Thursday 10 November 2022

The Reichsarmee: Flags Of Swabian Regiment Baden-Durlach Pre-1761

Regiment first raised 1683. Although it had an establishment of 2 battalions, each of 5 musketeer companies and one grenadier company, in practice only one battalion seems to have served in the field with the main Imperial army. Its strength of 973 in May 1758 seems to have been typical. The single battalion serving with the Reichsarmee in Thuringia and Saxony in 1757 missed Rossbach.  It consisted of 27 separate contingents and in the autumn of 1757 Soubise rated it as "Bad" (Duffy, Prussia's Glory).



One battalion served with Zweybrücken's Corps in Saxony in 1758 and 1759. It was probably at the action of Korbitz on 21st September 1759, where Serbelloni turned what was looking like a creditable victory into "a useless bloodbath", possibly because of his dislike of General Hadik (Duffy, By Force of Arms).

The regiment was on the right wing at Freiberg in October 1762 (see Duffy, By Force of Arms) but does not seem to have been heavily engaged, unlike the three heroic Reichsarmee units in the centre.

And this was the uniform in 1756: