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An Interesting Find. . .

Apparently, the above illustration shows how a Prussian cavalry squadron appeared on parade during the late 17th and 18th centuries.  Battle formation was similar, but the distances between files were closed up if I understand correctly.  Anyway, this is interesting because of where the officers, trumpeters, and standard bearer are placed.  Note that they are not all together.


Thought that I would share this here.  I came across the above illustration of a Prussian cavalry squadron yesterday while trying some German search terms  -- 'fahnen' and 'standarten' -- on Google.  Looking for possible information on Wurttemburg and Bavarian cavalry flags you understand. 

One sometimes turns up unexpected new things online by trying another language for searches, something I learned 20+ years ago when I had a job in the Geography Library at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  During the 1995-96 academic year, my boss put me in charge of finding out all I could on several hundred Slavic language books, left to the library by a retired Geography professor.  

I used an early version of WorldCat, which at the time had restricted access and was pre-Windows.  Remember that?  It was a fascinating job in any case.  Using a transliteration guide, I worked with books written in Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Georgian of all things, as well as the odd title in German and Finnish.  The precise task was to uncover and summarize as much as I could about the contents of each book beyond simple title, author, and date/place of publication.

Anyway, the point of this particular story is, play around when doing internet searches.  You never know what you might turn up by coming around the metaphoric house and entering the kitchen through the back door.  All kinds of interesting and unanticipated stuff turns up.

But what of the 30 RSM95 French heavy cavalry in bearskins?  After a bit of trumpeter repositioning yesterday evening, everything is glued down, flagpoles have been glued carefully into the hands of the two squadron standard bearers, and base-coating can commence later today.

-- Stokes

Comments

Rob Young said…
Back in days when I was a Research Chemist I had a weird understanding of writen German... my main reference being Beilstein... so I could read technical German but put a newspaper in front of me and...
Wellington Man said…
I've only just cottoned on to that trick, Stokes, which has been vital for finding out anything useful about the obscure German regiments I've been working on lately. My German's coming along splendidly.
Anonymous said…
Its no good I'll have to start building again!! I do like the style of those.


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