"Did Higher Commanders use a flag or standard?" Topic

Did Brigade, Division and Corps level commanders use a flag or standard?

I am particularly interested in the 1806 Prussians and the French from the same period.

I have found a deal of information about uniforms but nothing about whether a flag or standard was carried by the staffs of officers at this level to help indicate their location to messengers etc.

There was no flag carrying by staffs at this time. Both sides did so in the American Civil War but it was not done so in Europe 60 years before.

Persian Princes and the Shah used variations of the national flag.

No idea the the French or Prussians copied them.

db

I second Artilleryman. And you won't find one for brigade, I think, even for ACW. Remember a brigade has perhaps a 300 yard front and a staff which couldn't hold a decent card game without reinforcements. A smallish brigade could and sometimes did work on voice commands.
Horse and musket warfare was a lot more intimate and less bureaucratic.
From a Napoleonic perspective, "national flags" were a leftist, revolutionary sort of thing. The territories ruled by the Habsburg, Hohenzollern and Romanov monarchies were not nations: you leave that sort of thing to the United Kingdom, the United Provinces, the United States--are we seeing a pattern here?--and now the French Republic. It's German and Italian revolutionary nationalists who start waving national flags, and eventually the Habsburgs will start using the dynastic coat of arms for this sort of thing.
But I can't remember a royal standard on a battlefield later than the ECW.

OP: Not to my knowledge.

@robert: Brigade flags were certainly used in the ACW.

Thanks, 79PA.

Higher commanders were tall enough so didn't need flags

Thanks guys.

Royal Marine 16 Sep 2016 12:50 p.m. PST

"Higher commanders were tall enough so didn't need flags"

Literally, between big hats and horses they made good targets!