"1806 Prussian Eponimous Regiments (And Brigades?!)" Topic
9 Posts
All members in good standing are free to post here. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the posters, and have not been cleared with nor are they endorsed by The Miniatures Page.
In order to respect possible copyright issues, when quoting from a book or article, please quote no more than three paragraphs.
For more information, see the TMP FAQ.
Back to the Napoleonics Scenarios Message Board Back to the Napoleonic Discussion Message Board
Areas of InterestNapoleonic
Featured Hobby News Article
Featured Link
Featured Ruleset
Featured Showcase Article
Featured Workbench Article
|
Please sign in to your membership account, or, if you are not yet a member, please sign up for your free membership account.
Bolkonsky | 08 Sep 2016 6:46 p.m. PST |
I am working on Auerstadt in particular but I am sure this would extend to the rest of the Prussian army. For instance: The Alvensleben Regiment. Supposedly, somewhere there is an Alvensleben given the rank of Full Colonel for whom the Regiment was named. This person may not even be an active officer or even alive. The actual commander of the regiment is the Battalion commander of the 1st Regiment (with its Colonel's Flag), usually a lieutenant-colonel. (I realize the actual german terms for these ranks are different and that this is just the English equivalent) In the case of the Alvensleben Regiment I have been able to determine through some digging that the actual commander was v. Kalkstein (whoever he was) I've given up trying to figure out who the commander of the 2nd Batallion was or his rank. But I have found a source giving me the actual regimental commanders of all the regiments in 1806. link and the Grenadiers which are actually named after their battlefield commander. link Here's the question and the source of my confusion. In all the OoB for Auerstadt, Chandler, Hourtoulle, Nafziger (OK, I realize these guys are secondary sources) Schmettau's third division is made up of two brigades each with two Muskateer Regiments and a Grenadier Regiment and some cavalry and artillery. Fine…But they all list one of the Brigades as the Alvensleben brigade. Worse commanded by Lieutenant General von Alvensleben. Here's the rub. I've checked the Alvensleben family history. There are no living Alvenslebens of an age that would conceivably allow them to be a general. There are a couple that were indeed junior officers at this time and went on to have long careers. There was a field marshal in the mid 18th Century and a General about 20 years after the Napoleonic war. Can anyone tell me why the Brigade was named Alvensleben? The other brigade is named Schimonsky. I'm afraid to look any closer into that brigade or into the (yes) Schimonsky regiment. Yes, the amount of translated Prussian material is light and yes my German is week and my eyes hurt reading that old lettering. No, I can't get down to whatever stacks in Germany provide clarification. But I have access to google translate if there is an online source that I can plow through. I already have Hoepner and Lettow-Vorbeck but does anyone have pointers to anyone or anything else? |
BTCTerrainman | 08 Sep 2016 7:33 p.m. PST |
In Napoleons Apogee, it lists MG von Alvensleben in command of the the 1st brigade in Schmettau's division. |
rmaker | 08 Sep 2016 8:03 p.m. PST |
The regiments were named for their Inhabers (literally Proprietors), the equivalent of modern British Colonels-in-Chief. The Inhaber may or may not have ever served with the regiment in question. He wasn't necessarily an army officer. In fact, he (or she) might even be a foreign ruler. In most cases, however, he would be a general officer in the Prussian service. Brigades, on the other hand were named for their commanders. |
Kleist13 | 08 Sep 2016 9:02 p.m. PST |
Checking a family history is usually a lost cause – there tend to be lots of branches in each family tree, and each of these branches probably has several members in the military service at the same time… In this case: The 2nd Brigade in Schmettaus Division was commanded by Generalmajor v. Alvensleben, and consisted of one Grenadier Bat. (von Schack), 2 bat. from regiment No. 35 ('Prinz Heinrich), and 2 bat. from regiment No. 33 ('von Alvensleben'). There also was a 12-pounder battery (Roehl). Source: Delef Wenzlik / Dr. Wolfgang Handrick 'die Schlacht von Auerstedt' |
Oliver Schmidt | 08 Sep 2016 10:21 p.m. PST |
The standard reference on Prussian generals is Priesdorff's ten volume work: link There you find No. 1078: Ludolph August Friedrich von Alvensleben (1743-1822), Generalmajor in 1805. In 1804, he had become the Regiments-Chef of IR 33. He was wounded at Jena, commanding a brigade. No. 1092: Dietrich Lebrecht von Schimonski (1740-1826), Generalmajor in May 1806. In 1805, he had become the Regiments-Chef of IR 40. In 1809, he was punished for his role in the capitulation of Magdeburg. The Prussian army list of 1806: link |
Oliver Schmidt | 08 Sep 2016 10:27 p.m. PST |
