as a side question, are they pieces of dress uniforms that actually do tend to be updated from this diversion point or are they pretty much unchanged?

Good question!

It's my understanding that these were, previously, merely just... The uniforms, and at some point the 'field' and 'ceremonial' uniforms began to diverge.

Broadly-speaking, in modern militaries, there are a few types of uniforms that soldiers wear during the time in service.

• Utility uniform or fatigues: Usually camouflaged, this is what soldiers wear in combat or when on deployment. It's also what most soldiers wear day-to-day basis while on post.
• PT uniform: Since dedicated physical training for soldiers became a more common practice in the early 20th century, armies began to issue a workout uniform.
• Service uniform: Basically military versions of the business suit and business casual wear. Worn in similar circumstances. Soldier who work in places like the Pentagon often wear service uniforms on a daily basis.
• Dress uniform: There are varying forms of this, including mess dress, which is a sort of military tuxedo and worn in similar circumstances. Some armies also have a dressier version of the service uniform.
• Ceremonial uniform: These are usually only worn by full-time ceremonial units (e.g. the Fife and -Drum Corps of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Regiment, which wears Revolutionary War-style uniforms) or by units with a ceremonial function (ex. the Guards regiments of the Household Division in the United Kingdom). These uniforms are often styled after 19th-century uniforms and they aren't worn by non-ceremonial units.

Today, the distinctions between these uniforms is very clear. In the past, the lines were a bit blurrier. Dressier uniforms and everyday uniforms looked much more similar than they do now.

Still, even during the 18th century and the first part of the 19th century, there was still some distinction between parade dress and what soldiers would actually wear on campaign or in camp. In other words, "field" and "ceremonial" uniforms have always been different, its just that the differences were once a bit smaller.

Soldiers often had multiple uniforms for multiple different occasions. Consider these Silesian soldiers from the Prussian army during the Napoleonic Wars, taken from Peter Hofschröer's Prussian Line Infantry 1792–1815.

I'll use them to illustrate my points, but I'll try to speak as broadly as I can about uniform practices in this period.

• The man on the left is wearing the simple camp dress soldiers generally wore while doing chores in the barracks or in camp. In this case, he's wearing a forage cap and jacket, both common items of camp dress worn by ordinary soldiers from most European nations in this period.
• The soldier in the center is wearing the campaign dress soldiers would actually wear in combat and on the march. In cold weather, he'd wear a greatcoat, as shown. Underneath that would be his regular uniform, usually a wool coat, shirt, and trousers. Also note the oilskin shako cover he's wearing. Wearing a protective cover over your headgear was common practice on campaign in the early 1800s -- see this French shako cover from the Napoleonic Wars. The yellow coat facings indicate he is from a Silesian regiment.
• The soldier on the right is wearing parade dress -- generally speaking, parade dress could use elements of the campaign dress (for example, he's wearing the same shako he'd wear on campaign, just without the cover). Of course, the parade uniform also added different elements like boots, a different coat, etc. In some cases, elite units like grenadiers might also wear a bearskin or a miter cap on parade, etc. Plumes, feathers, and other ornamentation are also worn -- they'd be packed away or left behind while soldiers were on campaign.

You can see a more direct comparison between these Prussian grenadiers from 1806. The man on the left is wearing parade dress, while the man in the center has on his campaign dress. Note that the headgear and the coat are the same, but the footwear and trousers are quite different.

There's a similar trend in officers' uniforms. These officers of the Foot Guards show off some of the differences.

• The officer on the left is wearing the undress uniform. This is what officers would wear day-to-day around the barracks or in garrison.
• The officer in the center is wearing the service uniform. In the Napoleonic period, it's what officers (and men, for that matter) would actually wear while serving on campaign. As a note: nowadays, "service dress" uniforms are essentially the military equivalent of a business suit, so they aren't worn in combat.

So how did we get to where we are today?

We have soldiers fighting in Afghanistan wearing camouflaged fatigues, officer in the Pentagon wearing the military version of the suit and tie, and Grenadier Guards outside Buckingham Palace wearing bearskins and red coats.

Well, there are a few things to look at.

1. What soldiers wear in combat or while working.
2. What soldiers wear on parade and for other more formal occasions.
3. What soldiers wear while "walking out" from their posts or working at headquarters.
4. What ceremonial units wear.

