Old Peruvian military photo

[sksvlad]

Any guesses or opinions about people in the photo or time frame?
View attachment img20240513_21265546.jpg

 

[Dreamk]

Around 1890/1900 - I would say 10-20 years after the end of the Pacific war (not the WW2 one - the "guerra del Pacifico" between Peru, Chile and Bolivia in the early 1880s) . Peruvian uniforms in the late 19th century were under heavy French influence in terms of military fashion, as had been US civil war uniforms some years earlier. Chilean uniforms at the time of the Pacific war were very similar, but soon a strong German influence appeared in Chilean military fashion - a trend similar as the (brief) one in the US and Brzil. Strangely enough the German influence on Peruvian uniforms, appeared after the Franco-Prussian was in the 1870s was replaced very fast by the French fashion in an act of "taking distance with dicatures and standing behind democracy" - though there was some distance between this statement and reality, as it was more a liberal oligarchy regime than something else.
The presence of a French military mission in Peru in the 1890s reinforced this trend.
The rigid kepi in the photograph tend to point at the turn of century fashion.

Here are depicted some uniforms of the time of the Pacific war:



and this is a colorized photograph of a group of Peruvian junior officers from the 3rd Reserve battalion. at teh time of the Pacific war:


and a picture of the French Military Mission in Peru in 1896

 

[sksvlad]

Thank you. One more question. Why do my pictures appear as attachments whilst yours appear as images?

 

[Dreamk]

After attaching a picture by pushing the "Attach files" button and selecting ypur picture, you must push the button "insert" that appears in the attached picture, then choose either "thumbnail" or "full image"