huevans07 wrote:I noticed the surprising lack of green uniforms or even facings in this period. The standard kit seems to have been a grey-white coat and red or blue facings. There is the problem that Ronan mentions, although that didn't stop Napo era armies wearing green.
1) The Napoleonic period came at the start of the industrial revolution and consequent improvements in the consistency and speed of dyeing processes. Even then, there were only two major users of green - Russia and Great Britain, who used it to equip not only its own riflemen, but also the Prussian reserve/landwehr, the Hanoverian army, and a Portuguese unit (the Loyal Lusitanitan Legion).
2) By the Napoleonic period, green had became associated (almost uniquely) with light troops and the "petite guerre/kleine krieg" and hence was not used by the bulk of the "line" and "guard" troops in all armies. Grey/white was popular in the early 18th Century simply because it required no dyeing process at all, hence there was a bit more money to spend on dyes for collars and cuffs. There was also the increasingly religious element to uniform colours - white/light blue for Catholics, dark blue/red for Protestants.
3) Adding to B's "exceptions" Irish regiments of the ECW period serving in England also wore green. IIRC, Hampden had conncetions with continental Europe that would have made obtaining green cloth from the Low Countries easier. (Interesting that the Coldstream Guards adopted green during the later Stuart period when England had a colony in North Africa that would have made obtaining green cloth - assuming that the Muslim nations had more access to it - easier, as well.)
