IN THE SERVICE OF THE KAISER

Uniforms and equipment of the First World War German soldier, as painted by Soldier-Artist Friedrich Ludwig Scharf. Military artists tend to paint the two extremes of the soldier's life: at one end the subject is rendered in his parade best uniform, pressed and spotlessly clean, and at the other extreme locked in heroic combat defeating his enemy. Friedrich Ludwig Scharf took the middle road, painting the troops as they looked going about their daily duties. Scharf, on one hand an artist, had also been a career Jager enlisted man, rising to the rank of Offizierstellvertrater in 1918. He spent most of his wartime service on the Eastern Front where he observed and fought with the Cavalry regiments, as well as the Reserve and Landsturm troops assigned to that front. In his paintings the uniform historian and military modeller will find accurate and sometimes amusing representations of what Scharf actually saw. The ill-equipped Landsturmers with outdated uniforms, the Cavalry still mounted dashing about the Russian front, Flame-thrower troops, ski troops and even a Franciscan monk in military service were captured in his watercolours and linoleum block hand-coloured prints. This book is a must for the serious student of the uniforms of the German forces from 1910-1919, portrayed in the unique style of Scharf, 1884-1965.