"French WGA questions" Topic

I have been recently seduced from my usual habitat of SYW and Napoleonics by the Pendraken 'League of Augsburg' range (just take a look at the Mounted Generals set).

Being relatively unfamiliar with this period, I have a couple of questions that I hope more knowledgeable members may be able to help with.

1. French Cavalry Regiment 'Colonel General': CS Grant's Pike and Shot lists them as being in pale grey coats with red facings (source: Susane); he also lists an alternative of red coats faced with black (source: Lienhart & Humbert). The Nec Pluribus Impar website states that they wore red coats faced black from their establishment. Finally, I recall seeing a Robert Hall plate showing both versions. I suspect that the regiment was originally clad in grey and adopted the more familiar red relatively quickly thereafter. Can anyone throw some light on this, particular as to when the change may have occurred?

2. Swiss Infantry Regiment ‘Surbeck': Mark Allen's first article dealing with foreign troops in French service during the WGA covers the German, Swiss, Walloon and Italian units. The illustration in plate 1 shows Stuppa the Younger/Surbeck as blue coat and breeches, red cuffs and waistcoat and white hose. Other sources show a red coat with blue facings. The Mark Allen article shows other Swiss units in blue coats and I suspect that there was a mixture of blue and red coats before the Swiss became standardised in red coats. Again, any information on when this change might have occurred would be appreciated.

Welcome to this fascinating period. I am afraid the kind of queries you raise are very common in this period. I am building a Williamite army, which contained a Danish contingent. Whilst most Danish regiments wore grey, there are references to " blue coats" and " green coats" when they arrived in 1689. At what point dud they swutch to grey.
Choice of figures is spot on, beautiful range and a joy to paint.

Steamingdave take a look here
link

I have it, only about half the infantry have light grey Coats, some have blue, light blue, straw, green, light green/torques.

DHautpool, I'll take a look at my Robert hall French infantry pdf about those swiss, i don't have the cavalry plates.

Steamingdave, A decree was issued in early 1691 which called for the infantry to be in grey and set forth their facings. It is unlikely that the clothing was changed however before the campaign in Ireland was over. Thus, if you are doing Ireland, I would follow the LOA pdf, which is excellent. My guess is that for Neerwinden and Steenkirk, they probably wore grey.

Thanks Gunfreak and dbf1676. As I want to do both the irish campaign and the main 9yw I have compromised a bit. Most of mine are in grey, (apart from the Guard and Dronnigen which were special cases), but I did one of the Princes regiments ( George, if I remember) in blue. Thinks can get even more complicated; Tiffins Inniskillen regiment were, apparently initially clothed in grey with brown facings, but early on got a company's worth of redcoats. No indication of colour of facings, but later this regiment had red coats faced yelliw, so I have a few figures in that uniform and the rest in yellow.
Decrees could easily be issued, but less easily enacted. Some colonels would bereluctsnt to replace serviceable clothes in one colour with new ones in another.

Slight garbling of that last post. Possibly the Pinotage was stronger than I realised!
I meant to say that I did a few figures of Tiffins in red coats, faced yellow and the rest in grey coats with brown facings. This is for the Irish campaign; when it comes to Flanders I have several units with red/faced yellow and a quick change of standards means they can be Tiffins.
As for those pesky Danes- they later changed to red coats, but fortunately that change was right at the end if the WSS ( which I also do) so I don't have to worry about that.

For French infantry I recommend Vallejo grey-white or as it is described in uniform data Gris-blanc.

Normal colour for non-Royal cavalry was grey with red facings as far as I am aware.

Yes, The change to red happend like 1715 after the major actions of both WSS and GNW.

Norwegian army had red coats earlier.

My Robert Hall plates show both the Blue version and the Red version, with the blue version dated 1692

Many thanks for your contributions and suggestions.

For the Colonel-General Regiment I shall go with Grey uniform (which is what I suspected); a pity as I quite fancied the red coats – I might just have to do the Noailles regiment as well.

I shall use the blue coats for Surbeck as I'm modelling the army as around the 1693-4 period so, from the Hall plate, it seems that blue would be more likely.