"French infantry Fanions... " Topic

Do you give every battalion a tricolour and eagle or do give the 2nd-5th battalions their coloured flags?

Fanions. It creates variety and helps to identify them if the eyesight is sharp enough.

I give all the leger battalions eagles, as they were known to ignore the rules, and fanions for the junior battalions of the ligne. Mind you that is for 1809. After 1812, there really is not much choice as there was only one eagle available for each regiment and fanions abound.

I'm doing Spain and have a lot of French battalions. Line and light so I was leaning towards only the first battalion having the eagle and tricolour but was worried in 6mm plain blue or white fanions might not look so good.

I assume from the mention of the 'tricolour' that your battalions are post-1812 as before then the flag pattern was different. If that is the case you should go with the fanions. Some were quite fancy and a quick look at any source will show that some were as colourful as the flag under the Eagle.

Edwulf

2nd-5th battalions their coloured flags?

battalion:
2nd white
3rd red
4th blue
5th green
6th yellow
7th purple

Then it gets complicated….

Paul :)

Yep. For 6mm I'm just giving them all plain coloured flags.
I've seen some fancy light infantry ones…

It struck me as odd because I think I'd never seen anyone with anything but French gosgs"

Ones. I was very tired when I typed that.

Thanks for clearing that up. I was just thinking that my ignorance of things Napoleonic was worse than I realized.

Initially upon the first 'issue' of eagles in 1804 every battalion and squadron received an eagle, along with every company of the gendarmerie.

The sapeurs du genie, Pionniers Noirs, the Valaison battalion, the Tirailleurs du Po and the Legion du Midi also received eagles.

The Ecole Polytechnique and the Imperial Military School also received an eagle as did the infantry and cavalry of the Hanoverial Legion and the four Swiss regiments in 1805. The National Guard received one for each department.

In 1806 Napoleon ordered that all chasseur and hussar regiments turn their eagles in to army headquarters, the dragoons would have one per regiment and the cuirassiers and carabiniers would retain three per regiment.

In 1807 Napoleon ordered the light infantry regiments to return their eagles to the regimental depots.

Not all of the designated regiments obeyed, their colonels keeping their eagles if they chose.

In 1808 the Italian units of the Army of Italy received eagles as did the 1st, 2d and 3d Foreign regiments. New regiments formed after 1808 received only one eagle, but the newly reactivated 11th Legere had three.

In December 1811 Napoleon issued new regulations for the eagles.

There would be one eagle per regiment of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Separate battalions would carry the national flag without an eagle terminal. The artillery train, pontonneers, artillery artificers, and the sapeurs and miners would have one eagle each which the senior inspector of each arm would retain. The gendarmerie companies were ordered to turn in their eagles and one would be issued to be held by the senior inspector general of the gendarmerie. The supply train troops one eagle would be held by the Minister of Military Administration.

Each regimental eagle of the would be held and carried
by the unit's 1st battalion. The other battalions of the regiments would carry fanions measuring 1 meter square: white for the 2d battalion, red for the third, blue for the 4th, green for the 5th, yellow for the 6th, violet for the 7th and sky blue for the 8th.

Fanions were supposed to be kept plain, but most if not all of the units decorated them to their taste (the same would happen to the smaller company fanions, similar to modern company guidons).

Therefore, the use of colored fanions instead of eagles for the infantry battalions did not come into actual practice until 1812.

For the few regiments whose battalion colours- (enseignes not fanions was the official term I think) are known- such as the 2nd Line and 7th Light- they do not conform to the simple colour scheme.

The Bn enseignes of the 2nd are variations of blue and red stripes/blocks with regimental and battalion numbering. Those of the 7th light are much simplified versions of the 1804 regimental pattern lozenge pattern tricolour, with a simple spear point to differentiate it from the Eagle.

AFAIK no actual battalion enseignes have been discovered which actually DO match the single colour scheme prescribed by the regulations.

Is that likely because unlike the regimental flag and eagle they had no special significance… and instead of being preserved were burned or thrown away?

Yes, that's quite possible Edwulf. When I said 'discovered' though, I meant in the broader context of either a physical item, or a contemporary reference/illustration.

There is one picture by Vernet I think of generic infantry with the plain coloured enseignes as per regulation, but this picture is just for illustration of the men's Bardin regulation uniform in general, rather than showing any particular regt. I haven't seen any pictures of actual regiments carrying the plain enseignes.

It's true that there aren't many contemp pictures of actual enseignes full stop, but those that do exist such as the ones mentioned above and a Berka illustration of one belonging I think to the 9th Light all show colours and designs quite different to the regulation.

Given the sample of data is so small I would of course never claim that no regulation plain flags were used at all- but equally I haven't seen any positive evidence of their issue or use either.

I see that this is a very old thread, but I have a question if anyone would like to take up the discussion again.

In 1810 in Spain, prior to the 1811 regulations, what did the junior battalions carry? If I'm interpreting correctly, the regiment, if formed after 1808, would only have one eagle, carried by the 1st battalion. Since the 1811 regulations for solid-colored fanions had not yet been issued, would they have flags with no eagle?

This is all I found :

Décret impérial du 18 février 1808
Nouvelle organisation des corps d'infanterie de ligne et légère
Article 18. Chaque bataillon de guerre aura une enseigne portée par un sous-officier*, choisi par le chef [du corps] dans une des compagnies de ce bataillon. Le bataillon de dépôt n'aura aucune enseigne.
Article 19. Les régimen[t]s de ligne ont seuls des aigles pour drapeaux; les autres corps ont des enseignes.

* sergent-major, per le Réglement du 1 août 1791 – École du soldat et de peloton

I think, absent any information to the contrary, one might have taken "enseigne" to mean a flag with white lozenged center with red & blue corners. Maybe the prior battalion flags with spear points replacing eagles, maybe something like these ….

But really, they could have been almost any design.

====================

While looking at this, I found a reference to "fanions de compagnie" used by the sergents guides-généraux (jalonneurs). Previosly called "l'enseigne des valets", it was specified in 1781 to be of the color of the company's pompon. And this was never repealed or changed.
See : Bardin's Manuel d'Infanterie (1813), page 258

Of course, French infantry pompons are another "problemmatic" topic.

I use fanions for some of my French infantry – in using 6mm I like to represent not so much the individual units, but have little things about the unit denote things like morale status or unit type and so on. They are quite basic at the moment, but I keep promising myself I will make some more attractive and varied designs when I have a bit of spare time.

I also use fanions in 6mm. Did uncover a number of pictures on google, but mostly I did not learn much about them, except that there were all kinds of different ones, near endless variety for inf and cav. I decided to add basic solid color fanions to various units to denote special qualities ……or for the units of a particular division to ID them. Just as they were originally meant to do by company.

Mighgt be useful.
#http://home.clara.net/adlermin/page17.html
L

2nd Line Inf 1812

Some other fanions:

Many thanks Prince of Essling, that is really helpful!

In the rules I use, Age of Eagles, there are only brigades, and the Brigade HQ is the colours stand. BUT, if there are more than one regiments in the brigade, I give those units a fanion on the "HQ" stand just for looks.