Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 187, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1915 — REASON FOR THE MUSTACHE [ARTICLE]

REASON FOR THE MUSTACHE

In Evidence as Having Been Worn by British Soldiers as Measure of Military Necessity. The correspondent who writes to a contemporary suggesting that the British war office authorities should insist soldiers being clean shaven instead of ordering them to wear mustaches, might have alleged Teutonic influence in the adoption of the mustache of the British army. ’The idea was first borrowed from a batch of Austrian officers quartered with somo of our troops on the South coast during the Waterloo campaign. It was then taken up by the guards, who very much resented any attempt on the part of mere line regiments to follow the new fashion. The winter campaign* in the Crimea led our men to grow full beards for warmth, and these, modified into flowing whiskers (“Picadilly weepers,” as they came to be called) on their return to London, were long regarded as the mark of the man of fashion. —London Chronicle.