It is not easy to determine how
the Danish army looked like in the battle of Gadebusch 1712 (9 December Old
Style and 20 December New Style). The reason to this is a new uniform
regulation from 24 October 1711 (NS) which determined that all Danish
regiments henceforth should have red coats instead of light grey coats as
before. Each regiments had individual colours on the facings and these were
also changed when they got their new red coats. These changes were however
not carried out overnight but gradually as the old uniforms were worn out.
The dates when each regiment got the red coats is unfortunately often
unknown and the battle of Gadebusch occurred in the middle of this process,
thus making the exact distribution of red and grey coats uncertain.
Additionally the cavalry had together with their red or grey coat also a
buff coat which they usually wore in battle. Furthermore there were other
variations from the official uniform colours. Dronningens Livregiment (Queen's
Life Regiment) was for example in such bad condition that it only
participated with one battalion in the battle and it was dressed in red,
grey and blue (captured Swedish) coats with some of them having patches of
40 different colours. More information about Danish uniforms can be obtained
by clicking on the images.
The Saxon regiments had on the
other hand red coats already when the war began. Note however that the
Saxon cuirassiers on this page are not depicted with their cuirasses on the
outside of the coat as the Danish cuirassiers. This is based on the information from
Daniel Schorr's article on the Saxon army. I do not know if this
difference is because of actual differences between these two armies or if
it is due to different opinions from Schorr and Torstein Snorrason (who
wrote about the Danes) on how cuirasses were worn in this age.
