French Colonel’s Uniform

Hussars were light cavalry, mainly used for raiding and scouting. They rode smaller, faster horses than other cavalry, carried lighter weapons and were ‘the eyes, ears and egos of the army’.

Marbot was the archetypal hussar, author of the most colourful memoir of the Napoleonic wars.  He enlisted in 1799 and rose to commissioned rank in the war against Prussia and Russia in 1806-7. He served in the Peninsular War, Russian War and German campaign, was promoted General in 1815 and was wounded at Waterloo.

His memoir stops short of Waterloo but two letters survive. On 26th June 1815, Marbot wrote that his Regiment spent all day on the French right flank and was attacked there by the Prussians as they arrived.  In 1830, he gave a far more exciting account. Sadly, none of it c an be corroborated.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took Marbot as the model for Brigadier Gerard: ‘ In me you see the last of those wonderful men who were veterans when they were yet boys, who learned to use a sword earlier than a razor, and who during 100 battles never once let the enemy see the colour of their knapsacks. For 20 years we were teaching Europe how to fight … Berlin, Naples, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, Moscow – we stabled our horses in them all … these ears have heard the trumpet calls of France, and these eyes have seen her standards in lands where they may never be seen again.’