"How did nations keep track of regiments named for people?" Topic

I can find 4 or 5 different names for many of the Hessian regiments that served in the AWI.
Rall and Von Bose are two names that come toons.
How did the War Office back home keep track of them?

Pen and paper.

Weren't these just the names of the regiment's colonel? New colonel=new name.
It can get very confusing though. I model the Dutch army of 1690 or so and the reference material may give three or four names defending on exactly when the record was written.

It was the name of the colonel. A natural outgrowth of the days when the colonel was effectively the bankroll and proprietor of the unit.

In "German" countries, it's the name of the Inhaber, who is more akin to the British Colonel-in-Chief and who quite often was a separate officer (often a noble officer) from the Colonel who commaneded the regiment in the field. In earlier periods, the Inhaber normally paid all the bills associated with the unit out of his own (deep) pockets. Inhaber, in this sense, translates to "proprietor".

Most 18th century armies didn't have that many regiments (Hesse-Cassel, for one example) and the regimental chefs didn't change that often. Still, regular arguments would break out between officers over whose regiment was senior and therefore was due the privilege of taking the right-hand position in the line and leading the suicide charge on the massed enemy batteries.

The biggest armies, such as the French and Austrians, had the most trouble keeping track, and they led the way into the new Enlightened Age of Bureaucracy by systematically numbering their regiments.

The Russians did some naming after shefs when the Emperor was admiring of things "German", as under Emperor Paul (1796-1800).

But they went right back to the traditional use of permanent place or honorific (e.g. "Life-Grenadier regiment") names for heavy infantry and cavalry regiments.

Light infantry regiments, artillery and engineering formations ended up getting numbered.

Don Cossack regiments remained named for their commander. This is confusing unless you keep the names numbered correctly. That is, officers with the same last name would append a number – e.g. Grekov the 4th , Grevov the 7th …. the senior officers of the Don Cossacks very often came from the same extended families, so that you really needed to know that you wanted "Colonel Grekov-4's Don cossack regiment" vs. "Colonel Grekov-7's Don cossack regiment".

Other irregular cavalry and militia were identified by origin and number (e.g. "2nd Bashkir regiment", "17th Saint-Petersburg militia cohort"). Privately raised units might carry the sponsor's name, and maybe also a number – e.g. "Major Prince Ivanov's 1st Saint-Petersburg militia volunteer horse regiment".

The naming by shefs was so confusing that some written works maintained a mention of the prior name – e.g. "General-Major Ivanov's musketeer regiment (former Narva)", "Colonel Baron Berg's jäger regiment (former 15th)".

- Sasha

I thought the Hessians HAD numbers but wee known by their regimental "name"

Taken from kronoskaf…

No. 1 Garde or ‘Leibgarde zu Fuß', 3. Garde in 1760
No. 2 Haudring, 1757 Capellan, 1759 Toll, 1760 Füsilier-Regiment v. Bartheld
No. 3 Fürstenberg, 1759 Gilsa, since 1760 Füsilier-Regiment v. Gilsa
No. 4 Prinz Ysenburg, 1759 Bischhausen, 1762 Wilcke
No. 5 Leib-Regiment, Wutginau in 1760
No. 6 Grenadier-Regiment, 2. Garde in 1760
No. 7 Erbprinz, 4. Garde in 1760 – later that year entitled Leib-Regiment
No. 8 Mansbach, 1763 Gräffendorf
No. 9 Prinz Karl
No. 10 Canitz, 1759 von der Malsburg
No. 11 Prinz von Anhalt
No. 12 Hanau, 1758 Prinz Wilhelm, 1760 Erbprinz
No. 13 1. Garde or ‘1. Bataillon Garde', raised 1760
No. 14 Hanau Landmiliz-Bataillon (disbanded 1758 and re-raised 1763 as regular Hanau Land-Bataillon)

Clerks

Don Cossack regiments remained named for their commander. This is confusing unless you keep the names numbered correctly. That is, officers with the same last name would append a number – e.g. Grekov the 4th , Grevov the 7th …. the senior officers of the Don Cossacks very often came from the same extended families, so that you really needed to know that you wanted "Colonel Grekov-4's Don cossack regiment" vs. "Colonel Grekov-7's Don cossack regiment".

And it's important to remember that the number refers to the commander's personal seniority on the Army list, i.e., Colonel Grekov 7 is the seventh most senior officer named Grekov in the Russian Army. There were not necessarily 7 (or more) Grekov Don Cossack Pulks.

rmaker,

Yes, exactly so. Thank you for adding the emphasis As I wrote it, if you didn't already know about name+number in the Russian army, you might have gotten it wrong absent your clarification.

I do think the Don Cossacks counted names separately from the actual Russian army, of which technically they were not a part. So you might have a Grekov the 2nd in the Russian army and a Grekov the 2nd in the Don Cossack host.

Updating the assignment of the numbers was also not perfect. The esteemed Steven H. Smith and Mark Conrad probably could best explain how it was supposed to work and how it actually worked.

But I will note that just because you see a Grekov the 7th, not only does that not mean 7 regiments commanded by Grekov's (as you noted), one also cannot be really sure that six other Grekov's (Grekov the 1st through Grekov the 6th) were then on active service with the Don Cossacks.

- Sasha