Wednesday 15 June 2022

Flag of the Lübeck Burgerwehr in the 18th Century: Updated

This is an update, on which I have worked on and off for ages, of a flag template I posted way back in 2008. As a recent theme has been French militia flags I thought I'd post this one of a German city guard unit.



The Hanseatic Towns of Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg all had foot regiments dressed in Prussian-style uniforms but in red, with white facings and small clothes for Bremen and Lübeck. The uniform had blue cuffs and apparently no lapels for Hamburg. The Bremen grenadiers seem to have had grenadier caps with white metal and brass front plates, those of Lübeck with largely brass plates. Buttons were brass for Hamburg and tin for the other two. I don't know if this flag was actually carried by the Lübeck infantry regiment or a separate burger militia unit as information seems scarce.

These are Lübeck grenadiers of the 18th century by Knötel:


 

And this is a Knötel plate of the uniforms of some of the Hamburg troops in 1755:



Tuesday 14 June 2022

Update: Colonel's Flag of the bourgeois Sedan Militia

As promised, here is the colonel's flag of the bourgeois Sedan Militia. There is not much more to say except that not all the militias had a white colonel's flag, as far as we know, and where they did they sometimes at least seem to have included a coat of arms. This one includes the royal arms in the centre.