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"Swiss Ratings" Topic


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DevoutDavout23 Oct 2025 12:04 a.m. PST

Making all three of the Swiss. Empire rates French Swiss as "crack line." There is no entry for Spanish or British. Curious there is an entry for generic Swiss, that rates "Landwehr." None of my other rules have ratings for Swiss at all.

What are all of your opinions of the Swiss in various service. My weakest in knowledge is Spanish, outside of their generally hot potatoe'd nature in Spain, but I would think the British service Swiss would at least be of an above average quality, if the French counterparts are considered such.

Murvihill23 Oct 2025 3:52 a.m. PST

IIRC the British Swiss regiments (De Meurons and De Watteville) recruited desperately, including from the prison hulks. At one point one of them was banned from picket duty because desertions were so rife.

Frederick Supporting Member of TMP23 Oct 2025 5:59 a.m. PST

I think the British Swiss units would be usually average – De Watteville did pretty well in Italy and Spain, eventually serving pretty well in Canada where they were disbanded at war's end (and where their descendants live still) – De Meuron's combat record was as I recall a little less distinguished, interestingly also serving in Canada in the War of 1812 and at war's end disbanding with the soldiers being given land grants

Interestingly, Rue des Meurons is a street in the in the Canadian town of Saint Boniface (where, fun fact, I was born)

So I would rate those two regiments as average

Prince of Essling23 Oct 2025 1:12 p.m. PST

For the Britsish swiss the following was abridged from "From Foreign Regiments in the British Army 1793-1802 – Notes on each Corps or Regiment" by C T Atkinson. Despite the title it does cover up to the end of the Napoleonic Wars – the notes are very extensive on each unit, covering their service record etc.

Don't forget de Roll's which was the first Swiss corps taken into British service and almost the last foreign corps to be disbanded.

Lord Bentinck writing from Sicily in 1813, spoke highly of De Roll's, describing it as better than one battalion of the King's German Legion then under his command, and its record as to desertion, the curse of foreign corps, compares very favourably with those other units. In 1812, for example, when 101 men deserted from Dillon's, De Roll's only lost 18 to this cause. [Note Dillon's was an Irish regiment]

In addition it would appear that the British paid for three other Swiss units (Bachmann, Roverea & de Salis) who served in 1799/1800.

De Meuron's – of the two thousand odd men who served under the British flag, nearly a third were Swiss, with 500 Germans, nearly 300 Dutch, and 200 Alsatians. Its desertion record was far better than most of the foreign corps and would compare quite favourably with those from some British regiments.

De Watteville's – its muster rolls show a good number of Slavonic names, but very few French or Italian, and it does seem the regiment did its best to maintain its Swiss character and to avoid having its ranks filled with up with recruits from every nation. There is evidence that like other Swiss corps, it did preserve a much higher level of discipline and efficiency and trustworthiness than most of the foreign units in British service. De Watteville lost to desertion: 17 men in 1811; 26 in 1812; and 30 in 1813 (considerably less than Dillon's or the Brunswiock Oels).

A useful booklet on the Swiss in Spanish service is "Presencia suiza en la milicia española. Nº 6" PDF link Although in Spanish it does say:

" The majority of the Swiss military served Spain against the French invaders in the War of Independence. From the six Swiss regiments of the Spanish Army, only the regiment number 5 Traxler and number 6 Preux were in the service of France, although they had many deserters who joined the Spanish rebels. Those Swiss regiments had an outstanding performance during the war and fought squarely in the Spanish army like any other unit. After the war, the Swiss regiments began disappearing. In 1823, they ended their employment in the Spanish army. Then three Swiss regiments were restored in 1824 and finally, in 1841, they were dissolved."

The entry for generic Swiss, that rates "Landwehr" is I believe for the units of the Swiss Confederation Army (probably a bit harsh in my view).

robert piepenbrink Supporting Member of TMP23 Oct 2025 5:29 p.m. PST

I think the point is fair that the "French" Swiss are contract troops, able to replace losses from the cantons. The "British" Swiss have to make up their losses with POWs and deserters, and this is true after 1808 of the "Spanish" Swiss as well.

The British Swiss saw less combat than some, which makes them harder to rate. (I do NOT accept desertion rates as a proxy for combat potential. By that standard, the worst regiments in the British Army are whatever is stationed near the Canadian frontier, and the Continentals and Confederates could hardly be rated as soldiers.)

Agree that the generic Swiss would be cantonal militia units, and at that point ratings become entirely speculative. Might depend on who was invading. With all respect to the Prince of Essling, in the absence of actual combat performance, Prussian Landwehr might be a reasonable approximation. Say the post-Armistice Landwehr, when there had been time to drill and equipment to issue--not the raw levies of spring 1813 or the hardened veterans of the 1814 Campaign.

Cacadoress24 Oct 2025 8:12 a.m. PST

Well impressive comments from Prince of Essling and robert piepenbrink .

Prince of Essling24 Oct 2025 9:54 a.m. PST

@ robert piepenbrink,

My post was not trying to imply good combat performance because of low desertion rates – it was merely to point out how relatively low desertions were from the units.

Will see if I can pull togther the appropriate pages for each of the units for download.

Ian

robert piepenbrink Supporting Member of TMP24 Oct 2025 2:57 p.m. PST

Thank you, Ian. You are a man of great resource(s). And it's certainly true that it's much easier to maintain a standard of drill if you aren't continually having to train up replacements. (I once heard a US Army division commander speak with some feeling on the subject. Not much I could say: I'd already put myself in for overseas levy to escape his unit.)

Prince of Essling24 Oct 2025 3:26 p.m. PST

I have now uploaded a file to Media Fire titled "Swiss in British Service". It covers de Meuron, de Roll, de Watteville & the Swiss Levies. Download from link

Murvihill25 Oct 2025 4:40 a.m. PST

Thanks for providing accurate information guys, it's been decades since I did any research on it. Painted two of the British regiments, de Rolls and Dillons.

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