Saturday, June 15, 2024

Gabriel Raspe and his Polish-Lithuanian Cavalry circa 1775

 Salvete Omnes,

a little bit about our Polish cavalry circa 1775. 





in 1781 Gabriel N. Raspe (1712-1785) of Nuremberg published a book devoted to the Polish Royal Army, its organisation and uniforms -
Accurate Vorstellung der Königlich Pohlnischen Armee nach der auf dem in Jahre 1775 [..].

Polish army was reformed by the royal military commission in 1775 and these uniforms etc were in use until the next reform of 1785.

As of the final reform 1775-76 our Polish-Lithuanian Cavalry consisted of :



Crown Horse Guard dragoon Regiment - regiment gwardii konnej koronnej aka dragoni mirowscy - one of the most famous and experienced Polish cavalry units of the XVIII century. 




Ducal Guard Dragoon Regiment - regiment gwardii konnej litewskiej



National Cavalry Brigades or line cavalry - Kawaleria Narodowa - for the Crown and Duchy(Lithuanian) armies
Lithuanian or Ducal army had one Cavalry Brigade named 1st Hussar, referring to the abolished winged hussar banners.








..






6 Dragoon line cavalry of the Crown regiments  - dragonskie regimenty koronne - 






Regiments of  Ulan-lancers or Advance Guard Reguments -  pulki ulanow koronne i litewskie




..











Royal Uhlan Regiment - Pulk Ulanow Nadworny




The original digitized publication - the plates and description - is   available from Wroclaw University Library - FBC .





Polish cavalry  officer, researcher & artist Stanislaw Geper (1889-1965) created a copy of the 1781 Raspe's publication - available here.




Wiki Commons has the entire Gepner's version available for viewing and download.

I love these Polish army uniforms created after 1775 throughout 1791 , and I think they were the most wonderful emanation of our national costume. here in the military context. 

ps
Finally there is this article by Maciej Trabski on the National Cavalry of this period, and also the same researcher wrote this book on the uhlan and lancer regiments of the Crown Army 1768-94 - 'Pulki  Przedniej Strazy Koronnej ' from Inforteditions in Poland (all in Polish).

Valete

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