From: link Since the 18th century, with few exceptions, every infantry and cavalry regiment had a general as regimental chief (Regiments-Chef), after whom it was named. If there were two chiefs of the same name, they received the prefix "Jung" (young) and "Alt" (old) according to their anciennity, e.g. in 1806: Infanterie-Regiment Alt-Larisch and Infanterie-Regiment Jung-Larisch. If the regimental chief died or was pensioned, and was not replaced immediately, until the appointment of a new chief the regiment retained the name of the old one with the French prefix "vacant" (same meaning as in English, sometimes also the Latin word vacat is found, meaning "it is unoccupied"). Usually this was abbreviated as "vac.", e.g. in 1806: Infanterie-Regiment vac. Borcke. For inofficial use only, the regiments were numbered within their class of unit, according to the real or assumed date of their creation. In 1788 the order of the regiments had been finally fixed by the king. However, this anciennity number (Stamm-Nummer) was not part of the regiment's name, even though it has been always used by later scholars for easier reference. The fusileer brigades had a general as regimental commander, bearing the title of brigadier (Brigadier). They were however named after the provinces in which they were cantoned. Single battalions, primarily those of the grenadiers or fusileers, usually were refered to by the name of their commander, e.g.: Grenadier-Bataillon Fabecky, commanded by Major v. Fabecky of the Infanterie-Regiment Dierike. As late as 1 October 1806, the king ordered that when compiling orders of battles, the regiments should be always denominated by their anciennity number, grenadier battalions by the combined numbers of their two parent regiments, and that for batteries the number of the artillery regiment they belong to should also be noted. It seems that this was executed only in the Main Army of 1806. On 7 November 1808, the regiments received a denomination according to the province from which they were mainly recruited, in order to avoid the frequent changes of names with the change of the regimental chief. |
Bolkonsky | 14 Sep 2016 3:44 p.m. PST |
rmaker – thanks! Inhabers, yes I remember that now. Kleist13 – thanks that's very good to know and thanks for the source, I'll track it down. Oliver Schmidt – How sad, and what a loss it appears that only a skeleton of Priesdorff's 15 volume work has survived. You mention 10 volumes, did I not translate correctly. Did some of the original volumes survive. Was it just the volumes still in process that were lost? With regard to Rangliste der Koeniglich Preussischen Armee in your link dates 1827. Do these run for specific years or would that cover from then a number of years back? It happens that the volume had very brittle pages and was poorly scanned which has made it harder for me to work on translating it. So before I set to work getting it under my belt I thought I'd ask. I have found one dated 1804. I'll be picking up Armies of the Napoleonic Wars and wonder if you have published material in any other books or have articles out regarding the 1806/07 Prussians or anything else from these campaigns since they are my chief subject at the moment. Thank you for your explanation regarding Regimental Chiefs and the uses of numbering. I had come across the duel numbering of Grenadier BATs but did not know the King had ordered this designation be used when compiling OoB. And this only done in the Main army of 1806. That will be good to watch for as I get abreast of Rangliste der Koeniglich Preussischen Armee. |
Oliver Schmidt | 14 Sep 2016 10:34 p.m. PST |
Priesdorff worked on the generals chronologically, so the 10 volumes published cover 3359 Prussian generals between the 16th century and the 1870s, all until after the war of 1870/71. From the Wikipedia text (which is but equal to hearsay) it seems the (unfinished?) manuscripts for volumes 13 to 15 and a few printed excerpts from volumes 11 and 12 survived. It doesn't say where they are now. The rest was destroyed by Allied bombing raids. The link I gave is to an 1827 reprint of the Prussian army list of 10th August 1806, with additional information about the later fates of the officers up to that year. Concerning the structure of the army, there is no difference between 1804 and 1806, however up to a handful of regimental chiefs may have changed. Here another Rangliste edition of 1806, it dates from the end of June 1806: link As the Rangliste focuses on officers and their anciennity, it doesn't give the composition of the grenadier battalions, not any order of battle. Officers of the grenadier battalions are listed within their regiments (with the additon of (Gr.)), as regular promotion took place by anciennity within the regiment, regardless of to which battalion the officer belonged. However, you find the composition of the grenadier battalions here, on Markus Stein's excellent site: link On the Prussian 1806 army, I haven't published anything, my main interest ist the Prussian army from 1808 to 1815. |
Bolkonsky | 15 Sep 2016 2:51 p.m. PST |
|
|