woodham-Smith 1953: 247).
This display of English courage and foolhardiness was for the most part
carried out by Englishmen dressed up as either Hungarians or Poles. Of the
Light Brigade, only the 4th and the 13th Light Dragoons did not wear such
exotic dress. The 17th Lancers dressed as Poles, wearing strange, square-
1
Hinterland Warriors and Military Dress
topped headgear, whereas the two regiments of hussars (the 8th and the 11th)
and the commander of the Light Brigade, Lord Cardigan, were in Hungarian
garb with gaudily braided jackets, curved sabres of oriental pattern, and tall
fur caps. One might wonder why the English, who normally exhibit pity for
anyone so unfortunate as to have been born ‘foreign’, should dress themselves
in the exotic costume of wild horsemen from regions much nearer to the
borders of their Russian foe than to London, Liverpool, or Manchester.
Earlier in the day at Balaclava, a single regiment of British Infantry beat
back the advancing Russian masses, establishing a phrase to characterize
British coolness under pressure – ‘the thin red line’. This single battalion of
infantry, the 93rd Regiment of Foot, two ranks deep, was the only obstacle
in the path of the advancing Russians. It stood its ground and with two
volleys drove off a charge of a large body of Russian cavalry. The first was
not fired until the Russian cavalry came within range – 500 yards. This
stopped the Russian charge. The second volley, ‘as clear and compact as at
an ordinary field-day’, caused the Russians to wheel and flee (Calthorpe 1979:
73). The excitement of the moment caused some of the infantry to surge
forward, but their brigade commander, Sir Colin Campbell, held them back,
calling out, ‘93rd, 93rd, damn all that eagerness’ (McElwee 1972: 21). The
93rd were described as ‘the thin red line’,1 and the phrase was picked up
with pride by the army as a whole, being used by military historians and
commentators to characterize British courage in actions long before as well
as after the encounter at Balaclava.
However, the infantry regiment forming the thin red line was not dressed
like the vast majority of the Royal Army. The original thin red line was formed
by Highland Scots, the 93rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot (later the Argyle
and Sutherland Highlanders). They fought in the Crimea in their feather
bonnets and kilts, and not in the more conventional (even more ‘civilized’)
attire of shakos and trousers worn by the vast majority of British infantry
who served in regiments of English, Irish, or lowland Scottish origins. The
captured Russian Major-General Karganoff referred to the Highlanders as
‘savages without trousers’ (Calthorpe 1979: 42).
The Light Brigade and the thin red line at Balaclava represent the impact
of hinterland warriors on the armies of the metropolis. By metropolis I mean
the core of an empire, the population and institutions that control imperial
expansion and profit from such colonial activity. The hinterlands constitute
the frontiers of the empire, almost always ethnically distinct from the metro-
polis. From the first, states have expanded into their hinterlands, and many
scholars point to expansive or ‘aggregative’ warfare as a key variable in the
initial evolution of the state (Carneiro 1992; Cohen 1984). From the earliest
expansion of states into their hinterlands, imperial commanders have found
2
Introduction
the militant, ethnically-distinct and (in the view of the metropolis) ‘uncivilized’
peoples on their borders a fertile ground from which to raise ‘irregular’ bodies
of soldiers. Eventually some of these become incorporated into the imperial
army, become ‘regularized’ as it were, but wearing a stylized (often almost
to the point of caricature) version of their national dress. The Highland Scots
battalion, which formed ‘the thin red line’, is an example of this process of
recruitment of hinterland warriors.
The dress of these ethnic soldiers often comes to represent a particular
style of fighting. Hungarians and Poles had long been employed in continental
European armies as light cavalry, and their dress came to be associated with
the skill and élan with which they carried out that role. Austria had long
recruited light cavalry from the hinterlands of her eastern frontier. Hence
the members of the Light Brigade, like other many other units of light cavalry
in armies of the industrial world, dressed in a fashion derived from the
clothing of the horsemen of eastern Europe.
