Wurttemberg standards 1809-14

Thanks Marcus,

I will look forward to your book. As far as I know, Wurttemberg was the only army of the period where two identical flags were issued to individual battalions. It would be interesting to know the thinking behind this? I can't believe they were given a spare in case they lost one - so is it possible that two flags were issued so that if the battalion was split into 'wings' in the field, each wing still had a standard? This is pure speculation on my part. I have no idea whether splitting a battalion into wings was even a practice in the Wurttemberg army of the time.

Best wishes

Stephen

Thanks so much Markus

Thanks Hans-Karl , I’m still wondering if they actually carried 1 or 2 flags per battalion in the field

Hi Peter,

I have also been trying to work out how many standards the Wurttemberg infantry carried in the field in 1812 . According to Rawkins the 1807 pattern flags were issued in 1811 to the second battalions of all the infantry regiments except the 7th and 8th, which received flags for both battalions. He goes on to say that the 7th and 8th received two flags for each battalion "to be carried by the 1st Companies." This does suggest that each of these battalions did carry two standards in the field.

However, I think at this stage the first battalions of regiments 1-6 only had one flag apiece (regiments 1-5 carrying repainted 1798 pattern flags and regiment 6 carrying an 1806 pattern flag). So it could be that the first battalions carried one flag and the second battalions carried two. But this sounds a bit unlikely.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is, I don't know the answer!