1809-1813 King Joseph's Army ( Regular Infantry)

1809-1813 King Joseph's Army ( Regular Infantry)

Joseph’s uniforms remain a dubious and poorly documented subject, with much confusion as to the regiment’s numbers, names, and actual clothing. The one generally accepted idea is that most, if not all, of Joseph's infantry wore brown coats.

3rd Line Infantry Regiment (Seville), Officer, Field Uniform, 1811
At least two sources give Seville black facings, though another shows its coat as brown, with white waistcoat and breeches. Possibly this is summer dress.
Claiming to be legal king of Spain, Joseph adopted Spain’s traditional red cockade.

4th Line Infantry Regiment (Soria), Grenadier, 1811
Note the red “flaming grenade” on his forage cap. 

There is one uniform, tentatively identified as that of 5th Line Infantry Regiment (“Granada”), in the Musée de l’Armée in Paris - brown with yellow collar, lapels, round cuffs, and lining, and white button-hole tabs (one on each side of collar, 8 on each lapel, 3 on outside of each cuff).



Royal Irish Regiment, Fusilier, 1809
Formed in 1809 to take in the debris of the “Irish” regiments (by now mostly miscellaneous foreigners, including Austrians) in Spanish service. Originally projected as a “brigade”, but only one regiment could be formed - and it, for lack of replacements, was put into the reliable “Royal Foreign Regiment” in 1812.

A sketch by the Dutch officer, Keck, in 1810 shows pointed cuffs and yellow waistcoats.

Drummers had yellow lapels and swallows’ nests and orange braid. Drum hoops were bright red.






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