General Officers & Staff
‘The officers are pleasant, well educated gentlemen, quite up to the standard of any other foreign troops and better than most, and they seem to be very keen and knowledgeable in their profession… and willingly placed themselves under British Command, but since Teutonic jealousy placed them under German command I do not know how they have got on. ’
- Col G M Grierson, Deputy Adjutant General, British Army
Organisation
Staff: 4 officers, 23 men, 4 private and 2 troop horses, 5 mules and 1 cart) composed: 1 Colonel Commanding (2 private horses), 1 Captain aide-de-camp (2 private horses), 1 Special Service Lieutenant (1 troop horse), 1 Captain Commissary (1 troop horse), 2 NCO-clerks, 1 NCO and one private cyclists, 1 office orderly, 5 soldier servants.
Staff transport: 5 drivers, 1 pack mule for equipment, 9 pack mules for officers’ baggage, 1 two-wheeled cart with mules.
Uniforms
The five-pointed star of the Italian army worn on the collar was gold for general officers, silver for all others. All officers on duty, and with field service dress until 1915, wore a light blue silk sash with tassels of the same, across the right shoulder and tied fairly high on the left hip.
The characteristic distinctions of general officers were silver em¬broidery known as Greca, arranged in a rectangular vandyked pattern, with a stylised floral design in the upper and lower vandykes, and their gold stars.
The full-dress headdress was a black leather helmet with a gold crowned five-pointed star on a large rayed silver plate, with a gold eagle instead of a spike, and a white plume, and a feather criniere falling to the rear. The undress kepi had Greca around the band, with one to three narrow silver cords above. The double-breasted coat was dark blue with patterned silver buttons and black velvet collar and cuffs, piped red. The edges of the collar and cuffs were ornamented around the inside with Greca; this was repeated twice or three times on the cuffs of senior general officers, according to rank. In full dress, trefoil-shaped silver braided shoulder cords were worn with a double aiguillette running from the left shoulder across to the right breast. In undress, fairly broad black, silver-embroidered passants, loops, were worn across the chest. The light grey-blue trousers had double silver stripes.
Weapons & Equipment
Weapons would be the normal army issue or privately purchased alternatives.
Carabinieri Reali
Organisation
Carabinieri were similar to the French gendarmerie. They were under the War Office as regards organization, discipline, administration and instruction, under the Admiralty as regards duties in naval arsenals or in connection with the personnel of the navy and under the Ministry of the Interior as regards police duties.
From 1900 to 1914 the Carabinieri contingent serving in Peking as security for the Italian Legation was attached to the Staff and was 1 sergeant (maresciallo), 1 corporal (vice brigadiere) and 6 men (carabinieri).
Uniforms
Carabinieri wore the regular army star. The unique black felt ‘cocked hat’ with silver badge went across the head shoulder to shoulder for enlisted men, fore-and-aft for officers; in FD scarlet over blue drooping feathers plume for the officers.
Double breasted dark blue tunic, black collar and cuffs, silver lace for officers and white for EM. White buttons, epaulettes, and aiguillettes worn looped across the chest in full dress. Dark blue trousers for dismounted men, grey for mounted. Cuff piping and the double trouser seam stripes scarlet. Greatcoat dark blue. Caped cloak dark blue lined scarlet. Fatigue cap with a flaming grenade badge with royal cipher.
Weapons & Equipment
Officers and sergeants sword and revolver; other ranks M1891 Carcano carbine, revolver and sword. Equipment as for infantry or cavalry, pipe clayed white leather. White shoulder belt with pouch worn over the left shoulder.
Carbine ammunition carried included buckshot rounds – presumably useful in crowd control!
Italian forces in the Boxer Rebellion
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