‘Transform’d, Not Inly Alter’d’: The Resurrection of Kościuszko and the Arrival of Mazeppa

Abstract

In early 1816 the Prince Regent altered the uniform of some British light dragoon units. The elaborate new costume was based on Polish cavalry who had served at Waterloo as Napoleon’s Lancers of the Imperial Guard. British forces also adopted the uniforms of certain French divisions during the post-war occupation of France, and interest in military dress quickly reached British fashion. In George Cruikshank’s ‘Monstrosities of 1819,’ the visiting Persian Ambassador and his entourage (who will reappear in Chapter 6) are barely visible, riding in the distance, while a lancer joins the latest human oddities in the forefront, his hourglass waist echoing his elaborate czapka (Figure 4.1). A cartoon from the early 1830s — the moment of yet another uprising in Poland — shows a woman being fitted into a stylish variation of the Polish lancer uniform while actual soldiers look on with amusement (Figure 4.2).