Uniform Plates and Painting Guides for the Hyphenated Wars

This page lists some of the resources available to historical miniatures wargamers regarding the uniforms of the many and varied combatants of the Hyphenated Wars. While some excellent guides have appeared in print, many of these seem to have become unavailable over the years. Regardless, there are still lots of good references and resources out there.

One cautionary note: beware of Pinterest and other online sites for creating virtual picture-albums! While there are a huge number of depictions of various soldiers who fought during the period between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the beginning of WWI on such sites, they are routinely mis-labelled (if labelled at all). Many of such images are copied from the online resources referenced here, where they are given the proper descriptions and labels.

Online Resources

Preussiche Militärgeschichte ("Prussian Military History"): This site is an absolute treasure, providing uniform plates by Knötel and others, not only for the Hyphenated Wars but for the Seven Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars. (There is also a ton of other information here, in documentary form.) It is a German-language site, which is only fair since it is about Prussian military history, created by a German, and featuring resources also (mostly) created by Germans. It is also resistant to some of the auto-translate features which Google and others provide, although I don't think this is intentional. (He even says something about it elsewhere on the site - he thinks a German site dedicated to preserving German culture should be in German. OK - I can respect that. While whole-page auto-translation doesn't work, cutting-and-pasting text directly into Google Translate does. And if you find yourself learning a little bit of German, it is very much worth it.)

To make this site a bit more accessible, I will tell you how to get to the parts of the site which will be most useful (as of this writing - it continues to expand). Because the content is dynamically generated, you cannot link directly to specific pages, so I include visual aids in each case. The main links will only take you to the index page - after that you have to follow the instructions. You can click on the button to hide them.

Knötel's Uniformkunde: If you go down 10 top-level entries, you will see the link. Knötel provided his uniform plates in a manner which did not organize them according to time period, conflict, or nationality. You just have to read through the lists, looking for a nationality, branch of service, and year (or span of years) covering the conflict you are interested in. (The red arrow in the image below shows where the link is on the page.)

Uniformen der Alten Armee (Zigarettenbilder von Waldorf-Astoria): This is a line of cigarette cards by the Waldorf-Astoria tobacco company, which is, sadly, not complete. However, the one series which is online shows not just uniforms, but lots of flags. First, you have to follow the link to the "Uniformen der Alten Armee" page, and then click on the top "Uniformen" link (the lower one takes you to naval and colonial troops, which is also cool). The images below show these with red arrows:

Deutsche Uniformen v. H. Knötel d.J. u. M. Lezius: These are the crown jewels of the site from a Hyphenated-Wars perspective. Every German state (in its inclusive sense, and that means Austria, too) which took part in the conflicts of 1866 and 1870 is covered here, in some detail. Again, follow the red arrows:

Les Uniformes de l'Armée Française 1690 depuis 1900: OK - this one is in French. But it has a huge set of plates covering the French army from 1690 to 1900, broken out by branch of service. Lots of plates on uniform details, too. As before, the link on the index page will take you to a long list (shown by the red arrow in the image below).

Uniformology: This site has some great resources, and is always growing. Besides the plates linked to here (and many which are not), Uniformology has for many years produced books and CD-ROMs on the topic of uniforms, which are still available and listed on the site, with many of interest for those doing 19th-Century European conflicts. Below I link to some of the bits that will be of specific interest for Hyphenated conflicts:

The Vinkhuijzen Collection of Military Uniforms: This is an amazing resource, found among the New York Public Library Digital Collections. It can be quite daunting, as there is not much context provided for the plates, and the organization is rather arbitrary. It provides some prints of uniforms which are not easy to find, however. It does not provide much for the Franco-Prussian War, but for everything before that, and for Risorgimento conflicts, it is priceless. I have tried to assemble the set of relevant links - the collection itself is much, much larger and worth knowing about for earlier periods. The headings given in the collection are retained here. You can click on the button to collapse or show the listing (it is quite long).

Uniforms of the World: This site is a little bit hit-or-miss, but it does have some nice plates that I have not found anywhere else. It is a discussion board, so no guarantees of what is there or not. In some cases, you need to scroll down to find things relevant to our period. I have pulled out a few posts of possible interest.

Northstar 1866 Painting Guides: Northstar not only have great figures in 28mm for Austrians, Prussians, and Danes, but they have slick production values. They list several different painting guides here for Prussians and Austrians.

Wargames Foundry: These guys do a great line of figures in 28mm for the Franco-Prussian War. In ages past, they also published some painting guides for the conflict for the 1870 War: Plate 1 and Plate 2. I don't know why these were taken off the site, but I recommend their figures for the conflict. (Their Crimean figures are also useful for conflicts in 1848.)

Austrian Facing/Button Colors: This comes from the Austro-Hungarian Land Forces 1848-1918 site. (The numbers in the table are the number of the regiment in question - no two regiments had the same combination within any given troop type and nationality, and thus were visually distinct.)

1866 and All That: This blog by Mark Strachan provides a number of pages giving organizations and painting instructions for the forces involved in the 1870 conflict. Scroll down to the section titled "The Armies and Organisations of the Franco-Prussian War" (He also authored a book, Uniforms and Organisations of the Armies of the Franco-Prussian War, which you may be able to find).

Baccus: The well-known maker of 6mm figures for many relevant conflicts provides a simple painting guide for smaller-scale figures in 1870. As of this writing, only French and Prussians are covered, but it looks like they may have plans to do Bavarians and others.

Books and Publications

Outpost Wargame Services: Along with their 15mm figure range for 1870, Outpost do several painting guides written by Tom Nutt (there are three books: Imperial French, North German Confederation, and South German States/French Republican Army). The books also include organizations and other material.

Osprey Publishing: Osprey do a number of useful titles. (In addition to those listed, there are many on specific wars and campaigns: the books on Gravelotte-St. Privat and Solferino are particularly recommended.) As of this writing, there are the following titles:

The Hungarian Army 1848-1849: Another of Ralph Weaver's excellent books. (Another title to look for on the topic by this author is "Brief Freedom: The Army of Hungary During the Uprising of 1848-49.")

Armies of 1870: A great booklet by C.A. Sapherson, if you can find it at a reasonable price.

Gringo 40s Garibaldini Uniform Plates: My favorite manufacturer of 28mm figures for the Garibaldini and Neapolitans, they also do a series of uniform plates.

Red Shirts - Garibaldi's Campaign in Southern Italy 1860: This is an excellent booklet covering all aspects of this campaign, uniforms included. It used to be published be Freikorps, but is now available through Total Scenic Systems/QRF Models.

There are no doubt other good sources for uniform information for these conflicts which I have either forgotten to list or of which I am unaware. If you spot any omissions, please write me.