Since the end of the Theme Year centered on the Second Empire I am afraid I have left my fellow enthusiasts a big high and dry. There is a great deal more information and many more issues to be dealt with than can be squeezed into a single theme year. Ever since the Theme Year ran out I have been receiving questions and information which I have not always been able to reply to in the mail in a timely fashion, and which in any case deserves wider circulation. With that in mind I will brush off some notes and deal with some light topics, leaving weighty matters to future articles.
Larry & Laurie Brom's Chassepot and Needlegun at HISTORICON '89. Complete with flags! Photo by the author.
COLORS, STANDARDS, AND GUIDONS
The issue frequently comes up concerning the carrying of flags by armies in the latter half of the 19th Century. Wargames Foundry, one of my favorite purveyors of period miniatures, suggests that the Prussians had pretty much abandoned such finery by 1870, says little about the French, and doesn't provide standards for their splendid horsemen. However, it is well known that our relatively rustic ancestors carried no end of heraldic bunting in The War Between The States, and the same appear in numerous 19th Century illustrations of The Crimea, The Austro-French War overthe Unification of Italy, The Austro- Prussian War, and even The Franco-Prussian War. Is it legitimate to top your Second Empire period hordes with flags? If so, what kind of flags?
At great risk to my pretense of proper scholarship I will try to answer these questions. The risk arises from the fact that much of what I know on the subject was obtain by poring over 19th Century military tracts in the Main Navy Library hack in the 1960s. As a result I will be passing along memories which I cannot hack up directly with footnotes or attribute to impressive sounding authors. I am prepared to he corrected. All the same, I think most of what I will report here will be useful, and I will deal with the lack of notes as best I can.
Moderation
First of all, concerning the use of battle flags in the wars named, the answer has to be "Yes -- in moderation." From the early days of the Thirty Years War when company flags were in evidence there was a gradual erosion of relative numbers of flags on the battlefield. Some time during my other favorite period, The Age of Marlborough (that is, of Louis XIV), the evolution of the battalion as the tactical unit caused a drop in the number of flags from 1 per company to 2-3 per battalion. Nominally this occurred in Queen Ann's Army under Marlborough's administration.
While Wise (Military Flags of the World in Color) suggests that 3 per battalion or regiment evolved from one each forthe pike block and the musketeer wings, that doesn't seem to have been the case. In fact, while the late medieval Swiss had distinct flags for their skirmish units, the tendency was to entrust the flags to the pike block -- and ultimately to whichever portion of the unit was best formed for close action. Chandler and Barthorp (The Art of War in the Age of Marlborough, and Marlborough Army respectively) mention that even after the pike passed from regular use by the army it was sometimes retained by a "Picket" of troops forming a guard to the unit colors.
In a study of two brigade actions, a successful one in 1866 and an unsuccessful one in 1870, a Prussian author (Fritz Hoenig) commented on the retention of colors in the last battalion of the regiment to remain in column. Oddly enough, in this case, having to do with a brigade attacking the Saxons around Problus (part of the Battle of Koenigraetz) the last unit in column was the Fusilier Battalion (traditional light troops). "Here we saw the color section of I-57th struggling all alone with the colors to reach F (Fusilier) 57th." Thus the First battalion had colors and was trying to move them to the Fusilier battalion when the First had deployed in skirmish order -- suggesting battalion colors.
Hoenig's account (in Inquiries into the Tactics of the Future) even indicates that the Prussian Army of 1866 advanced with bands playing as well as colors flying: "Between Prim and Problus we saw one long line of artillery, and at our side, as far as the eye could reach, advancing skirmishers and columns, waving colors, playing bands."
As early as the Napoleonic Wars efforts were made to reduce the number of colors and standards. While each battalion had customarily had two colors early in the war in many armies, late in the war the official regimental colors were sometimes restricted to 1 per regiment. British cavalry was ordered to stop carrying standards into action when the 23rd Light Dragoons left theirs at Talavera after passing through the intervals in French squares to engage several times their number of French cavalry. Wise reports (Military Flags of the World in Color) that Napoleon's army had similar instructions for cavalry late in the war but that they were often ignored.
By the second half of the 19th Century, squadron and battalion standards and colors were still commonplace. However, in the Sardinian Army the regimental colors were carried by an Ensign (second lieutenant) in the second battalion. Nominally French regiments had only one Eagle (ditto for Chasseur Battalions). Prussian regiments carried battalion colors into the 1866 war, but like the colors of the Prussian Army in the War of Liberation (1813-14) they fell into several categories. Those units which had retained their colors from the 1806 campaign might have the Frederician patterns. A later pattern applied to new regiments or regiments which had to be reissued colors after 1806. The same in a general way applied to the cavalry. When, in the Von Roon reforms of 1860 the standing Landwehr became fusilier regiments a new series of colors was issued. Incremental groups of mounted units likewise received standards of similar patterns. I have no information on whether replacements for worn standards or colors followed the pattern of the replaced item, or the pattern in vogue at the time of replacement.
Sources
For 1870 many sources, including the documentation distributed with the Wargames Foundry figures for that war, indicate that colors were not generally carried by the Prussians. Other accounts relate that they substituted simply the staff topped with the filial and battle streamers. Long ago, while I had access to the Main Navy Library I was able to read what some contemporary Prussian authors said on the subject. By their account, the bare poles were as a result of not replacing colors which had been shot to ribbons during the Austrian War. It seems that the Austrians tended to fire high, and many infantry colors had been torn up in the process. The remaining pole, surrounded by battle streamers, was retained as a rallying point by the regiments. However, not all colors had been conveniently reduced to shreds. Some were relatively intact. Ochel's 1870 infantry sets (30mm flats) reflect about an equal distribution of flags and ribboned poles.
Of the cavalry we know that while standards were still carried by French and Prussian horse they were encouraged not to carry them into the field. On 5 August 1870 when von Bredow launched his squadrons at the French gun line, they were accompanied by only one standard, that of the 17 Altmark Uhlans. The supports to the gun line facing them had at least one color - an eagle of the 93rd de Ligne. That almost proved too much in each case, since the infantry color was briefly in Prussian hands, and the standard of the uhlans was briefly in French hands. By the time the smoke cleared both were back to their original owners somewhat the worse for wear.
Postwar regulations cited by Wise (Op. Cit.) reduced the number of colors or standards definitively to one per regiment. We could attribute the reduction to increased firepower and a desire to reduce vulnerability on the battlefield. However, as noted above, the reduction in the number of flags was substantial by the late Napoleonic era. It seemed that the negative morale effect of losing flags in action had universally become more feared than any positive effect to be expected from having them around in the first place.
Of course, that had not seemed to affect the amateur warriors of our own unpleasantness. Rather than stop carrying their flags units resorted to bizarre modernistic devices - such as arming the color guard with Henry rifles or Colt revolvers. There was a marked reluctance to part with regimental colors (which were in effect battalion colors - we substantially followed Britain in that regard) when regiments were reduced in strength, the remnants would hang on grimly and proudly. By Appomatox the Confederate remnants were described by a Union officer as "An Army of Banners".
Flags and Formations in the Age of Napoleon the Little by by Pat Condray with Flags by Michael A. Tyson
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