Senior Officer of the Carabiniers à Cheval (NAP0236)

A senior officer of carabiniers, in winter

Brass helmet, scarlet crest, a gilded cuirass over a white coat, sabre drawn, a black horse at a collected trot — and behind him, drawn up among bare trees in the snow, the regiment. The season is the subject. Heavy cavalry in winter is an expensive thing standing still, and every officer in this picture knows it.

What winter does to heavy cavalry

Frozen or broken ground takes away the footing a charge needs; fodder becomes the limiting factor before ammunition does; and a horse that is not fed cannot carry an armoured man at any speed at all. Campaigns were fought in winter, but the arm that suffered first was always this one. The plate does not show a charge because in these conditions there usually was not one.

An officer paid for most of what you can see

Officers equipped themselves. The gilded cuirass, the plume, the horse furniture and the horses — plural, because an officer was expected to keep several — came out of his own pocket, against a salary that did not cover them. Commanding an élite regiment was a financial commitment as much as a military one, which quietly limited who could do it.

The regiment drawn up behind

Look past the figure: the squadrons are in line among the trees, not moving. Most of a cavalry officer’s working life was spent keeping a body of men and horses in a condition to be used — sheltered, fed, shod, and close enough to the enemy to matter but far enough not to be surprised. Rava paints the waiting rather than the charge, which for this arm is the more truthful choice.

Where this fits

The charge itself is plate NAP0084, and the reason these men wear armour at all is explained there: it was ordered after Wagram. Here the same corps is shown doing the part nobody paints — present, ready, and not yet spent.