10th Hussars Camp

This image of the 10th Hussars Camp in the Crimea was published in the Illustrated London News in 1856. In the foreground can be seen the farriers’ forge with bellows used to keep the fire hot. There are mounted men wearing dress uniform but their shakos covered with the white quilting that has a curtain at the back. A sergeant in the foreground, with his back to us wears the shako uncovered with a black horsehair drooping plume. The artist has made the mistake of giving him an officers’ sabretache with three slings. The tents are not in regular lines and are of all shapes and sizes. This may be explained in Liddell’s history of the 10th which describes the tents in the camp:
‘After the camp was pitched the Indian tents evoked an amount of admiration and envy of which they were in reality anything but worthy. They were not the single pole-tent with double roof and flies issued to European troops in India, but the common “routie” (so called in Bombay), used by native troops and servants. As compared with the bell-tent of the English army, they looked roomy and comfortable, and they were so in fine, dry, sunshiny weather; but in wet weather they were scarcely any protection whatever, and gradually they were all given up in exchange for the British canvas tent.’

Regimental Details