If Teutonic Order survived, uniform throughout history?

KaiserCorax

Banned
In the medieval era, the Teutonic Knights wore white tunics with black crosses and otherwise the usual knightly garments, though with their spectacular helmets, like this:

p-6844.jpg



Had they survived through to the modern day as a military-religious order, what would their uniform look like in the 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20th centuries?
 
18th Century:
White Uniforms, black Straps, maybe making a cross.
19th Century:
White, maybe later black, uniforms. Pickelhaube definately, maybe with some sort of cool eagle thing topping it. On the front of the Pickelhaube, probably a badge with the Teutonic Knights seal.
20th Century:
Black Uniforms. Stahlhelms, maybe the Danish helmets that you see in those WW2 Pictures. Probably badges on arms displaying the Cross.
 
Following the exemple of the Knights of Malta: ca. 1600-1870 (and parade until 1919): white uniforms with black facings, a white cassock with the complex Teutonic black cross, evolving with time to a white soubreveste / false cuirass with the black-and-gold cross
(same general evolution as the French Mousquetaires, but being of 'knightly' rather than 'mounted infantry' origin the corps would have heavy cavalry boots rather than dragoon buckled bottines, and trumpets rather than drums; the helmet adopted during Napoleonic times would be of the Prussian cuirassiers type).
Mousquetaires_du_roi.jpg

Not sure about the metal of the buttons (tin or brass) which fixed also the color ('silver' or 'gold') of the lace edging the tricorne: 'white' would fit better with the 'black and white' general patter,n, but I suspect that for 'knights' 'yellow' / gold would be more appropriate.

Real cuirass in war time: at first worn under the cassock, and thus blackened and undecorated; later worn alone instead of the soubreveste in campaign, and then of 'white' steel with a blackened iron and brass Teutonic cross decorating the breastplate.
Variant of pickelhaube (of the heavy stahlhelm type) as soon as available, indeed with a glamorous crest.

Thus from the WAS on, and definitively after 1815, also very similar to the Prussian Gardes du Corps, except for the red facings (black) and later red soubreveste (white with black-and-gold cross):
gdc003.jpg

gdc001.jpg


One could argue they would look more impressive / threatening and 'Germanic' if entirely clad in black with only the white cassock / soubreveste of the Order, but I suspect the idea would come from references to far more recent German types (Panzer, SS) and thus is not historically justified? Unless it characterizes a subunit of specially fanatical knights volunteers to any suicidal mission -forlorn hope, last stand &c? In the 18th C. - 19th C. no lepers as the Knights of Saint Lazarus, but 'penitent knights' in penance for having contracted a venereal disease?


A possible (likely?) complication: military orders fielded 'knights' (milites) and attached 'sergeants' (servientes): if the difference is kept, while the ritter would follow the description above sergeants would have simpler uniforms, basically grey instead of white (still with black facings, but tin buttons / white lace), the (simplified) Teutonic cross appearing only on cartridge boxes and later shakos / kasket/ pickelhaube, and would provide infantry and artillery (with black smallclothes, black powder is dirty) in addition to chevau-légers / dragoons.
309_0010.jpg



Now in the Holy Land the Military Orders had locally recruited Turcopoles: following the tradition the Teutonic Order may have Schwarzes Kreuz Turkopolen i.e. Uhlans (in grey and black?) such as in the 18th C.:
sax_uhlan.jpg

Then if the Order had moved South to survive https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=8245239&postcount=10 the Turkopolen would be husaren rather than uhlanen.

PS: no way to adjust the size of the images?:(
 
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The OP seemingly implies that the Deutschordensstaat remains independent until at least 1919 - say like the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, but probably very closely associated (Liechtenstein / Switzeland fashion?) with the IId Reich from 1871 on?
But does this require the Order to remain Roman Catholic, since the Brothers were 'warrior monks' and 'Protestant monk's sound like an oxymoron? If Catholic the Order would probably side with Austria against Lutheran Prussia from the 1st Silesian War to the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 - not the winning side, only its international prestige would prevent the conquest of the Ordensstaat by Prussia.
The existence of a surviving Deutschordensstaat during the various 18th C. - 19th C. partitions of Poland would have interesting consequences.
 
