It is a matter of fact that colours and standards tend not to survive the passage of time as well as other artifacts do. The reasons for this are simple. In the first place they are comparatively few in number, in the second they tend to be fragile in nature and in the third, and most significant, when they are replaced they are often hung in the corner of some dark church where they gradually moulder away.

Those examples that survive are, paradoxically, very often those lost in battle to the enemy and, therefore, have been preserved as prized trophies. Many of these, however, particularly in Germany, were lost during World War 2.

In the case of the Napoleonic colours of the Wuerttemberg army, an astonishing, almost complete, record exists in the form of original examples preserved in the Landesmuseum, Stuttgart.

These were documented in the mid 1980s by Herbert Hahn, on whose remarkable work this article is principally based.

It is worth pointing out that one of the colours described by John Henderson [ N N&Q 81 was unique to Musketier-Bataillon Erbprinz, and later Infanterie-Regiment Nr6, Kronprinz, 1. BaLaillon. For the sake of completeness it is included.

The cavalry standards and vexilla, are in considerably better condition, which leads one to believe that they were not carried on campaign, and equally well documented. If interest is sufficient, these could form the subject of a subsequent article.

The Colours

Those carried by the Wuerttemberg infantry during the Napoleonic period fall, broadly, into three categories. Those presented during the period when the country was a Duchy, those presented during the Electoral period and, finally, the Royal presentations of the Kingdom of Wuerttemberg.

Comparatively little remains of Wuerttemberg uniforms of the period and much of that on display in modern German museums, principally in the Wehrgeschichtlichen Museum at Schloss Rastatt, is reproduction, produced under the supervision of Herbert Knoetel at the turn of the century, and based largely upon the illustrations of Staddinger.

Fortunately this is not the case with the infantry colours, or, indeed, the cavalry standards and vexilla, examples of all but one of every pattern of which are preserved at the Landesmuseurn in Stuttgart.

Regretably, however, these artifacts are not on public display, due in part to their condition, many of the colours are little more than fragments, but also, I suspect, because of mainstream modern German politics which, influenced by remorse, tends to attempt to deny the country's military past.

What, one wonders, is German history if not military?

More Wurttemberg Colours

Introduction
Ducal Colours
Electoral Colours
Royal Colours
Distribution of 1814

More Wurttemberg Colours

Replies 18: Wurttemberg Flags (#8)
Wurttemberg Infantry Colors 1798-1815 Part 1 (#9)
Wurttemberg Infantry Colors 1798-1815 Part 2 (#10)