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 of the four had a colour of an identical design except for the name on the ribbon held in the Eagle's mouth, which bore the name of the Division. 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