{"product_id":"imperial-german-cavalry-officer-dress-trousers-gold-lace-braunschweig-hussars-17","title":"Imperial German Cavalry Officer Dress Trousers Gold Lace Braunschweig Hussars 17","description":"\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003ePresented here is a pair of Imperial German cavalry officer's long dress trousers (\u003cem\u003elange Tuchhose\u003c\/em\u003e) in dark blue-black wool, trimmed down each outer seam with a single band of gold metallic lace and finished at the front hip with a gold \u003cem\u003eVerschnürung\u003c\/em\u003e (Austrian knot), the ornamentation of a mounted officer's walking-out and society dress. By family and consignment tradition these are attributed to an officer of the \u003cem\u003eBraunschweigisches Husaren-Regiment Nr. 17\u003c\/em\u003e (Brunswick Hussar Regiment No. 17), the celebrated \u003cem\u003eTotenkopf-Husaren\u003c\/em\u003e (Death's Head Hussars) of the Duchy of Brunswick; the construction, quality, and black-and-gold color scheme are fully consistent with that attribution, and the trousers are offered on that basis, while it should be noted that trousers of this type do not themselves carry a regimental cipher or numeral, so the regimental identification rests on provenance rather than on a mark inherent to the garment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003eThe trousers are cut full through the seat and thigh in the manner of officer's dress overalls, tapering to a straightened lower leg finished with a reinforced strap and leather-trimmed hem edge intended to be worn over the boot. Construction is of high-grade smooth wool, privately tailored rather than issue-made, as expected of an officer's privately purchased garment. The waistband is fitted with bone or composition buttons for braces (suspenders) front and rear and a rear adjustment strap with buckle for a close fit; further buttons at each ankle close the lower leg. The defining decoration is the outer-seam treatment: a single flat woven gold lace stripe (\u003cem\u003eBiese\u003c\/em\u003e) runs the length of each leg from waistband to hem, sweeping forward at the top into a raised gold Austrian knot (\u003cem\u003eSchenkelschnur\u003c\/em\u003e) set on the front of each hip, an ornament peculiar to cavalry officer's dress. The lace is worked in a geometric zig-zag pattern typical of German officer's trouser galloon of the period. The measurements are a waist of 39 inches (99 cm), an inseam of 25 inches (64 cm), and an outer length from waist to leg bottom of 39 inches (99 cm).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003eTwo points of identification deserve emphasis. First, the gold color of the metallic lace and knot is significant. Prussian cavalry officers most commonly wore silver lace and buttons, so gold trim points instead to those states and regiments whose officers wore gold, a group that includes the Brunswick contingent and accords with the stated attribution to Hussar Regiment No. 17. Second, the black-and-gold palette itself is the signature of the Brunswick service, and to understand why it looks the way it does one has to go back to the origin of the regiment and of the duchy that raised it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003eThe Duchy of Brunswick (\u003cem\u003eHerzogtum Braunschweig\u003c\/em\u003e) was one of the sovereign states of the German Empire, a small but ancient territory ruled by a branch of the House of Welf, the same dynasty that produced the Hanoverian kings of Great Britain. Its defining moment came in 1809, when Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick, known to history as the \u003cem\u003eSchwarze Herzog\u003c\/em\u003e (Black Duke), refused to accept Napoleon's domination of his lands. His father, Duke Charles William Ferdinand, had been mortally wounded commanding Prussian troops against the French at Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, and the duchy had been dissolved and folded into Napoleon's puppet Kingdom of Westphalia. Frederick William raised a volunteer corps clad entirely in black, the \u003cem\u003eSchwarze Schar\u003c\/em\u003e (Black Host or Black Brunswickers), a uniform understood as mourning both for his father and for the extinguished independence of his country, and marked it with the death's head as an emblem of defiance and remembrance. This corps cut its way across Germany to the North Sea in 1809, took ship for England, and entered British pay, fighting through the Peninsular War in Spain and in Sicily. In 1815 the Black Duke led his men once more against Napoleon and was killed at Quatre-Bras on 16 June, two days before Waterloo, falling at the head of his troops as his father had; the Brunswickers fought on through Waterloo itself. This lineage of mourning black and the death's-head device passed directly to the ducal army's cavalry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003eAfter the wars the restored duchy carried its hussars forward, and following the military convention