"A flag for the Garde Soldee d'Amsterdam?" Topic

I'm painting some 25mm Prince August Napoleonic Frence infantry to look like the chap on the left, here:

I can't find any information about a flag for the Garde Soldee d'Amsterdam, starting with whether they were issued one at all. I'm guessing an eagle, etc. was out of the question, but I'm tempted to use one of these flags specific to the City of Amsterdam – after all, this unit was created to guard/garrison that city – from this site:

link

Such as one of these three:

Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Well the ones with the Royal Dutch arms would be out as the Netherlands was part of France in 1812- sorry I can't be more helpful than that

link Translation using Bing translator – so not totally coherent – clearly need to view the decree shown below as that is likely to demonstrate whther a flag was issued officially:

Introduction
Under the ' Soldée ' means the salaried Guard guard, stationed in Amsterdam 1812-1813, which was available by the Mayor of Amsterdam.

Origins and organization
In February 1812 was initiated with the creation of the Garde Soldée under the Imperial Decree of 22 October 1811. Soldée the Guard consisted of two battalions of infantry and a squadron of cavalry. On 1 April 1812 took the Guard Soldée the tasks and the men of the Urban Nachtwachts.

The Council of administration of the Garde Soldée consisted of 1 president, 1 Secretary and 1 member, namely:

W.J. Valente of the great Lindt, president; Captain J.C. Saha, Secretary; Colonel Saleh, captains Saeed and Staedel, members.

The Council shall carry out the work include the minutes of the meetings of the Board, keeping the regulations, management of ingested individual documents of the military, the military-staff Administration and finally the hospital administration.

The Secretary Captain J.C. Saha was in charge of financial administration in his quality as kwartiermaker Treasurer. Among other things, was kept by him, the current account with the Court of Auditors/municipality-recipient of Amsterdam and the Ministry of war.

During the rotation in november 1813 were the missing members of the Garde Soldée welded itself before 21 december 1813 at the Captain J.C. Saha.

With the liquidation of the Garde Soldée was the said Captain J.C. Saha, who on 12 December 1815 the archive to the Chief of the Court of Auditors of the Treasury of Amsterdam.

Organisation of the archive
About 1935 was by a volunteer, started with the merger of different archives, including those of the Garde Soldée, standing in the depot of the municipal archive service, amsteldijk 67, which under the title of ' the archives of the armed citizen power in Amsterdam ' by him would be enumerated. To include the creation of an inventory is not come. However, the works were in such a stage that the illumination of the archives on the Garde Soldée from the ' archive ' a far from simple task. In identifying the Secretary Department of military affairs 1810-1861 was the ' archive ' are dismounted, and the modest to the original archives.
In 1965 was the provisional inventory of the archives of the Garde Soldée 1812-1815 manufactured.

The system of planning was based on the original departments, namely the Council of administration and the financial records of Captain J.C. Saha, the layout corresponded to the imposed tasks.

The total size of the archive amounts to 2.5 linear metres.
Archive makers

The numbers behind the archive makers refer to the corresponding inventory part or inventory number. By clicking on it opens the inventory on that part or number.
Commission of the armed civilian Guard's Finances: 19 (1797-1814), 20 (1812-1813), 21 (1812-1813), 22 (1812-1813), 23 (1812), 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
Garde Soldà © E: 1, 1.1, 1.4, 10 (1810-1813), 11 (1700-1812), 12 (1812), 13 (1812-1813), 14 (1808-1813), 15 (1812), 16-17 (1812-1813), 18 (1813), 2, 3 (1807), 31, 32, 33, 34-43 (1812-1813), 4 (1812), 44 (1812-1813), 45-46 (1812-1813), 47-48 (1812-1813), 49 (1812-1813), 5 (1812), 6 (1812), 7 (1810-1813), 8 (1812-1813), 9 (1811-1813)
The Soldée

Yes so much translated gibberish isn't it?
Looks like a 'recruited and paid' Civic Guard to replace so many missing 'volunteers' or militia of previous years as enthusiasm waned.

For safety and control at public government buildings but hardly a police or military force of any kind.

So a city flag would be appropriate.
Regards d

Thanks for the comments, folks.

Prince of Essling – when first researching the unit, I found this, from Journal de l'Empire, 29 Octobre 1811, p. 3:

link

Translated by The Google:

Ninth Oecret Until the organization of the National Guard in Holland has been provided, it will be maintained on the foot where it is today. There will be established on January 1, 1812 a guard to service in our good city of Amsterdam. The National Guard will be called upon to do the service only in the event of insufficiency of the paid guard. The Guardian of Amsterdam will consist of two battalions and one squadron. Each battalion will be composed of four companies each consisting of 1400 men. The squadron will be consisting of a captain a lieutenant two sous lieutenans a marshals lodge chief four marshals of lodgings a quartermaster eight brigadiers ninety guards on horseback and two trumpets

You can see the original here: link

My French is almost non-existent, but I gather that the foregoing is a summary of a decree issued in October of 1811. Nothing about a flag.

Still, I'm leaning toward the first or third examples above.

Or as an outside choice possibly go for a version of the Garde Nationale flag: link

I doubt seriously for a city flag

it is a Dutch cousin of the Parisian municipal Guard than anything else,

e.g. the (permanent) Amsterdan Guard had Dutch conscripts and was considered as any others permanent forces under 17e Division Militaire, the Guard (numbered only 404 and 411 men for both battalions more 109 cavalrymen) welcomed the Allies in november 1813 instead of fought them

the same fate as the Parisian Guard after Malet attempted coup d'état was reserved to the dutch-sister guard, to be disbanded and replaced by the Gendarmerie but it was too late…

This is the button on their uniform. The arms are those of Amsterdam at that time. If they had a colour with the arms of the city these would have been the arms on it.

link

is a link to the arms of Amsterdam in 1812 after Amsterdam became the third city of the empire

That button, and Brownand's link, are the most suggestive finds I've seen yet. Thank you very much!

Lilian, I'm under no illusions as to their utility as a fighting force. The challenge with Prince August figures is finding French or allied units to paint that aren't elite but still wear epaulets (all Prince August French infantry molds produce figures with epaulets). This unit definitely would not be elite! I'll probably rate them conscript/levy in my games. (And I enjoy doing the research to find non-elite units that'll work with these molds.)

Maybe one suggestion, on the site of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam there are flags of civic militia regiments of the 18th century
see link
this is the blue regiment; there were also green, yellow and red.
Maybe this tradition was used for the later garde soldee although the red, white, blue was omitted?

Maybe adding some text in gold (eg for the first battalion):

Stad Amsterdam

Garde soldée

1e Bataljon

Brownand, an excellent suggestion – thank you. If I can find a device similar to the button or your earlier link, I could make this work.

I really appreciate all of the replies – I've learned more about the Garde Soldee than I'd anticipated.