In the early 1800s, the uniforms for all these situations were often very similar. As we've seen from the Prussian examples, soldiers often on parade and on campaign wore uniforms of a very similar style. In some cases, they wore the same thing on parade and on campaign, just with minor variations, like the addition of plumes or new trousers.

Now, here's the major change: from the late 1800s and to the mid 1900s, soldiers start wearing increasingly-different uniforms for these different occasions. WWI and WWII really accelerate this process. There isn't really one instant of change, but rather its a period of transition that takes place over several decades. This gets to the WHEN of your question.

The uniforms that soldiers wear in combat and while in garrison get a lot simpler for a variety of reasons. This gets to the WHY of your question.

• Industrial warfare and mass-mobilization meant uniforms got simpler and simpler. Armies had to cloth millions and million of men, so issuing everyone with elaborate uniforms wasn't feasible, even with more industrialized clothing production. During WWI, for example, soldiers tended to get one style of uniform. On parade, you wore your service dress uniform. In battle, you wore your service dress uniform. Even in WWII, when soldiers might get a dress uniform for parades and fatigues for combat, the uniforms were pretty simple.
• The Open Order Revolution of the mid- to late-1800s meant soldiers fought less and less in packed lines and more and more in loose formations. Individual mobility and camouflage became increasingly important, so campaigning uniforms became plainer, simpler, and less-restrictive. The bright blues, reds, and other colors disappear (except for the French, who keep their red trousers until 1915!) and they are replaced with more muted colors like khaki and feldgrau.
• Civilian fashions became simpler and less-elaborate. The business suit and the lounge suit become popular for men around the turn of the century. Military service uniforms adopted similar cuts, especially for officer's uniforms.

You can see the resulting evolution of battlefield uniforms for the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army.

/u/bacarruda has a very interesting comment on dress uniforms. It doesn't fully answer your question, but does add some background to it.

Many countries began fighting World War 1 with colorful uniforms typical of the one's you described. [Here] (https://imgur.com/a/GckprdA) is an example of the change in French military uniforms from the beginning to the end of the war.

In a large formation with elaborate plans that required different units to move around in the Napoleonic and prior eras, observers and general officers needed the different pieces of their tactical puzzle to be easily discernable from afar. This necessity also built up the unit cultures over time, an important part of military esprit de corps which you see celebrated in the photo you linked.

In his history work, The First World War, John Keegan describes this process of change. According to him, uniforms started much like they had been at the time of the Franco-Prussian war with soft caps and often elaborate regalia (by modern standards). I imagine you don't need to have read his book to imagine what heavy shelling and trench warfare did to men in soft-caps and old bright uniforms--they were clearly not suitable for conditions in hindsight.

[Here] (https://imgur.com/gallery/b0Go8) is a large NSFW gallery of primary source documents, i.e. photos taken of some archealogical digs in Europe and some old phtos from multiple points throughout the war. Notice the uniform when the year is available. By the end, you might start to be able to make an educated guess on the year just by the uniforms and head coverings in the photo.

Tactically, while the fighting through no-mans land did involve some old time Battle Drill 1-A (everyone charge at the enemy, screaming with your bayonette out), for the most part, company and batallion sized maneuvers were replaced by squad sized maneuvers. This meant you had small groups of 4-10 maneuvering carefully through terrain to lay barbed wire, harrass a certain part of the enemy position and conduct small raids. For this type of activity, uniforms that blended in, were tidy (no giant coattails and feathers sticking up) and allowed you to move through difficult terrain were needed.

But that French image is merely a useful tool to show that if a single point in time must be chosen for your question, World War One is that time. The British, for example, had uniforms from the time of the Boer War that very much resembled their World War 1 uniforms, at least compared to the colorful French ones. That's because the Brits in South Africa were some of the first Europeans to see what facing modern weaponry and guerilla tactics required from uniforms. (Tactically, maybe they could, should have learned a bit more.)

If I'm not mistaken (searching for the section from Keegan, will update if I can find citation) even the English started the war with soft caps. The Boar War pith helmet was not steel and either way, was part of the hot-weather uniform, not their temperate weather uniform.

*John Keegan's work (ISBN 13: 978-0375700453) is excellent and the best I have read on the early part of the war.

[This] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzf9aHZmCAM&list=PL9-2UnSOnlzX6oQ7IK9e9s1N-zZ_V-Ole) documentary series is also fantastic if you're not a bookish type.

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