Sunday, 27 July 2025

"Give Them A Second Chance" Units - French Infantry Regiments Destroyed At Blenheim 1704 Number 1 - Infantry Regiment Chabrillant

I find myself fascinated, for some strange reason, by the French infantry units destroyed or captured at Blenheim in 1704. Perhaps it's the underdog thing. So here we have the flags of the first of these units, reborn here and so providing wargamers with the chance to give them a more glorious and long-lived service. Vive la France! Vive Chabrillant! :-)

Raised 5th January 1702 by N. de Moreton, Marquis de Chabrillant.

1702 Army of the Rhine
1704 Army of Bavaria; battle of Blenheim, where it was destroyed and the colonel killed



Of the flag design, Hall says: "The Maltese cross design was probably based on the colonel being a Knight of Malta according to Père Daniel, “Histoire de la Milice Française”, Livre XI p.429 (Y. Roumegoux)".

At Blenheim Chabrillant was one battalion strong and brigaded with Auxerrois (which I have already depicted here: https://nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.com/2024/07/flags-of-french-regiments-disbanded.html). It was one of the nine regiments of French foot crushed by the Allied attack on the Franco-Bavarian centre late in the battle. At the end of the battle Chabrillant had only 91 men, 17 NCOs and 4 officers left.

The uniform in 1704 was probably like this:



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