"SYW Hungarian Fusilier Flag Staff" Topic

What colour or colours (please)?

Not as easy to answer as one might think.

During the WAS many( if not most) Hungarian units were issued the Green non-Imperial flag (as opposed to the yellow-white Imperial ones)which had flag staves of spiraling red-white-green (not necessarily in that colour order). I don't know if any Austrian units were issued with this flag during this period but I suspect not.

So when the reach the SYW the question becomes as to whether these green flags (and flag staves) had been withdrawn or continued to be carried. My suspicion (and it is only a guess) would be that the Austrian authorities would have been keen to return to their Imperial status and therefore they would have withdrawn them and reissued the Imperial yellow and white flags. At the same time the red-white-green staves would have been withdrawn as well and replaced by the Imperial stave colour (red-white-black-yellow).

Now many wargamers, myself included, prefer to use the green flags as they are a bit different from the otherwise more familiar Imperial flags. It depends on how much of a perfectionist you are. I think you could argue that at the beginning of the SYW the green flag was still in service with Hungarian units but that's up to you.

I was told at a convention last year that the white flags were used by Hungarian foot during the SYW, but that the staffs were brown. I don't know how credible that is, but maybe some others will have more info.

Erik

de Ligne,

I would be fascinated to see the source for your statement that "During the WAS many (if not most)Hungarian units were issued the Green non-Imperial flag". This is an issue which comes up pretty regularly on TMP (most recently on TMP SYW Austrian Standards). I have been unable to find anything which indicates any distinction between German and Hungarian regiments when it comes to the issue of Green flags. The following is the most that I have found: i) very few of the green flags were issued to anyone, and regiments were reluctant to give up their old flags;
ii) a new edict was issued after the 2nd Silesian War decreeing the same (yellow imperial) flag for all infantry regiments;
iii) Six of the Hungarian Regiments raised at the start of the WAS were issued red flags, not green ones.

I love a good mystery, and TMPers have proved a very productive resource in the past for digging out other pieces of evidence to fill out the jigsaw, so I look forward to anything you can add to this confusing topic.

Cheers!

Mollinary

I've gone with de Ligne's advice on the flag staffs and Vaubanner green and white flags. They look great. Thanks.

The green colours are the regulation colours for the 1743-45 period, when this Bavarian Wittelsbach-house wannabe emperor was crowned and Habsburg lost the priviledge to sport Imperial insignia. This fool died soon afterwards and all this ugly green was abandoned soon later. Those green colours represent the Habsburg-Lorraine regime as being kings of Hungary. No other kingdom left in Habsburg's crown for the election of this Bavarian fool Charles as emperor also chalanged the kingdom of Bohemia. The green colours applied to all of it's troops during this period, not just the Hungarians. By 1756, you can be dead sure none where left. In case some colonel refused because he had just invested in a costly new set Mary T. would have payed herself. She was known of having been very generous to the poor. If you dared to parade your regiment with green colours at "Trooping the Colours" on her birthday after 45 Mary T. would have shot you on the spot. If you are a proud patriot of the Habsburg monarchy about to take to the field in order to defend the Empire, you didn't carry green colours. No way. You carry Imperial colours of decent yellow or better stay at home and go fishing instead. Not so bad an alternative if I think about it :-)))

Cheers,
Christian