Hussars Billeted

Until late in the 19th century the Habsburg army had too few barracks, and cavalry on the move was often lodged in village houses, whose owners had to give the men a bed and food. This panel of 1836 shows such guests in a street of thatched farmhouses. The hussars, light cavalry recruited mainly in the Kingdom of Hungary, wear green jackets laced with gold braid, most of them under tall red shakos, and their saddled horses fill the lane. Villagers crowd in among them. Women in aprons talk with a young man, a small child tugs at a dog, and two women sit high up among the horses. Michael Neder signed the picture on the stone wayside shrine at the right edge, with his name and the year.