Flags of Austrian Infantry Regiment Alt-Starhemberg in the War of the Spanish Succession (and probably before)

Reputedly the oldest regiment in the Austrian army, Alt-Starhemberg was probably first raised in 1642. There is a great deal of detail on the 17th century history of the regiment on the Kronoskaf WSS website.

4 battalions strong in the War of the Spanish Succession. The flags show the insignia of Emperor Leopold 1st, who was Emperor from 1658 and died in 1705, so may well have been carried before 1700 as well as in the WSS.

Service in the WSS:

1701: Sent to the Tyrol for the Invasion of Northern Italy. By mid-June 3 battalions of the regiment were with Prince Eugène's army. 9th July Combat of Carpi where the grenadiers distinguished themselves. 1st September the whole regiment fought well at the battle of Chiari.
1702: 15th August battle of Luzzara
1704: Battle of Crescentino
1705-1706: Still on campaign in Italy
1707: Campaign against Toulon
1708-1712: In Piedmont and Savoy
1713: Defence of Freiburg/Breisgau then moved to the Netherlands where it stayed until 1728

And this was the uniform in 1710:

Uniform and flag details from August Kühn and Robert Hall: Materials On The War of the Spanish Succession 1701-1714: The Imperial Regiments of Foot 1701-1714 Part 21. Historical details from the Kronoskaf WSS website. Note that the uniform details on the Kronoskaf site are totally different and no flag details are given.

Flags of French Infantry Regiment Lyonnais 1635-1791

First raised 1616. Two battalions strong and ranked 15th in 1756. These flags were carried from at least 1635 to 1791. As usual, a simple pattern reflects the unit's antiquity. The fancy flags tend to go with the Johnny Come Lately regiments!

The regiment had a long and pretty distinguished history. Full details can most easily be found in the Kronoskaf entry on the regiment (or, if you wish to practice your French, in Volume 4 of Susane's Histoire de l'Ancienne Infanterie Française which can be found here: https://archive.org/download/bub_gb_L1zWAAAAMAAJ/bub_gb_L1zWAAAAMAAJ.pdf. ). Here I shall concentrate on the Seven Years War history - which was not perhaps the most distinguished episode in the long regimental history but the French army in general was going through a bad patch in that period.

My translation of the Susane extract on the regiment in the SYW Volume 4:

The regiment left Valenciennes in the spring of 1756 to go to Rouen. Several months later it was intended to be part of the 24,000 men which the king intended to send to the aid of the Empress Maria Theresa. This plan was abandoned and Lyonnais spent the winter at Strasbourg. In 1757 it was part of the Army of Germany and found itself at the battle of Hastenbeck, at the capture of Hameln, of Minden and of Hanover. After the violation of the Convention of Closterseven it left the camp of Halberstadt to march to Zell and it fought on the 25th December to force a passage over the river Aller. Placed in garrison at Minden, it was attacked before breaking winter quarters and forced to surrender on the 14th March 1758 with its lieutenant colonel M. de Bruslard. M. de Villeroy, its colonel, spent the winter at court.

Exchanged soon after, the regiment left Germany and went to serve on the coasts during the following campaigns. It contributed in 1761 to the defence of Belle-Isle-En-Mer against the British; captains Tarnaud and Durbois were badly wounded there.

Recalled the same year to the Rhine, Lyonnais found itself on the 16th July at the battle of Vellingshausen. It was part of the reserve of the Prince de Condé which protected the retreat of the Marshal de Broglie. On the 23rd July 1762 it was at the combat on the Fulda; Captain Lestrade and a lieutenant were wounded there. On the 9th August the regiment took revenge at Ellemberg for its previous failures and totally routed a Hanoverian Corps which was entrenched on a peninsula of the Fulda.

Following on from the reforms of 10th December 1762 the regiment of Nice, first raised 1678, was incorporated into Lyonnais, which was therefore increased to four battalions. It was then in garrison at Alais and Saint Hippolyte. It moved from there in
May 1763 to Thionville, then Dunkirk in August 1765.

And this was probably the uniform in 1756:

Flags of French Volontaires Étrangers de Clermont-Prince 1758-1766

The complicated history of the creation of this unit of horse and foot can be found on Kronoskaf.

First raised in 1758, the unit was supposed to consist of 1000 infantry and 800 cavalry but in reality rarely rose near that total. Having become the Legion de Condé in 1766, the unit was disbanded in 1776.

During the Seven Years War, in 1759 the Volontaires were attached to Broglie's Corps in Germany and had a fairly checquered career. In 1760 they were part of a corps of Broglie's army which drove the Légion Britannique from woods on the left of Broglie's Corps on 2nd August. They then suffered a fairly dramatic reverse on 5th September that year when, posted with the Volontaires de Dauphiné at Zierenberg, they were attacked overnight by an allied force and the colonel M. de Comeiras, his entire staff and 161 privates were all captured.

In 1761 on 21st March they were at the Engagement of Grünberg then, on the 25th along with other French units, drove the allies out of the village of Mengsberg, before pursuing the allied rearguard. On June 22nd they were part of an assemblage of French units that stormed Lünen, taking 300 prisoners. On July 16th the unit was at the battle of Vellinghausen. In September,along with the Volontaires de Soubise, they burned several magazines in the County of Dinklage and a large magazine at Osnabrück.

In 1762 the unit was initially part of a detachment posted near Wesel then was attached to the Army of the Lower Rhine under the Prince de Condé. On June 21st a successful attack was made on the allied Scheither Corps at Schermbeck, who were driven back and lost 50 men captured.

The Volontaires were amongst the units chosen to stay in Germany until the final evacuation by French troops.

The uniform, like the flag, was in the livery of the House of Bourbon-Condé, chamois with red. The infantry uniform was something like this (taken from the NYPL: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e4-3ec7-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 ):