One battalion plus jäger detachment raised 1756, by Lieutenant-Colonel Franciscus Le Noble (from the Palatinate); captured Landeshut 1760 but re-raised and a 2nd battalion added; forcibly disbanded at gunpoint 1763 and the men taken into regular regiments and the officers "retired involuntarily" without compensation.
Uniform: Black leather cap (very like the Austrian casquet) with Frederick's cipher in white on the front. Black stock. Very dark green coat with collar, lapels, cuffs and turnbacks in lime green, as were the waistcoat and breeches; white lace and white metal buttons. Black long boots, white inner stocking.
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Jäger, Prussian Le Noble Frei-Corps
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David,
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the story was in 1763 . . . it sounds like something was going on that didn't make it into the records you've seen, doesn't it?
-- Jeff
Really enjoying the detailed units that you are pursuing now.
ReplyDeleteSo many that I cannot keep up with my own miniatures planning.
Keep pushing them out, thereby pushing me!
Righty ho and thanks, Murdock! Will do. :-)
ReplyDeleteDavid.
Hi Jeff,
ReplyDeleteHere's the full tale according to Christopher Duffy's "Army of Frederick the Great" (Version 2), p.138:
"We are probably well enough acquainted with Frederick not to suppose to find in him any trace of recognition or gratitude. At the end of the Seven Years War he ordered all the free troops to march to the fortresses - Colonel Bauwer's newly-enlisted corps of Hanoverians to Wesel and the rest to Magdeburg or Glogau. When they approached the glacis of these fortresses they found that the garrisons were drawn up to receive them in order of battle. They were surrounded and made to lay down their arms. The foreign NCOs and men were pressed into the regiments of the line or formed into garrison regiments, while the officers (like Lessing's Tellheim) were forced to yield up the uniforms and arms of their companies without recompense. There was no specific consideration for Kleist [whose Freikorps was large and very good: Duffy says "it attained standards that would have been the envy of regular units".], the model for Tellheim. He believed that Frederick had never forgiven him for revealing a moment of weakness on the early morning of Leuthen, when he had told off Kleist with a body of hussars to act as his escort in the event of a defeat."
David.
I saved this from another forum back when I was looking for a Frankfurter uniform ...
ReplyDeleteA>
I'm going to raise the Freikorps Ig Noble ...
:)
Posted by: "Christian Rogge"
Which Circle did Frankfurt belong to?
As native Frankfurter 'sausage' – maybe I should answer this question.
Frankfurt is Upper Rhenish Circle (Oberrheinischer Kreis) not Electoral Rhenish Circle.
Frankfurt did not field a unit of its own.
Three companies, or so, of this towns Burgers Militia formed part of the Nassau-Weilburg Circle Regiment. They gathered around Frankfurt during summer 1757 and consumed tons of Frankfurters :-), off course, having a real good time. As the news spread the Reichsarmee was to take to the field (which no one believed, till then) all Three companies deserted and returned home. It was not considered to be part of their contract to fight abroad.
Besides, Frankfurt was protestant and Pro-Prussian. In fact, the early Prussian Frei-Bataillon 'Le Noble' was recruited in Frankfurt with the order of June 1756. Le Noble being a native of the French/German border Vauban fortress of Sarrelouis.