Flags Of Reichsarmee Infantry Regiment Trier [or Kur-Trier] In The Seven Years War

The Kur-Trier flags are ones I had planned to do for some time but it was a commission from Lewis Simpson-Jones that finally prompted me to complete them. As with other commissions from Lewis we agreed I'd post them on the blog soon after so thanks are due to him for their appearing here at last. There seems to be no definitive information available on these flags so I have done three variants of the heraldry, based on information I have found from portraits of the Archbishop of Trier in the mid-18th century and from coats of arms from the period on extant buildings. I have also produced three sheets, with the flags showing the two sides the same in two instances and one with flags with the two sides different. In the absence of any firm evidence it is therefore for the gamer to use the flags as he or she sees fit. Please free to view that as a) my avoiding responsibility for how the flags are used because frankly I do not honestly know or b) offering the ultimate in flexibility. :-) (I also created an entirely speculative blue with white border version of the flags to contrast with the white for Lewis but I have not posted that here.)

The versions here are jpegs as the originals I sent to Lewis are enormous PNG files; it does not seem to me that much detail has been lost in the conversion.

 

 

 

The Archbishop of Trier raised this unit for service with the Reichsarmee in the Seven Years War. It consisted of two battalions with a theoretical strength of around 1200 men; each battalion was of 4 companies with 2 3 pounder guns but no grenadier companies. The Archbishop "pulled out the stops" to supply the regiment but it was a very raw unit and Soubise rated it as "very bad", which, as Christopher Duffy said (in Prussia's Glory), would have greatly upset the Archbishop who had made such great efforts to complete it ready for service.

In 1757 the regiment was with the Reichsarmee in Thuringia and Saxony. At the battle of Rossbach on November 5th that year its performance was less than impressive. Chrustopher Duffy describes in Prussia's Glory (page 83) how there was "panic in the regiment of Trier, whose commander Colonel von Coll describes how "the Prussian musketry was continuous, and not delivered by volleys on command. The regiments of Würzburg, Kronegk, Ferentheil and Trier had been standing in the first line, but all of a sudden Würzburg and Trier found themselves alone, and therefore exposed in this weak state to the Prussian fire. Major Lombardius was shot through the shoulder. Ensign Trapp wounded in the head, Captain Kalkum and Ensign Lohr shot through their coats and waistcoats, and Corporal Bletz through both his legs". Out of its combat strength of about 1040 personnel the regiment of Trier actually suffered no fatalities, and only twenty-seven identifiable wounded, but the shock and sense of isolation were overwhelming. The troops fired a single volley, then fled into the regiment of Varell in the second line, carrying away all but sixty-three of its files. All three of the regiments of the Franconian Circle (Kronegk, Varell and Ferntheil) were now out of the reckoning, together with Trier".

Trier was part of the garrison of Torgau which capitulated to the Prussians on 31st August 1759.

It was also at the combat of Strehla on 20th August 1760; Duffy's account in By Force of Arms makes no mention of the unit, where an outnumbered Prussian force gave a very good account of itself, causing far more casualties than it suffered.

The regiment's glory day was at Freiberg on October 29 1762, where, along with Reichsarmee units Rodt and Baden-Baden, it held abattis in the centre of the battlefield. Duffy By Force of Arms describes the action thus: "Rodt's Reichstruppen fought back unexpectedly hard, and [Prussian commander] Jung-Stutterheim had to bring up reinforcements to evict the Reichs regiment of Baden-Baden from the redan. The dislodged troops fell back to the regiments of Trier and Rodt, and the three regiments held the abattis until the Prussians, who were being constantly reinforced, drove them back. The defenders were now bolstered in their turn by a battalion of the Austrian regiment of Salm [14], which came up on the right of Trier, and by Prince Stolberg in person who brought a battalion of Reichs grenadiers against the enemy right flank, and led a general counterattack, pistol in hand. This action, probably the finest of the Reichsarmee in the whole of the war, ended with the Prussians being forced from the wood and all the way back to Klein-Schirma".

The uniform in the Seven Years War was probably like this: