The raising of foreign emigrant regiments for service with the British Army was first permitted in May 1794 and in December 1794 the Royal Etranger was embodied in Switzerland. The regiment was raised by Baron de Roll, a former officer of Louis XVI's Gardes Swisses who had escaped the massacre of that corps in the storming of the Tuileries in 1792. Many of the surviving Swiss Guardsmen joined Baron de Roll and by June of the following year the regiment numbered approximately 1200 men formed into two battalions.
Towards the end of 1795, the regiment left Switzerland and marched
into Italy and in April 1796 the Royal Etranger sailed for the British held
island of Corsica. Here they suffered severely from desertion, disease and
even shipwreck and although their numbers declined entry was still restricted
to Swiss and Germans. The Royal Etranger formed part of the garrison at
Corsica until Britain evacuated the island in November 1796 and then at Elba
until the Spring of 1797. From the Mediterranean the Royal Etranger was
transferred to Lisbon along with 2,000 British troops of the nigre relme to help
defend Portugal against an invasion by Spain. The regiment now changed its
title, to be henceforth the 'Swiss Regiment of Infantry de Roll'. Sickness,
nevertheless, continued to thin its ranks and in June 1798 its two battalions
were amalgamated. The Spanish attack failed to materialise and in the
summer of 1799 the de Roll's Regiment was shipped to Minorca which had
just been siezed from the Spaniards.
In 1801 de Roll's Regiment formed part of Sir Ralph Abercromby's
expedition to wrest control of Egypt from the French. De Roll's joined Dillon's
Regiment and the recently raised Minorcan Regiment to make the "Foreign
Brigade". On 21 March the French occupation force attacked Abercromby's
army in front of Alexandria. The French were soundly beaten, losing
March the French occupation force attacked Abercromby's army in front of
Alexandria. The French were soundly beaten, losing nearly forty per cent of
their numbers. The British also suffered heavily with over 1,500 casualties
and de Roll's Regiment performed creditably in its first major battle.
Mediterranean Postings
Throughout the next five years the regiment was posted to Malta,
Gibraltar and Sicily before returning to Egypt in 1807. The regiment was now
down to half its strength and, for the first time it opened its ranks to recruits
from other nations, taking in Greeks, Albanians and even Russians. Its
Swiss character was strengthened however, when it received 400
experienced Swiss soldiers in 1809 who had deserted from Junot's army in
Portugal. Detachments from de Roll took part in the attack upon Naples in
1809 and the capture of the Ionian islands the following year.
In 1812 three companies from de Roll's Regiment and five
companies from Dillon's Regiment were sent to the east coast of Spain as
the De Roll - Dillon Provisional Battalion. The regiment's Rifle company
joined the Provisional battalion at the end of the year but later the Rifle
company was detached to form part of Adam's 'advance corps' along with
the Calabrian Free Corps and the 4th Battalion of the King's German Legion.
The remainder of the de Roll's Regiment performed garrison duty in Malta,
the
lonian islands and Sicilly to which island the four companies sailed
from Spain in May 1814 to rejoin the parent body. The Swiss
Regiment of Infantry de Roll was disbanded in the Sulmer of 1816
after having earned for itself the reputation of having been amongst
the finest of all Britain's foreign regiments.
The uniform first worn by the Royal Etranger consisted of a long
tail, red coat cut in the typical late Eighteenth Century style with
buttoned-back, sky-blue lapels. The coat was cut away from the
chest downwards to reveal a white waistcoat beneath. Each lapel
was decorated with six double lace bars. The round cuffs were also
sky-blue. There was a single white lace chevron (point facing
downwards) on the cuff and another three on the sleeve immediately
above all four chevrons having a single button at the point. The
standing collar was edged in white and had a double lace bar on
each side. A black neck stock was worn. The coat tail turnbacks
were white though it is possible that the turnbacks were sky-blue
during the early years of the regiment's existence. The shoulder
straps were white with Grenadiers having white, fringed epaulettes.
Breaches were white as were the crossbelts.
The head dress at this time was a black round hat with a
bearskin crest and a red turban. Grenadiers had plain black
bearskins with white hat cords and flounders hanging down the
right-hand side. Grenadiers had an all-white plume fitted to the left of
the bearskin, the plume of the battalion companies being
red-overwhite. Officers wore black bicorns.
There were no lace decorations on the lapels of the officers'
coats which carried instead just seven buttons. Each cuff and collar
on the officers' coats carried two horizontal lace bars and officers
were further distinguished by silver epaulettes and a silk cravate.
Officers also had white stockings and buckled shoes. Drummers
were identified by white lace chevrons on the sleeves, the lace
bearing a zig-zag
stripe. The drum had red and white hoops.
Changes in 1800
By the time of the expedition to Egypt in 1800 the coat of the
other ranks had become enclosed, with the lapels no longer
exposed. Shoulder-straps were sky-blue, edged white and with white
worsted fringes. The lace had dissapeared from the cuffs but the
double lace bar was retained on the collar. The crossbelts now bore
a brass, oval plate. The uniform was completed with tight white
breeches and black half-gaiters. The officers' uniform appears to
have remained unchanged except that the epaulettes now took the
form of black shoulder straps with silver fringes.
Officers were also distinguished by crimson waist sashes
and possibly an embroidered crown on the tail turnbacks. Epaulettes
were silver. Drummers and Drummajors wore 'reversed' colours - a
sky blue jacket with red collar and cuffs. Both had white overalls.
Drum-majors' lace was silver and there were four silver chevrons on
the right arm. Drummajors also had a crimson sash with a sky-blue
central stripe, and a sky-blue, silver-laced baldrick and silver
epaulettes.
Until 1812 'stovepipe' shakos were adopted for other ranks. The
shako plate bore the Royal Cypher encircled by the Garter with a crown
above, a crowned lion below, and flags on both sides. Officers continued to
wear bicornes with a silver lace loop across the black cockade, below which
was a silver sphinx and scroll to commemorate the regiment's service in
Egypt. In 1812 'Belgic' shakos were introduced with the Grenadiers wearing
peaked fur caps. Both types of head dress had white cords. The shako plate
now bore a sphinx and the word 'Peninsula'. Drummers had shakos whereas
Drum-majors wore bicornes with silver lace. It appears that officers still wore
bicornes with the addition of the Peninsula honour to the Sphinx scroll. As
was the usual practice throughout the British Army, the Light Company had
a green plume, the Grenadier white, and the battalion companies
red-over-white. Shako cords for the Light Company would have been green.
Rifle Company Uniform
The Rifle Company was issued with a uniform almost identical to
that worn by the 95th Regiment. It consisted of a green jacket with black
facings and black wings edged in white. The uniform was worn with
blue-grey trousers. The Rifle officer's jacket was frogged with black lace and
decorated with three vertical rows of silver buttons. All ranks wore shakos
with green cords and feathers, those of office having a shako plate with the
Peninsula and sphinx honours, other ranks having a silver bugle horn badge.
The uniform portrayed in the National Army Museum's figure
reproduced here is the regiment's undress uniform at the turn of the century,
which was worn for fatigues and drill. This incided a white linen jacket or
long-sleeved waistcoat faced sky-blue.
Flag
The first Colours received by the Royal Etranger were given to the
regiment by the noble ladies of Solrure in Switzerland. The flag was
composed of a white Swiss cross on a red field. This was replaced with a
Regimental Colour consisting of a blue field painted with a central device of a
dark blue belt of the garter within which was a double golden pentalph.
Below the garter was the sphinx and the word Egypt in silver, and the whole
was surrounded by the Union wreath. In the upper Canton was a small Union
flag and in the other three corners was a gold, crowned GR cypher. The
King's Colour was the usual Union flag with a crowned Garter inside which
was a square and compasses. Inside the square was a letter G. Again, the
sphinx and egypt honour was below the garter, and the device was
surrounded by a wreath.
Another Colour, believed to be that issued to the De Roll's - Dillon
Provisional battalion, also existed. It consisted of a yellow flag (yellow as the
facing colour of Dillon's Regiment) with a central device of a Garter inscribed
with the words 'Schwebe uber uns und segne unsere Treue' in gold. Inside
the garter was the masonic eye, below was the Sphinx and Egypt in silver,
all within a wreath. Above this device is a crowned royal cypher within a smaller wreath.
SOURCE INFORMATION
Bryant A. The Years of Endurance 1793-1802, 1944. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.UNIFORM
In the succeeding years the uniform followed the style of the
British Line regiments. The coat had white lace loops across the
chest, grouped in pairs, the lace bearing a blue stripe. The coats of
the Light and Grenadier companies had blue 'wings', those of the
Light Company ending in green worsted tufts and those of the
Grenadiers in white tufts. Officers' jackets could be worn with the
silver laced, sky-blue lapels buttoned back. The officers' baldricks
carried an oval, silver beltplate embellished with the Masonic eye
within a gilt garter.
Haythornwaite P Uniforms of the French Revolutionary Wars, 1981.
Haythornwaite P Swiss Corps in British Service 1794-1814,
Military Historical Society Bulletin Vol.24,No.94 Nov.1973.
Lawson C. History of the Uniforms of the British Army, 1961-7.
Wise T. Flags of the Napoleonic Wars (2), 1978.
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© Copyright 1996 by Partizan Press.
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