"French Walloon Regiments WSS" Topic

Does anyone know if these were foreign regiments in the French service or allied regiments? Also how were they uniformed?

I would think the Walloon units were Spanish allied to the French. The whole causus belli was the promotion of Louis IV grandson Philip to the throne of Spain. The French army quickly marched into Spanish Netherlands and occupied the fortresses which panicked the Dutch. On the other hand, the French had German, Swiss, Italian, and Irish regiments, why not Walloon?

In either case there are (or were) pamphlets published by Editions Brokow, edited by Pat Condrey that cover this ground. I got mine from On Military Matters.

Your question is a bit vague : which units are you referring to exactly? The French army had several Walloon regiments on its establishment, listed below in order of precedence (known uniform details mentioned where available) :

Isenghien : red coats lined blue

Solre (became Beaufort in 1709) : grey-white coats lined green

Miromesnil : possibly red coats lined green

Robecque (became St Vallier in 1704) : red coats lined blue

Croy-Solre (became Aunay in 1709) : unknown

Zurlauben, which was disbanded in 1704 after being wiped out at Beinheim, is sometimes listed as a Walloon unit but was in fact a German regiment. There were also many Walloon units in Spanish service which fought with the French in Flanders, but these weren't part of the French army.

The Editions Brokaw on the French states, "…the Swiss line regimetns were adpoting red, buy may earlier have been wearing shades of blue like the foreign regiments of German and Walloon recruitment," but doesn't say which regiments were Walloon in the list of regiments. Grant doesn't mention them at all, unless some of the ones called "German" are actually Walloon.

Can you get a hold of Wargmes Illustrated January 1992, No. 52? Because in Mark Allen's fully-illustrated series on the War of the Grand Alliance, its "Part Seven: Foreign Troops in French Service (1)" lists Walloon regiments from the 1670s onward that have two that are listed as "disbanded in 1714": Boufflers/Miromesnil and Poitier [or Poitiers… it is different in the text and in the illustration]. The early uniforms are shown, but they are of all different colours e.g. blue faced red; white faced green; red faced blue; red faced green.

(As an aside, the Walloons in Austrian service in the WSS had bright green coats with cherry red facings for the foot.)

Besides, it must be kept in mind that Philip V's Royal Guard was composed by two infantry regiments: a Spanish one ("Reales Guardias Españolas") and a Walloon one ("Reales Guardias Valonas"). Both units were dressed identically to Louis XIV's own guard, except for the cockades on their hats: red for the Spanish regt., red-and-black for the Walloon one.

Andygamer : although the Swiss gradually adopted red coats and the Germans blue ones, there never was a standard coat color for Walloon units, hence the various uniforms. I suspect the Editions Brokaw booklet confuses Louis XIV's Walloon regiments with those of his successor Louis XV : Royal-Wallon did wear blue coats faced red in the 1740's, as did Horion-Liégeois in the 1750's, but there are no records of Walloon units of any kind wearing blue coats between 1680 and 1714 (apart from Zurlauben, which was a German unit and not a Walloon one as stated above).

As for the Swiss infantry, the 'may' is definitely superfluous : prior to 1700, the Swiss units are known to have worn not only red or blue coats, but yellow and green ones as well.

Regarding the two regiments you mention, Poitiers became Croy-Solre in 1700 when the Chevalier de Croy-Solre took over from the Comte de Poitiers as colonel-proprietor. And the Marquis de Miromesnil acquired his regiment from the Boufflers family in 1694, at which point the unit became simply known as Miromesnil until it was disbanded in 1714.

Yes, Quintus, the Mark Allen article shows those other early Swiss coats too. (And the flags too if you're interested.)

Miromesnil : possibly red coats lined green/it was disbanded in 1714

interesting. Anyone know about the colors carried?

According to Pierre Charrié, Miromesnil had yellow and black 'drapeaux d'ordonnance', each quarter being divided diagonally : yellow/black in the two upper quarters, black/yellow in the two lower ones ("taillé tranché jaune et noir"). The colonel's color would obviously be white.

No details regarding the musicians' livery, though, as is often the case with foreign regiments of the period.

Hi Guys

im looking for info on the battle flags for Regt Robecque as im trying to get as much info to paint this Regt for my French Friedlingen force.
I should say that regt Robecq and Robecque are the same arnt they??
cheers
Jon

Here's an illustration (and with a third spelling as Robeck):
link

But the Mark Allen WI52 illustration shows the orientation of the flag's obverse of the red and yellow triangles being sideways with the top of all of the red triangles pointing to the flag staff, and the top of all the yellow triangles pointing towards the fly for all four cantons, all having the same orientation and not the way shown in the link.

It's as if you look at the illustration on its side by resting your head on your right shoulder and then taking the bottom right-hand canton and reproducing that same canton the same way in all four cantons.

I don't know who to trust on this. Quite often the geometric pattern will rotate around the white cross, as shown in the link, and in WI64 Allen shows the French Montfort Regiment with a similar flag but with red and white triangles but I can't find a Montfort flag anywhere else at Warflag or at the linked French site to compare it.

Regiment de Zurlauben gave good service at the Boyne covering the retreat of the Jacobite Army, even firing into some disordered mobs of fleeing troops that threaten to disorder their lines. Stern stuff. As above the regiment died in line towards the end of Blenheim when over ran by Marlborough's cavalry.

QI is in agreement with Hall about the flag. Based on an order found in the national archives he depicts them in gray-white coats, yellow trousers and red stockings. The powder flask has a red cord.

As I understand it they were basically considered to be 'French' rather than foreign like the Swiss, Irish or Germans. The only possible difference was the one regiment (Solre-Beaufort) may have had green cuffs rather than the more usual red or blue.