with Prussia the regiment was absorbed into the Imperial German Army as Hussar Regiment No. 17 while retaining its Brunswick character, garrisoned in the ducal capital at the Mars-la-Tour barracks and forming part of the 20th Cavalry Brigade under the X Army Corps at Hanover. Its Imperial-era honors were struck onto the \u003cem\u003eDevisenband\u003c\/em\u003e (honor bandeau) of the busby: PENINSULA, SICILIEN, WATERLOO, and MARS-LA-TOUR. The last of these, the great cavalry action of 16 August 1870 during the Franco-Prussian conflict, was the battle that defined the regiment's identity under the Empire; it was on that field, in the sweeping mounted engagements around Vionville and Mars-la-Tour, that German cavalry made its most celebrated massed charges of the war, and the date carried a double resonance for the Brunswickers, falling on the anniversary of the Black Duke's death at Quatre-Bras. In 1883 the Brunswick-pattern \u003cem\u003eTotenkopf\u003c\/em\u003e was formally re-authorized for the regiment in memory of that whole tradition. The death's head appeared on only four headdresses in the entire Imperial German Army, this regiment, the Brunswick Infantry Regiment No. 92, and the two Prussian \u003cem\u003eLeib-Husaren\u003c\/em\u003e regiments, which places Brunswick hussar material among the most recognizable and sought-after of the Kaiserreich.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003eThe dynastic story ran on to the very eve of the war. When the last ruling duke's line failed in 1884 the rightful heir was the head of the House of Hanover, whose family had been dispossessed by Prussia in 1866 and who was therefore politically unacceptable to Berlin; the duchy was governed by regents for nearly three decades rather than admit him. Only in 1913, after the marriage of Ernst August of Hanover to the Kaiser's only daughter, Princess Victoria Louise, healed the long breach between the two houses, was a duke restored to Brunswick, barely a year before the outbreak of the First World War. An officer serving in the ducal hussars in these final years thus wore a uniform saturated with more than a century of dynastic memory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003eTrousers of this kind belonged to the social world of the mounted officer corps. An Imperial cavalry officer maintained a wardrobe well beyond the field: full parade dress with the corded \u003cem\u003eAttila\u003c\/em\u003e and busby, and the walking-out and society dress (\u003cem\u003eGesellschaftsanzug\u003c\/em\u003e) in which he appeared at the casino, at receptions, at the theater, and on the streets of his garrison town. It was in this latter capacity that gold-laced long trousers such as these were worn, over dress boots, paired with the \u003cem\u003eAttila\u003c\/em\u003e for occasions that called for formality without the full panoply of parade. They were privately tailored to the individual officer, and their survival gives a direct connection to the daily life and standing of the Brunswick officer corps.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003eCondition is very good. The wool is sound and clean with even color and only light handling wear, retaining its shape and structure well. The gold lace and the Austrian knots remain bright and intact along their full runs with no significant loss or unraveling, and the waistband and ankle buttons are present with the rear adjustment strap and buckle in place. The leather hem trim shows only modest age. There is no evident moth damage of consequence, no significant staining, and no visible restoration; some honest wear consistent with age and period use is present as expected.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003eFor the collector, complete Imperial German cavalry officer's dress trousers survive in far smaller numbers than tunics or headgear, having been worn hard, altered, or discarded, and gold-laced examples with the intact Austrian knots are especially uncommon. As a component associated with the Brunswick Death's Head Hussars, one of the most storied cavalry regiments of the German Empire, this piece holds appeal both for the advanced Brunswick collector assembling a complete uniform and for the collector building around the death's-head-hussar tradition. Buyers should weigh the provenance-based nature of the regimental attribution as discussed above; on its own merits the trousers are an original, high-quality Imperial German mounted officer's dress garment in gold, a scarce survival in any regimental context.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Derrittmeister Militaria Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50145679114479,"sku":"15-34","price":987.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/9169\/5855\/files\/15-34_1.jpg?v=1783469195","url":"https:\/\/derrittmeister.com\/products\/imperial-german-cavalry-officer-dress-trousers-gold-lace-braunschweig-hussars-17","provider":"Derrittmeister Militaria Group","version":"1.0","type":"link"}