Empires and their Frontiers
As empires expand into new territories, their military forces encounter peoples
of different cultural and military traditions from their own. Some of these
are enemies of the expanding empire, but others come to serve the empire in
its expansion as allies or auxiliaries to the imperial forces. Ferguson and
Whitehead (1992: 21) point out: ‘Ethnic soldiers and martial tribes have
been an aspect of state expansionism from earliest times.’ Farwell noted
similarities between the imperial British in India and the imperial Romans in
Germany with ‘lightly armed militia and local auxiliaries (Frontier Scouts)
... as a first line of defence’ and regular imperial troops ‘in camps well behind
the frontiers but close enough to support them if necessary’ (Farwell 1989b:
197–8). Keeley (1996: 74) also recognized that ‘the history of European
expansion’ is marked by ‘extensive use of natives as scouts or auxiliaries ...
necessary because civilized soldiers alone were inadequate for the task.’
In this volume I intend to consider the impact this employment of such
troops has on the military culture of the imperial army, looking particularly
at the issue of dress. The performance of hinterland warriors or ethnic soldiers
on the battlefield has led to incorporation of items of their dress in the uniform
of elements of the imperial army, whether recruited on the frontier or not,
and has diffused to other armies of industrial states. This book considers the
following: 1) the reasons the empire chooses to employ hinterland warriors,
2) the role such troops play in military actions on the frontier, 3) the incorp-
oration of such troops into the metropolitan army, 4) some general principles
3
Hinterland Warriors and Military Dress
concerning styles of military dress, and 5) the diffusion of the style of dress
of such troops beyond the frontier where they were first employed.
Although it is not the aim of this book to present a detailed history of the
employment of frontier peoples by imperial armies, it is worth noting the
long history and wide geographical spread of the practice. As early as 2000
BC the Egyptian Empire was employing Nubians from its southern frontier
in its armies (Wise 1981: 21). In 1288 BC, the Sherdens, one of the ‘sea
peoples’ from the north, helped Rameses defeat the Hittites (Thompson 1985:
65). In its invasion of Greece in 480 BC, the army of the Persian Empire
under Xerxes included numerous frontier units among its personnel. These
included chariots from India and archers from Ethiopia (Warry 1995: 38–
9). The keys to Hannibal’s victory over Rome at Cannae in 216 BC were the
Numidian light cavalry, which the Carthaginians recruited in what is now
Algeria, and the heavy cavalry recruited in Spain and Gaul (Lawford 1976:
38–41). It has been observed that the Roman military itself recognized the
need to recruit from the frontiers as early as the third century BC. As a result,
it ‘soon became an accepted fact and many strange garbs and weapons were
to be found side by side with the legionaries in most major wars’ (Webster
1985: 141). Hinterland warriors were also important in mediaeval Europe.
The importance of archers in the armies of Plantagenet England was estab-
lished with the recruitment by Edward I of archers from Wales. He is said to
have employed nearly 11,000 Welsh archers when he defeated the Scots under
William Wallace at Falkirk in 1298 (Thompson 1985: 79).
All of these examples come from a time before the appearance of military
uniforms on the battlefields of the world, although the exotic dress of many
of these ethnic auxiliaries was distinct from that of their imperial employers.
In a strict sense, the military uniform is a late development in the history of
war, for it was not until the late seventeenth century that units in uniform
dress dominated the battlefield, and it was only in the following century
that the state bureaucracy seriously began to regulate the style of military
clothing. As the topic of military uniforms forms the primary focus of this
study, rather than issues of imperial expansion or frontier warfare and tactics,
early instances of the imperial use of frontier warriors are not considered in
this volume.
Advantages in Recruiting from the Hinterlands
There are obvious reasons for colonial powers to employ peoples on the
frontiers of an empire to fight for them. A group co-opted to act as an ally is
one less group that might act to resist. For example, a suspicious Hanoverian
4
