"Drummers, drummer and more drummers" Topic

I'm trying to determine the uniforms /distinctives worn by Swiss Regiment Wittmer/Waldner in 1757 and "German" regiment Saint-Germain in the same year. Do you experts have any information you could kindly share?

Would Wittmer/Waldner look similar to Diesbach in their red livery with blue and white lace?

I have nothing on Saint Germain but I know the similarly dressed La Marck's wore white with black/white lace.

The varied uniforms the drummers in these Etranger regiments really look sharp. If you collect French, or foreign in French service, units, the drummer distinctives are very important!

Rene Chartrand in the Osprey "Louis XV's Army (3) Foreign Infantry, notes that drums of Waldner had blue, white, red and black flames with the Waldner coat of arms (does not say what it was or show it)on the casing, and rims or hoops striped blue, red and black. Sounds like a breeze for 15mm! No indication of how the uniform looked. I would also like to know, for I want to do Diesbach and Waldner, one Battalion of 36 each for my French 15's.

The French "gentlemen's regiments" might also have been quite colorful. I want to do 36 of the 60th – Durfort – which has a flag that is white, green, red, and white by quarter. If no one has info, I may do the drummers in bottle green coat, red cuffs, with lots of white, green, white, red "chainettes" as edging. Enter mythology again!

GdeP

GdeP

I've got a picture of a Waldner musician, but it's of a later uniform after the French had adopted lapels.

It is a red coat with white turnbacks; yellow cuffs, lapels and swallow's nests (although these only have lace trim around the outer edges and not 'stripes' of lace like German ones); and white small clothes. (And the yellow facings despite the officer and man illustrated as having white cuffs and turnbacks and red lapels.)

Besides on the swallow's nests, there is white chain lace with alternating red and blue (or purple) showing through the 'links' along the two seams of the sleeves, at the shoulder seams, along the outer edges of the coat (but not along any part of the lapels) and at the neck, and with two horizontal lace loops on each cuff.

The tricorne has red hat-tightener bobs in the two corners like Prussian ones and (I think) a white pompom on the left side. (It's partially blocked by the figure's left hand 'saluting', so it's not perfectly visible.)

And for GdeP, the arms are a white field with three blue triangles like mountain peaks at the bottom with a red bird on each peak. The flag's flames are bright green, white, black and red.

Swiss colonels appear to have been less eager than their French counterparts to dress their drummers in their family's personal livery (perhaps because such liovery was less in use where they came from?).

A number of contemporary illustrations show Swiss musicians (unfortunately impossible to attribute to specific regiments) either in standard red coats faced blue or in reversed colours, but always with "swallows' nests' and lots of lace, as described by andygamer, sometimes also in ladders or chevrons up the sleeves.

The "Trabants" would presumably have worn similar dress. They'd make for a great colour party in every sense of the phrase!

For Saint-Germain, the colonel's arms were: Or, a bend Azure charged with three crescents Argent.
A drummer's livery of yellow faced blue with white or silver lace would therefore seem quite plausible, and neatly reverses the unit's colour scheme.
(Looking at La Marck isn't much use, as similar uniforms don't imply similar liveries in any way.)

Thank you gentlemen, very helpful!

Andygamer, is there any way I could get a copy of your Waldner musician picture?

Give me your email address here [with the usual _AT_ replacing the @] and I'll scan it sometime soon and email it to you.

Andgamer:

mdavis41_AT_mac.com

Thanks very much!