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Vestes Bellica Military history archive

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Army studies · 17th to 20th century

The Clothing of War

Uniforms, images and stories: Discover military dress from the 17th century to the First World War — based on historical sources from a private archive.

Uniforms. People. History.

Historical image sources from a private archive
From the Collection Historical image sources from a private archive

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History in its facets.

Six focal points. Different perspectives on military clothing and its era.

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This archive is dedicated to army studies and to a critical culture of remembrance.

The Clothing of War

This website is devoted to army studies and, in the first place, to the history of military dress from the emergence of standing armies in the 17th century. It is therefore primarily concerned with the description of soldiers' clothing, equipment, and armament over time in the sense of a critical culture of remembrance.

The uniform, as a standardized dress for a socially demarcated group of people, on the one hand has a close relationship to civilian fashion through mutual influence; on the other hand it also has economic aspects and symbolic significance. When considering the development of uniforms, one must therefore take into account a variety of functional, fashionable, technical, political and traditional reasons, and, overall, the military with its sociological and societal connections.

The aim here is to present an account based on as original or contemporary sources as possible, that is, visual evidence of the respective period, e.g. copper engravings, lithographs, etchings, photographs (from around 1860), documents (regulations, descriptions in memoirs, letters, etc.) and, of course, surviving artifacts, as well as secondary sources such as later uniform depictions in the form of watercolors, drawings, etc. and printed illustrations that have become rare. In this context the website — following the author's inclinations — is divided into various focal points and is based exclusively on his archive.

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