"Flag(s) for Waldeck regiment" Topic

I ask this every couple of years, hoping that some new information I may have missed has been dug up in some dusty archives.

The Waldeck regiment saw quite a bit of action in the AWI. We know it was a yellow facing musketeer regiment. It is rumored to have had bearskin wearing grenadiers. Maybe not on that one, but still…
It weems like a good German regiment to have in your AWI collection.
Sadly, I have never been able to get any reliable flag information.

The closest I ever came was from an article in the Courier many years ago with flags captured in the WAS some 30 years previous. The illustrations were in black and white, with color keys.
It was an insanely complicated heraldic tablecloth. I tried to make a photocopy and color it, but couldn't stay within the lines. Besides, the borders were too thick.

Any clues?

Basically…
If you HAD to produce a semi-reliable flag for a 28mm Waldeck regiment on the tabletop, what would you use?

maybe this one ?

link

No, that's wrongly labeled. That's Brunswick von Riedesel Regiment.

John,

I've trawled through the Dutch army section of the NYPL image library in the past to see if there's any hint from the Waldeck regiments in Dutch service, but no luck.

For a "what if" option, I would start with the basic "German" design used by the HC, HH and Brunswick contingents (coloured field with white "rays" to the corners, or vice versa) and then put the arms of Waldeck in the middle, or perhaps the monogram of Friedrich Karl August.

link

link

This is another depiction of the coat of arms, but it is 19th Century, rather than 18th:-

link

I am thinking along those lines, putting those heraldic arms on a yellow field (for the facings color), and maybe putting monograms in the corners.
I actually have a (cheap!) decent printer now.
Anspach didn't follow the Prussian model for flags, so why not?

Fife and Drum has some Hessians in the pipeline, and I have all the fancy HC ones (more than I will ever "need").
I may as well get 24 when they come out and call them Waldeck.

I found this German work

link

that states to show pictures of uniforms and might have flags as well. Perhaps you could contact the seller:

Gesellschaft für Hessische Militär- und Zivilgeschichte e. V.
c/o Rainer Pfeiffer
Mina-Karcher-Platz 8
67227 Frankenthal
e-mail: jacobs.pfeiffer@t-online.de

You will need ( I don't know the extent of your German) part 1.

This source link states the Waldeck Regiment that fought in the AWI to be the 3rd Regiment Waldeck.

This link might yield, if not the right flag, one that might have been very similar:

link

Vaubanner Graphics sells a 3rd Waldeck flag for the WAS. Although I've read that might be a different regiment from the one at Pensacola, as a wargamer it's good enough for me.

Rick

@ Florida Tory

There is a lot of confusion over the numbering of the Waldeck units, and which "3rd Waldeck" actually spent the AWI in America in British service. Contrary to popular belief, it was NOT the 3rd Waldeck serving in the Dutch army at that time.

Within the Waldeck army itself, there were three infantry regiments (one only recently raised) at the outbreak of the AWI. Each of these regiments had, theoretically at least, two battalions, with the battalions being numbered consecutively throughout the army, not just within their parent regiment. So, of the two senior corps, the two battalions of the 1st Regiment – the 1st and 2nd Battalions – and the senior battalion of the 2nd Regiment – the 3rd Battalion – were in Dutch service (just to further confuse the issue, the Dutch sometimes referred to these battalions as regiments).

The battalion supplied for British service was part of the newly-raised 3rd Regiment; after the AWI it returned home and entered the normal battalion numbering sequence as the 5th Battalion, joining the 6th Battalion which had been raised in Waldeck in the intervening period. In a further bizarre twist, the 5th Battalion was subsequently also lent to the Dutch government, who sent it to garrison the Cape of Good Hope where it fought against the British when they attacked that colony in the 1790s (the Dutch having become the Batavian Republic, an ally of Revolutionary France).

@ Supercilius Maximus

Thanks for clarifying the actual provenance of the unit.

Rick

That's assuming that it is capable of being clarified.

