by Stephen Ede-Borrett, U.K.
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The "Garde Marine D'Honneur A Amsterdam" was formed with a great rush of enthusiasm in July 1810 under the auspices of the man who was to be the `Commandant en Chef', the Admiral De Winter. The Unit was organised with a Staff of seven officers and four Divisions each of one `1er Commandant', one `2me Commandant', one `Guide de la droite', one `Guide de la gauche', one `1er Guide', one `2me Guide', and twenty-two `Gardes', plus a band of nineteen musicians. The four Divisions were named after renowned Dutch or French sailors, and were, in order of seniority: TROMP, FORBIN, DE RUYTER, and JEAN BART.
Each Division Colour was about 30cm on the staff by 40cm flying with a tricolour field of, from the staff, blue/white/red. On the white section was a yellow/gold eagle standing on a thunderbolt and surmounted by a crown, in its beak was a wreath of green laurel and a dark green ribbon which bore the title of the Division in yellow/gold. The sleeve was blue and the Colour was carried on a plain brown staff, some 2m in length and surmounted by a plain steel spearhead finial. The Colour was carried by each Division's `1er Guide', guarded and seconded by the Division's `2me Guide'. Interestingly the Naval Gardes D'Honneur appear to have ranked above the Cavalry and Infantry of the Garde D'Honneur A Amsterdam, which were raised at the same time, although whether any of the units ever saw any action before their disbandment upon the fall of the Empire in 1814 I have been unable to ascertain. Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #18 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com |