Soldier braid
The soldier's braid was a defining part of the military hairstyle of the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Origins
At the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, soldiers in European armies usually wore their hair long and loose, while the mostly noble officers wore allong wigs that were considered appropriate to their status . The hairstyles were not yet regulated by regulations, which is due, among other things, to the fact that the idea of a uniform appearance for all members of an army was still quite new and by no means generally accepted as an ideal. Even in the team ranks, it was up to the individual how he wore his hair.
In the first fifteen years of the 18th century, tying long hair into braids became increasingly common among men and officers . It was both a matter of adopting civilian customs - in turn, going back to the newly emerging wig fashions, in which the hair at the nape of the neck was gathered in a hair pouch - as well as pure practicality, as long hair is a hindrance when exercising weapons .
From around 1720 on, with the increasing regulation of the soldier's appearance and the increasingly important decorative effect of uniforms , the hairstyles of soldiers were also subjected to regulations that more or less precisely regulated the hairstyle in everyday service and on special occasions. The braid in its different variants became the standard military hairdress in all European countries.
Formations
The soldier's braid received its best-known and at the same time extreme form in Prussia and the states of the Holy Roman Empire , which followed the Prussian model in uniforming. After taking office in 1713, King Friedrich Wilhelm I , who abhorred all aspects of lavish French fashion, ordered a radical change in the uniform style, which military historians sometimes refer to as the Old Prussian style break . The sober new uniforms included the strictly regulated hairstyles, in which the hair was combed back tight and tightly wrapped with black silk ribbon in a pigtail that was 56 centimeters long and reached to the waist . For parades and ceremonial occasions, the hair, which was twisted into curls that were differently shaped depending on the regiment and also precisely regulated, was powdered white. This soldier's braid was binding for officers and men alike and was decisive for the appearance of the Prussian army for the next few decades, even though it was shorter under the successors of Frederick the Great and in 1806 finally only reached over the collar.
In England , until 1751, soldiers' long hair was braided into a braid, which was then pinned up and hidden under the headgear so that it looked as if the men wore their hair short. Only gentlemen troopers - members of guard units who were considered particularly distinguished - were allowed to wear freely hanging braids, regardless of rank. After 1751 the braid was worn freely by all units, but its shape was only loosely regulated. Plaited braids were quite common among the line infantry , while the light infantry favored braids tightly wrapped with black ribbon. The long braid of the Prussian type was not very popular; he was mainly known from the Hessian troops , who were uniformed in the Prussian fashion and who fought under the British flag in North America; accordingly it was sometimes referred to as the Hessian tail . The later British King Wilhelm IV described the young Horatio Nelson as follows in 1783: … his lank unpowdered hair was tied in a stiff Hessian tail, of an extraordinary length.
In France, the braid had become a legal hairstyle, but only loosely regulated by regulations. It was the same in the majority of European countries.
In the Russian Empire were after the Seven Years' War the Prussian uniforms adopted many elements, including the long braid that replaced the worn until then shorter braids. With the introduction of the Potemkin uniform , the soldier's braid disappeared for ten years in favor of short-cropped hair, but was reintroduced together with the old-style uniforms by Tsar Paul I , an unconditional admirer of the Prussian military, in 1796. After Paul was murdered in 1801, the braid, hated by soldiers, disappeared for good.
abolition
After the French Revolution , the braid slowly disappeared from civil fashion and was soon seen as an expression of conservative sentiments. However, the military held onto the hairstyle in all states until the early 19th century.
In France during the revolutionary years, the uniform regulations of the Ancien Régime , which were aimed at decorative effects, quickly lost their importance, although they were not repealed. The pigtail was theoretically still the compulsory hairstyle of all soldiers, but in practice it was replaced by open hair or short hair corresponding to civilian fashion and was finally officially abolished in 1804. Only Napoleon's Imperial Guard was allowed to keep it as an express distinction.
The Prussian soldier's braid was gradually shortened after 1786 and completely disappeared as a result of the collapse of the army in 1807. It was considered a symbol of standstill. Archenholz greeted the officers defeated in October 1806 after the battle of Jena and Auerstedt in his magazine Minerva with grim comforting words:
“Return of the heroes in civil clothing and without a braid.
Thank God that no matter how well the
gentlemen got away.
The pen stood high, the courage high!
Now spring away and courage faded!
Head and foot and head remained safe,
because blow and shot only hit the braid . "
In Prussia, however, hair was still powdered white until 1812 at parades.
The soldier braid was abolished in most armies between 1804 and 1807. There were exceptions, however. In Bavaria, for example, the braid did not disappear from the Hartschieren until 1825. In Hessen-Kassel , the extremely conservative-minded Elector Wilhelm I, after his return in 1813, endeavored to restore the entire state to the status of 1806. This also meant that the army had to wear the short braid of the old Prussian pattern again. This measure was so much an expression of the reactionary attitude of the authorities that a Hessian soldier's braid was burned at the Wartburg Festival as one of the symbols of oppression. After the Elector's death in 1821, the braid was finally abolished in the Hessen-Kassel army .
Among other things, the abolition of the braid also gives rise to the phrase “ cut off old braids ”, which refers to the abandonment of outdated facilities and ideas.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Printed by Paul Schreckenbach: The collapse of Prussia in 1806. A souvenir for the German people. With 100 illustrations and supplements based on contemporary representations , Eugen Diederichs, Jena 1906, p. 204, emphasis by Archenholz
literature
- Sandro Wiggerich: The body as a uniform. The standardization of the soldier's hairstyle in Prussia and the Federal Republic. In: Sandro Wiggerich, Steven Kensy (Ed.): State Power Uniform. Uniforms as a symbol of state power in transition? (= Studies on the history of everyday life 29). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-515-09933-2 , pp. 161-183.
- Richard Knötel , Herbert Knötel, Herbert Sieg: Handbuch der Uniformkunde: The military costume in its development up to the present . Verlag HG Schulz, 1956
- Liliane and Fred Funcken : L'uniforme et les armes des soldats de la guerre en dentelle . Casterman, 1975
- Hans Bleckwenn : Under the Prussian eagle. The Brandenburg-Prussian Army 1640–1807 . Bertelsmann, 1978