"Company Colors" Topic

Excuse my ignorance, but would every company in a regiment carry colors?

What period are you talking about?

Sorry – mid 1700's.

Can't speak for other nations, but the British did not carry company colours. I seem to recall that the Guards companies may have each had a two colours, but they certainly didn't carry them in the field like that, and they probably didn't even bring them in the AWI period.

Each British regiment/battalion, had a set of colours, paid for by the Colonel. It is debatable whether they actually carried them in the field, especially in the AWI period, as the records seemed to indicate mixed use on that.

Regiments also had camp colours, used to mark out their spot in the camp area, but these were not carried in battle.

I can also say that Provincial units in the F&I period did not carry colours at the company level either.

Can't speak for other nations. Hope that helped.

Not by mid-century. The carrying of company colours is more of a WSS Era (and earlier) style.

Prussians did. Austrian did not. The Prussian colours were carried together in the center of the battalion.

In the French army, the native French regiments switched from three colours per battalion to two in 1749. This also applied to Irish and Scottish regiments apparently. German regiments, though organised on the French model, kept company colours until 1753; this may have been the case for Lorraine and Walloon units too. Swiss regiments were organised differently and still carried one colour per company, i.e. 4 per battalion, throughout the Seven Years War, only conforming to two colours in 1764.