3-016-892 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The War in Denmark from a sketch by our special artist with the allied German armies: Prussian outposts before Düppel: "Wer da?" ("Who goes there?"), 1864. 'The pair of martial figures which our Artist has drawn, standing with their rifle-muskets half raised, and already fingering the deadly triggers, are a couple of Prussian infantry soldiers, on outpost duty somewhere in the neighbourhood of Düppel. The metal helmet, surmounted with a spike, which is peculiar to the army of Prussia, should be well adapted to resist a sabre-cut, when they receive a cavalry charge, but must be an incumbrance at other times. Under the helmet they wear a head-covering of black cloth. They have high-collared coats, long over-coats, and black cloth gloves. Their word of challenge is "Wer da?" It is the German for "Who goes there?" One of those straw huts, in which they lurk by the roadside and watch all that passes, is shown in this Engraving'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.