John: I have the fourth book of those linked by Pijlie. It doesn't have an illustration of the Waldeck flag but says (without the umlauts) …

Die 4 Musketier-Kompanien des Regiments fuhrten jeweils eine Fahne, die bei der Einnahme von Pensacola 1781 von den Spaniern erbeutet wurden.
Es gibt jedoch weder Angaben zum Aussehen noch zum Verbleib. Zunachst sollten die Trophaen in Madrid sein, dann in der Kirche in Santigo de Compostela, aber beide Hinweise erwiesen sich als nicht haltbar [35]. Am 21st Januar 1783 erhielt das Regiment bei New York neue Fahnen. [36].

35: siehe hierzu: A.U.Koch [Deutsche Blaurocke], G. Davies Regimental Colors in the war of the Revolution, New York 1907.
36: HETRINA V.9. [Andy: I assume a periodical]

I can only make out that the Spanish took the one flag at Pensacola and put it in the Madrid church and as Babelfish is no longer around, I don't know anything else it says. Maybe you could contact the Madrid church?

Oh. And the illustrator does have the unit's grenadiers in fur caps with yellow bags trimmed and tasselled in silver.

Addendum: Here's the church's website. I looked through several sections but no interior photos showing any trophy flags around!
catedraldesantiago.es/es

@ andygamer,

HETRINA is an on-line list of German soldiers who served in America; it features often in Bruce Burgoyne's translations of German diaries and journals of this period.

link

I have the Gehardi Davies book somewhere, can't find it at the moment.

Of course, if the Waldeckers followed typical German (ie Prussian) practice of the time, each of the musketeer companies would have had a flag, one of which would have been a Colonel's flag.

The wiki link that Pijlie gave us suggests Austrian type flags. Of course that is for the SYW and previous.

I have read that Protestant German states followed Prussian military practice regarding flags and uniforms, and that Catholic states followed the Austrian model.
Was Waldeck Catholic, at least nominally?

The Waldeck Regiment is getting curioser and curioser.

I have rethought my flag. Why bother with a yellow background? Just print that heraldic thingie on white paper and trim to size!

SuperMax, you mentioned a monogram for FKA, but I did not see one. Should I fake it?

Here is Gherardi Davis book on line:
link

Alas! No Waldeck

Andygamer, great source!

As SM sumised, It says the regiment's four Musketier companies carried one colour each, all of which were taken by the Spaniards at Pensacola and of which neither a description nor their subsequent fate are known. Indications that the trophies were in Madrid, resp. in the church of Santiago de Compostela, both proved false. The regiment was issued new colours in New York on 21 January 1783.

The Kronoskaf reference is for the Austrian regiment of which the Prince of Waldeck was 'Inhaber' in the 1740s – so it's essentially an Austrian (Imperial) colour.

Since Waldeck was mostly Protestant, its own colours would hardly have featured the Blessed Virgin

John,

the full "quilt" coat-of-arms may not show up properly once scaled down to the centrepiece of a miniature flag. Perhaps you could use the "core" version of just Waldeck (star) and Pyrmont (cross)?

As for FKA's monogram, going by a 1783 coin he only used the crowned "F" apparently.

Incidentally, Waldeck-Pyrmont coinage from this Prince's reign also bears only the simplified arms.

I guess this is as good as it gets in terms of reconstructing the possible elements of the Waldeck-Pyrmont colours. Either put the monogram in the corners, or have it as the reverse centrepiece, with the coat-of-arms on the obverse?

Eerily reminiscent of the arms of Lord Baltimore.
And I am NOT a Ravens fan!
Being "Hessians" however, they WILL be Bad Guys.

A lot of food for thought for my flag here, and if I am wrong, it's an imagi-nation.

As long as you show the end result!

I am leaning towards this, with monograms in the corners.

However, this has the advantage of being on a white background, making it easier to print and cut to size.

This is very interesting, combining the "Or a star with eight rays Sable" with the barred lion of Hesse.
Too bad it dates from 1974.

Is the motto "Grease my palms under the table"? That sounds pretty fitting for an 18th century Imagi-Nation.

Is the motto "Grease my palms under the table"?

Yup.
"Let me kidnap a bunch of foreigners and conscript them into a regiment and send them to the wilds of America" is another rather loose, but accurate, translation.

Working on it!

Habeo Argentum nunc pugio