DIVPeerless archive of historical fashions features nearly 1,000 individual figures and accessories: priestesses and warriors of ancient Britain; elaborately coiffed ladies from the court of Versailles; knights in full regalia from many eras and countries. /div

Peerless archive of historical fashions features 217 handsome plates depicting nearly 1,000 individual figures and accessories. Detailed illustrations reveal a remarkable panorama of priestesses and warriors of ancient Britain, nobles and burghers of 16th-century Germany, elaborately coiffed ladies from the court of Versailles, knights in full regalia from many eras and countries, and much more.

This book (Volume Two) gives an historical overview of 51 countries whose armed forces served in Europe 1900-2000, together with uniform descriptions. Includes 204 full colour paintings of the regular armies, marines, airforce and para-military troops engaged in land exercises, operations and warfare in Europe, including non-European troops serving in Europe. Each entry is accompanied by a history and description of the uniforms illustrated. The author and illustrator Ron Kidd, has been interested in both police and military history, uniforms and insignia since he was a school boy in the 1950's. He has visited over 300 police and military museums world-wide, and has written and illustrated a number of magazine articles on both police and military history and uniforms. He is a member of both the Military Heraldry Society and the Military Historical Society.

In the years immediately before the First World War, Archibald Haswell Miller, a young artist, travelled Europe to study painting. While he was there he indulged his other great interest the military. On his travels he observed first-hand the soldiers of the European Armies in the last days of the colourful and elaborate uniforms that were giving way to grey and khaki across the continent. Realising that this was a great military heritage that was slipping away he set out to record these splendid uniforms. In those uncertain days before the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Haswell Miller sketched and painted hundreds of figures, each wearing a different uniform, from the armies of Britain, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain and Sweden. Just before the First World War the paintings were exhibited in Leipzig, and it seemed they might be published. But when war broke out they were returned home and lay forgotten for nearly one hundred years. Now published together at last, they represent a unique record of the uniforms of the last great age of military dress. Accompanied by, in Haswell Miller's own words, 'notes and memories of the days before “the lights went out in Europe” in the year 1914', this is a book of great historical importance.