Military Art  of the Coldstream Guards, Military prints from the History of the Coldstream Guards shown in military uniform prints and military paintings of Battle of Waterloo, Hougoumont and the Crimean war.

THE COLDSTREAM GUARDS  Raised in 1650 as  Monck's regiment of Foot, becoming in 1670 The Coldstream Guards (or the 2nd Foot Guards) The Regimental Battle Honours  (Shown on Standards or Colours) 1662 - 1680   Defence of Tangier   1680 1689 - 1697  Namur  during The war of the League of Augsburg 1701 - 1715 Gibraltar, Oudenarde, Malplaquet,  during the war of the Spanish Succession 1740 - 1748   Battle of Dettingen during the War of the Austrian Succession 1793 - 1802   Lincelles during the French Revolutionary wars 1808 - 1814  Talavera, Barrosa, Fuentos d'Onoro, Salamanca, Nive, during the Peninsula War 1815     Battle of Waterloo 1854 - 1855  Alma, Inkerman, Sebastopol during the Crimean War 1882   Tel El Kibir,  during the  Revolt of Arabi Pasha 1882 - 1884,  Egypt, First Sudan War 1885     Suakin during the Egyptian Campaign

 

Hougoumont by Robert Gibb. Showing the 3rd (Scots) Foot Guards and the Coldstream Guards struggling to close the gates at Hougoumont Farm against the Heavy French forces at the height of the the battle of Waterloo. During the Battle of Waterloo the 3rd Foot Guards and the Coldstream Guards losses were as follows. 3rd Foot Guards, 125 Killed, 352 Wounded, and the Coldstream Guards losses were 97 killed and 446 wounded and four missing. Return from Inkerman by lady Butler A column of exhausted and wounded men of the Coldstream Guards and the 20th East Devonshire regiment returning from the heights of Inkerman, 5th November 1854, during the Crimean War. The Wounded Coldstream Guardsman by Alfred D Prades  Private Chillingworth assisting in bombing the enemy from a trench, which they had captured.         On Octber 8th 1815, the enemy attacked with great determination along the trenches occupied by the 3rd Battalion Coldstream guards, near Loos, and came pouring into a trench on the left of that occupied by Private Chillingworth and five other men.  The situation was most critical.  But realising what had happened, Private Chilingsworth and his comrades sprang forward with great gallantry to face the enemy.  With bombs they drove at least ten times their number, who stubbornly opposed them, by foot down the trench until they had recaptured the whole of it.  For great bravery and resource Chillingworth was awarded the D.C.M. Company-Sergeant-Major Seaman Holding Back The Germans Single Handed.     When the railway was reached, it was discovered that further progress was blocked by a culvert which the Germans had barricaded in such a way that only one man could pass through the opening at a time.  It was also discovered that the Germans had no intention of waiting to be attacked, but were attempting to outflank and cut off the party.  It was essential that they should not use the opening in the culvert, and for an hour and a half Seaman (2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards) stationed himself by the arch, shooting down those who tried to pass through the gap.  He was wounded by a bomb, fortunately not seriously enough to incapacitate him.  The other party largely owing to seamans display of courage and determination eventually recaptured the lost trench.  He received the D.C.M., as also did Privates D. White, F. Richardson and S. B. Leslie for their gallant conduct in bombing the enemys position. Corporal Brown And Lance-Corporal Dobson Dragging A Wounded Man Across The Open To The British Lines Under Fire.  At Chavanne on September 28th 1914, during the last days of the battle of the Aisne, three men were sent out to reconnoitre in a thick mist.  The German lines were very close, and the mist suddenly lifted.  Two of the men were instantly shot, but the third got back to the British lines with only a graze.  To leave the two men in the open meant fourteen hours exposure, and Lance-Corporal Frederick William Dobson, of the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards, therefore volunteered to try and bring them in immediately.  He crawled out and found that one of the men was dead, while the other was wounded in three places.  Having applied dressing he crawled back, and a few minutes later came out with Corporal Brown, the two men dragging between them a stretcher.  The wounded man was placed on it, and then dragged back into safety.  Not one of them was hit, and corporal Brown was awarded the D.C.M. and Lance-corporal Dobson the V.C. form most conspicuous gallantry.  Officer, Coldstream Guards 1680 by P H Smitherman  The dress shown here is an undress uniform, similar in use, perhaps, to the blue frock coat commonly worn by officers before 1914 and still worn by officers of the Brigade of Guards.  The details are taken from a picture showing a guard mounted by the regiment in the Horse Guards, Whitehall, in which the officers are shown, rather to ones surprise, in this order of dress rather than in ceremonial full dress.  the brown coat, in fact, is very little different from the simple brown coats - shown in the same picture - being worn by King Charles II and the members of his court..  Indeed the whole picture is one of delightful informality, with the King and his friends walking along a path, the guard turned out in his honour, cows grazing peacefully on the grass, and the country people  going about their business within a few yards of the Monarch.  In a setting of this sort a brown undress coat was probably more appropriate than the full dress coat worn today.  The crimson sash, which has been worn by the British infantry officer on duty from about this time, is here shown almost in the form in which it is worn today..  The main weapon carried by the officers, only part of which is shown, is the sixteen foot pike, the same as that carried by the pikemen of the regiment.  It was more usual for officers to carry the half pike, or spontoon, but evidently, for guard duties, the full pike was ordered.  The regiment was raised by Cromwell during the Commonwealth, and their first colonel was Monck, who led them from Coldstream, where they were stationed at the time, to join King Charles II at his Restoration.  They acquired the name Coldstream Guards then, and have retained it ever since.  They were thus the first infantry regiment to join the establishment of the regular army, although they were made junior in precedence to the First guards, who had been with Charles in exile as Wentworths Regiment. Grenadier, Coldstream Guards 1775 by P H Smitherman  This image, based on the Clothing Warrant of 1768 and on actual items of clothing still in existence, shows a typical grenadier of this period.  The most striking change in dress is the replacement of the grenadiers mitre by a fur cap.  The grenadier cap began originally as a fur-trimmed cap, and the fur trimming was replaced by the stiff front, which we have seen in several prints, but in the 1768 warrant the fur cap was brought back.  In fact it must have made its return before that date.  Indeed, some regiments had never worn the mitre.  The grenadiers of the Black Watch, for instance, always wore a fur cap closely resembling the one shown here.  It was this fur cap that gradually developed into the bearskin that is worn by the Foot Guards today.  It is often said that the bearskin cap was introduced into the army by the Prince Regent in imitation of the bearskin caps of Napoleons Guard.  This is not so.  The fur cap had its own respectable ancestry on this side of the Channel, as we can see from this image, but it was, of course, worn by grenadiers in many other armies at that time.  Another notable feature of the uniform here is the arrangement of buttons in pairs.  The arrangement was adopted by many regiments when the 1768 warrant was introduced, but all gave it up in 1857 when the tunic replaced the coatee, except the Coldstream Guards, who retain it to this day.  The white spatterdashes in the army had been generally changed for black, in fact the Clothing Warrant specified black.  However, the Foot Guards retained their white ones and used them until some date after 1821for ceremonial dress, long after both white and black spatterdashes had vanished from the rest of the army.  With the war in America at this time and the formation of light companies, the use of grenadier companies as such ceased, and the Grenadiers became more ornamental than anything else.  Their fur caps were rarely worn on service, and were kept for ceremonial occasions.  It will be seen that this grenadier has his hair tied up in a plait at the back and not in a queue.  This was generally a distinction of the grenadiers.