Prussian Dragoon Standard Revisited...

After faffing about with this for aeons, I've decided it will have to do as it is. This is the older style of Prussian dragoon standard, dating from the reign of Frederick's father, Frederick William, and it has his monogram in the corners along with the older style of central motif. It was the style carried by the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 7th Dragoons. This motif shows an eagle flying towards the sun with the motto "Non Soli Cedit"; "He does not give way to the sun". This symbolism represents the Prussian eagle versus France or at least the French monarchy, I believe.

Trooper, French Royal Pologne Heavy Cavalry Regiment

Unit and uniform details to follow.

Prussian garrison infantry flags revisited 2 - Garrison Regiments 3 and 4.

And here is the pattern for garrison regiments 3 and 4.

Prussian garrison infantry flags revisited 1...

I've had a request for Prussian flags with the ciphers and devices, rather than just the empty templates I did before. As it's a relatively painless thing to do compared with doing things from scratch (although it still takes time, of course), I'll be posting the revised versions over the next few months. First are the garrison infantry flags, which are the easiest of all to do as two of them simply require the addition of the central cipher. The first is attached, the pattern for all garrison infantry regiments except 1-4.

Coming soon...

Coming shortly will be uniform templates of French heavy cavalry regiments Cuirassiers du Roi and Royal Pologne, followed by Russian and Austrian hussars some time later.

French Heavy Cavalry Standard

This is one of several variants of the French heavy cavalry standard. This type was carried, amongst others, by the Cuirassiers du Roi, Royal Cravattes, Bourbon and Clermont. The central motif looks odd shown in outline as here but when filled with the appropriate colour looks fine.

Why no recent updates?

In case anyone wants to know, I've not updated this blog recently because I've not been well and have had very limited time and energy. What spare time and energy I have had I've devoted to the charity work I do; I'm the Newsletter Editor, website manager and also do other jobs for a cat rescue and rehoming charity here in Warwickshire.

Hopefully I'll be able to add more to this blog soon. I have been doing a little work on more French flags and uniforms but nothing is finished yet.

Flag of the Lübeck Burgerwehr 1740

This flag was carried by the Burgerwehr of Lübeck, the militia of the leading town of the Hanseatic League. In the middle is the Imperial eagle with the arms of Lübeck at its centre. The original is: background upper half white, lower half red. Black eagle, yellow (or gold) claws and beak. Shield white upper, red lower. Crown gold. Wreath green. Ribbon at base yellow. Columns grey with green foliage, gold crown, grey circle at base with brown rods/ sticks? Grey clouds in upper corners, grey (metallic) armour, hand flesh coloured. Lettering yellow or gold.

It gives some idea of the sort of flag that would be carried by these units and can be adapted for use by wargamers by judicious use of a graphics program.

Prussian Bosniak Summer Dress Post-1762

Something of a novelty unit, the Bosniaks originated as a single squadron attached to the 5th Hussars in 1745. They were lancers raised in the Ukraine by an Albanian jeweller named Stephen Serkis and initially offered to the Saxons, who refused to employ them so they were offered to Frederick instead. Although increased to 10 squadrons in 1763, they were never very successful and reverted to squadron strength after the war.

The fur cap may have been introduced as late as 1780 but some sources suggest it was introduced in 1762. As I don't like the early turban cap, I've chosen to show the fur cap.

The summer uniform for other ranks was all red with white lace; the brown fur cap had a red top, white (or light green) cords and white plume. Black stock. The shabraque was black with red dog-tooth edging. (Some sources suggest that a separate pistol holster and cover was also carried, in the same colours and with the FR cipher.) The lance was painted alternately red and black. The pennon was of different colours to distinguish the squadrons; Bleckwenn shows all white, all black, all crimson, all red, all yellow and all light green, light green over red, light green over white, white over red, and black over yellow.

Last 12 French Infantry Flags

The last 12 French infantry flags can now be found here: http://www.woodward.toucansurf.com/SYW/Last12FrenchInfantryFlagsDM.zip

The 3 Irish flags cover Dillon, Bulkeley and Clare (one flag with exactly the same pattern but differentiated by the colouring), Roth and Fitzjames. The 3 Swiss flags are Diesbach (with the motto) and 2 which cover some of the wide range of "variations on a theme" carried by Swiss infantry. The 4 German flags are Royal Pologne, Bentheim, La Marck and Royal Bavière. Finally there are 2 more variants of native French infantry flags. The filenames identify the units except for the more generic flags.

The above coloured sample snapshot shows from left to right Roth (Irish), Diesbach (Swiss), Royal Bavière (German) and Bentheim (German).

French infantry flag update: 12 final flags coming soon

Update Friday 14th March: 12 new flags now virtually done, apart from the process of the final checking, then converting them to png files, zipping them up, uploading them, etc.. But all that will now have to wait until the weekend as I have jobs to do this evening. There are 3 Irish flags, 4 German flags, 3 Swiss flags and 2 more native French infantry flags; above is a snapshot of the uncoloured templates. The top left 4 flags are German infantry; the top right 2 flags French; the bottom left 3 Swiss and bottom right 3 Irish. So - watch this space!

