Vienna Museum of Military History (Heeresgeschichtliches Museum) Part I

The same Danube Cruise mentioned in my last post ended with a 3 day stay in Vienna. On one of these days I visited Vienna’s Military Museum http://www.hgm.at/en.html

I must say that this surpassed my expectations and is well worth a visit. The part of the museum whose exhibits were dedicated to the Napoleonic and 18th Century is what attracted me most but there is also a superb 30 yrs war section as well. Purchasing a photography licence was all of 2 euros I think and allowed me to photograph freely. The building itself is palatial with wonderful paintings adorning walls and ceilings as is so often the case in Vienna. It really was a lovely day out, within walking distance of our hotel and  I spent around 5 hrs there if I recall correctly. I took around 230 photographs and thought it would be of interest if I posted some here.

For this blog post,  I’ll confine myself to posting  photos of what I found of interest in the Napoleonic Period rooms only and hopefully with publish additional post of what mightbe of interest ion the other period rooms.

One thing I was struck by is the contrast between the white of an Austrian coat and the white of the cross belts.

Most of us who paint uniforms in white do not replicate this effect on our figures and neither generally would artists it would seem from this picture

The following pictures show some Austrian infantry and cavalry uniforms along with some equipment, standards and captured French eagles

 

 

 

This last infantry flag puzzled me as its labelled as the 1st Battalion of a 4th French infantry Brigade and the eagle shown in the above picture belonged to a regiment of French dragoons from 1804

When I have a little more time I’ll try and post pictures from the other rooms