Monday 12 April 2021

Leuthen Prussian Flags Project - Standards of Kürassier Regiment 1

First raised around 1665. Chef in 1756 was Colonel Wilhelm Dietrich von Buddenbrock, later a Field Marshal. His successor from the 2nd April 1757 was Major General Hans Kaspar von Krockow, who died on the 25th February 1759 of wounds received at Hochkirch. From 28th February 1759  the chef was Major General Gustav Albrecht von Schlabrendorff, who died in 1765.

[I've had these sitting around for some time but cannot promise I'll be rapidly adding all the Prussian cavalry standards to the blog. Eventually, perhaps. Working on the Prussian infantry flags plus those of the French and some others eats up plenty of time! Those of KR1 and the 1st Dragoons were of plain cloth sheets, not the damask of all the other regiments, so are much easier to depict. These are also of the older pattern carried in the previous reign; KRs 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11 and 12 all carried the older pattern, as did Dragoon regiments 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7.]


In 1756 the regiment was part of Schwerin's Corps in Silesia and saw no serious action until Prague on May 6th 1757. There it was in the front line of the left flank cavalry attack that beat the Austrian cavalry threat with the help of Zieten's command. Losses were about 10-15% (Duffy Army of Frederick the Great 1st Edition). At Kolin on the 18th June (only 442 strong) the regiment was driven back to the Kaiserweg by Austrian cavalry with heavy losses. With the Duke of Bevern in Silesia from the end of August, it was involved in the defeat at Breslau on 22nd November. Joining the King at Parchwitz on 2nd December, it shared in the victory at Leuthen, with 10-15% casualties (Duffy again). In 1758 it was with the King's army, remaining in Silesia after the failed move on Olmütz in August. Although involved in the defeat at Hochkirch in the centre of the position casualties were minimal, apart from its chef von Krockow who was mortally wounded on the right wing. With Prince Henry's Saxon Corps in 1759 it was then sent to the Pomeranian Corps on June 24th and suffered heavy casualties at Kay (Paltzig) against the Russians; its regimental commander Colonel von Wartenburg was killed. Worse was to follow at the defeat of Kunersdorf three weeks later where the regiment lost 107 dead including 12 officers trying to help relieve the pressure on the infantry and then vainly trying to defeat the final great attack by the Austrian and Russian cavalry. At Torgau in 1760 the regiment led Holstein's cavalry attack on the Süptitz Heights, succeeding in driving back the Austrian cavalry despite repeated counter-attacks. In 1761 it served in Eastern Saxony and finally in 1762 fought in the victory of Freiberg under Prince Henry.
 

And this is the uniform as depicted by Menzel. The hat is of the later bicorne-type with plume whereas in the SYW the tricorne proper was worn:

 



10 comments:

  1. Thanks, Jonathan! :-)

    All the best,

    David.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Ray! :-)

    All the best,

    David.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautiful work once again and an awful lot of detail for you to render! Thanks for taking the time to do this:)

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  4. Thanks, Steve. :-) Now I've begun with cavalry standards I can see it becoming a bit addictive (I've already begun some work on Prussian dragoon standards...) but I think I must resist and crack on with the infantry flags as the priority. (The fringes on the cavalry standards are very detailed, containing many discrete objects, and actually tend to slow the computer down quite dramatically when I'm working on cavalry standards, in fact! Strange but true. The machine on which I do most of the work on the flags is only a dual core machine, not one of these modern umpteen core jobs...)

    All the best,

    David.

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  5. Another lovely post on the SYW flags. I was looking for an item in your old posts which I found eventually.

    If possible please you can add a 'Search This Blog' widget ?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Tidders, Thank you; glad you like them. :-)

    Oh - there is a search box in the top left of the page. Is it not visible for you? Do let me know and I'll look into it. If you are having a problem with that then others probably are too.

    All the best,

    David.

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  7. Thanks for pointing out the search box at the top left, must have missed it once I started scrolling
    cheers
    Allan

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Allan,

    Ah, good - glad it was there for you. It would be helpful if it was visible all down the page, of course, even when scrolling; it is easy to forget it when it is stuck at that top corner!

    All the best,

    David.

    ReplyDelete

Saturday 6th June 2020 I've decided to allow comments from Anonymous Users but I'll still be moderating posts, as I'm sure the spam will probably flood in now! We'll see...