The Artillery
Uniforms - (Cont'd)
In the illustration below, Austrian artillery uniforms c. 1800, showing the 'tabasco-brown coat with red facings which distinguished that branch of the Austrian army, here with the combed 1798 helmet of infantry style, except that the rank-and-file of the artillery wore a red comb instead of the black and yellow of the infantry.* (See illustration below)
A) Drag chain; B) Drag Rope; C) Crooked sponge for light 4 pounder guns; D) Searcher with Reliever; E) Searcher; F) Powder Laddle; G) Sponge and Rammer; H) Worm or Wad Hook; J) Crooked Hand-Spike; K) straight Hand-Spike; M) Water bucket; N) Portfire Case; O) Tompion; P) Forked-Linstock; Q) Thumb or Finger Stall; R) Priming Wires; S) Portfire Cutter; T) Vent Cover; U) Bricole; V) Prolonge; W) Portfires.
(Illustration after Peterson)
The officer (above-left) wears the universal Austrian gold sash with black interweaving; the gunner at (right) has his artillery tools in a 'holster' on a shoulder belt. The central figure is a driver of the Fuhrwesencorps, in light grey with yellow facings and a yellow over-black plume.
(Print after R. von Ottenfeld).
The Engineers
A number of different engineer corps existed. The (Ingenieurs-Corps) was composed exclusively officers; they controlled two battalions of rank-and-file, the Sappers (Sappeur-Corps), responsible for field fortification, and the Miners (Mineur-Corps) trained in siege techniques. In wartime they were supplemented by units of Pioneers, less skilled units generally disbanded at the close of hostilities.
Image right: A pioneer in field service marching order, carrying an encased trenching spade.
The first pioneer battalion was raised in 1792; three battalions existed in 1805, seven 'divisions' in 1809, and the single battalion left after the defeat of that year was enlarged to three battalions by August 1813. There waas in addition a Pontooneers Corps, supplemented by a Grenz unit styled Czaikisten. Uniforms were basically of infantry style, the engineer services wearing light blue-grey faced dark-red, and pioneers light-grey faced light-green; head-dress was originally the 'round hat' and later the 'Korsenhut'. The Pontooneers wore 'cornflower-blue' (sometimes depicted as a dark shade), initially with a distinctive, tail-less jacket with red facings like the engineers; by 1803 the Korsenhut had adopted the Corps' anchor-badge. The Czaikisten wore a uniform like that of the Pontooneers, initially with pointed Hungarian cuffs and a Casquet, instead of the 'round hat', and by 1809 a blue infantry jacket with red collar-patch, sky-blue Hungarian breeches and the infantry shako with brass anchor badge.
Bottom-Left: *A carpenter of artillery, probably from the Handlangerdienst
Commisariat and Administrative
Staff duties of most types were handled by the 'Quartermaster-General-Staff' (Generalquartiermeister), which was recognized as being among the most efficient in Europe; thus Austrian staff officers often ran the affairs of allied forces as well, such as those of the Russians in the Austerlitz campaign. Commissariat duties were the responsibility of the 'field train (Militarverpflegungsfuhrwesencorps), whose war establishment of more than 17,000 men and 34,000 horses served the commissariat, transport, artillery-drivers' and administrative departments. A constant complaint was that a vast number of unofficial vehicles encumbered every army and hindered movement: In 1809 each infantry regiment should have had 13 wheeled vehicles and 26 pack-horses, but officers' baggage and other vehicles accumulatedby a regiment usually vastly exceeded this number. The dependence upon mobile field bakeries and the need to draw supplies from magazines, with only limited requisitioning from the countryside, never allowed the Austrian forces the freedom of movement permitted by the French system.