Preview of next few French infantry flags

The German, Irish, Swiss, etc. flags are progressing well; here is a snapshot showing the flag of the German regiment Royal Pologne on the left and the Irish regiment Dillon on the right. I hope to post another batch of flags by the end of the week.

New batch of 12 French infantry flags now available

The next batch of 12 French infantry flag templates can be downloaded here: http://www.woodward.toucansurf.com/SYW/FrenchSYWInfantryFlags2DM1.zip

More French infantry flags on the way...

These will be coming along sometime this week plus more, including those rather splendid flags of German and Irish regiments in French service... The German flags will take longer to produce as they are much more fiddly to draw. This next batch of 12 flags are nearly completed; many of them are of regiments disbanded or amalgamated into other regiments in 1749. It seems that having an attractively different flag was almost a guarantee of disbandment!

Also coming soon, a Bosniak, and Russian and Austrian hussars. (For Jean-Louis there'll also be a Polish konfederatka cap.) I'm still messing about with generals' uniforms, too, but haven't been able to produce something I like the look of yet. The inspiration is missing on them, I'm afraid. Ho hum...

12 French Infantry Flag Templates

Here are 12 French infantry flag templates, from the very basic to rather more complex. More to follow, hopefully, some time next week.

The blank templates are zipped up as one package here: http://www.woodward.toucansurf.com/SYW/FrenchInfantryFlagsSYWTemp%5blatesDM.zip as I didn't want to mess about doing one post here for each one.

This thumbnail image gives an idea of what can be done; these represent authentic French infantry flags (even if we cannot always be sure of the exact shades of the colours used!). A few are flags which went out of use in 1749 but they seemed to me too attractive to reject because of that sad little fact. :-)

Russian Infantry Flag 2

This is one of the battalion flags of the Azovski Regiment, showing the coat of arms in the centre and a different crown above from the previous two flags I have posted. The original was red, with yellow flames in the corners, and the central shield design was gold. The coat of arms had a sky blue background, with silver fishes, crescent and cross.

Russian Infantry Flag 1

This was very similar in pattern to the dragoon standard posted earlier. This type was carried by those regiments which did not have a coat of arms. Each battalion had one of these flags with a coloured background; the other battalion flag had the Russian double-headed eagle motif on a white background.

Russian Dragoon Standard

This is the squadron pattern for those Russian dragoon regiments which did not have a coat of arms to display; it has the imperial monogram for the Empress Elizabeth instead. This can easily be edited out in e.g. Paint by those who wish to use this design for their ImagiNation.

French Berchény Hussar 1756

First raised in 1720, the second hussar regiment to be recruited for the French army and ranked as the 59th cavalry regiment, the Berchény Hussars was a famous unit but did not apparently perform very well at Emsdorff in July 1760.

Uniform: Red mirliton with sky blue wing, white lace, white plume and decorations. Black stock. Sky blue dolman and pelisse, white lace, white metal buttons, red collar and cuffs (cuffs with white lace). Pelisse edged with black fur and lined red. Red and white barrel sash. Sky blue breeches. Black boots with white lace top. Red sabretache with white lace trim and decorations. Brown leather sabretache and sabre belts. Red shabraque with white trim and decorations.

The template can be found here: http://www.woodward.toucansurf.com/SYW/FrenchBerchenyHussar1756DM1.png

Swedish Yellow Hussar 1756

Unit and uniform detail to follow...

Again, the real thing is on my webspace here: http://www.woodward.toucansurf.com/SYW/SwedishYellowHussarDM122011.png and the image here is merely a small thumbnail.

Swedish Blue Hussar 1756

Unit and uniform detail to follow...

As usual, because this is an image larger than c.30 kbs, I've had to put the real thing on my webspace here: http://www.woodward.toucansurf.com/SYW/SwedishBlueHussar1756DM1.png as the blog turns a small png file into a huge 16.7m colour image. The image here is merely a small thumbnail.

French Hussar Guidon 1758

This is the design of a guidon captured by the Prussian 5th Hussars from the French Polleresky Hussars in 1758.

Spanish Heavy Cavalry Style Standard

This is very similar in design to the French heavy cavalry standards (note the use of the Bourbon fleur-de-lys in the corners) but with a more cartoonish face in the centre. It can easily be edited to include the ImagiNation cipher or emblem in the middle.

Prussian Hussar Style Standard (until 1740s only)

To complete the Prussian set, here is a Prussian hussar standard of the early 1740s. They were not carried after the early years of the War of the Austrian Succession.

Prussian Dragoon Style Standard 2

And here's the 2nd variant of the oldest style of standard carried by Prussian dragoons.