The OP seemingly implies that the Deutschordensstaat remains independent until at least 1919 - say like the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, but probably very closely associated (Liechtenstein / Switzeland fashion?) with the IId Reich from 1871 on?
But does this require the Order to remain Roman Catholic, since the Brothers were 'warrior monks' and 'Protestant monk's sound like an oxymoron? If Catholic the Order would probably side with Austria against Lutheran Prussia from the 1st Silesian War to the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 - not the winning side, only its international prestige would prevent the conquest of the Ordensstaat by Prussia.
The existence of a surviving Deutschordensstaat during the various 18th C. - 19th C. partitions of Poland would have interesting consequences.

Frankly, the survival of the Teutonic Order pretty much precludes the existence of Prussia full stop, considering the duchy of Prussia came about through the secularisation of the order's holdings there.
 

KaiserCorax

Banned
Frankly, the survival of the Teutonic Order pretty much precludes the existence of Prussia full stop, considering the duchy of Prussia came about through the secularisation of the order's holdings there.


That's what I wanted, though I'm not looking for an ATL where Teutons survive, I'm just interested in what their uniform would be had they done so, assuming everything else in the world goes roughly similar (as in, industrialisation still happens etc).

They would have to remain Catholic.
 
Alex Richards
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Alexander I of Nova Elysium

Frankly, the survival of the Teutonic Order pretty much precludes the existence of Prussia full stop, considering the duchy of Prussia came about through the secularisation of the order's holdings there.
Was not the Order at first invited to settle elsewhere? Let's suppose that at the end of the 15th C. the declining Order, in order to remain independent, instead of waiting for the conversion of Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach to attempt relocating to Mergentheim, agrees to move to the South, to become a nominally independent Banat / border military district? Would avoid many difficulties -for the ATL and for the Catholic Order itself.
Uniforms-wise in this case by the 18th C. and later the Turkopolen would be husaren rather than uhlanen.
And in the 19th C. no pickelhaube but a 'classical' helmet Austrian / Bavarian type http://pmcdn.priceminister.com/phot...trichien-deagostini-figurine-873050462_ML.jpg. Unless... in the 18th C. Austria reintroduced a 17th C.-type helmet for the cuirassiers potentially having to face Ottoman cavalry, so maybe the Brothers never stopped wearing a helmet?


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Was not the Order at first invited to settle elsewhere? Let's suppose that at the end of the 15th C. the declining Order, in order to remain independent, instead of waiting for the conversion of Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach to attempt relocating to Mergentheim, agrees to move to the South, to become a nominally independent Banat / border military district? Would avoid many difficulties -for the ATL and for the Catholic Order itself.
Uniforms-wise in this case by the 18th C. and later the Turkopolen would be husaren rather than uhlanen.


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I'm not sure if they'd really have much of a future down there. Probably would go the way of the Knights of St. John and end up as a 'Sovereign' order.
 
Frankly, the survival of the Teutonic Order pretty much precludes the existence of Prussia full stop, considering the duchy of Prussia came about through the secularisation of the order's holdings there.
Unless I'm mistaken the Order actually did survive as a [minor] member of the HRE -- presumably on the basis of smaller landholdings, in Catholic areas, that weren't secularised or expropriated -- until the Napoleonic Wars...
 
Unless I'm mistaken the Order actually did survive as a [minor] member of the HRE -- presumably on the basis of smaller landholdings, in Catholic areas, that weren't secularised or expropriated -- until the Napoleonic Wars...

Technically it still survives today, even.
 
Why wouldn't it face a certain secularization? it may have a problem in the Lumières era or alt Lumières... maybe, dependanding on neighboors, interests, ambitions, etc.
 
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