‘All The Emperor’s Men’ (Part 11): Reichsarmee on Parade!

The long and winding road has finally reached its destination!  As discussed in Part 10 of this series, my Reichsarmee is now FINISHED! 🙂  As the first unit was painted in or around 1997, it took me around 25 years, but in my defence, I did do other things in the meantime as well.

In terms of units and models painted, my Reichsarmee (including the attached Imperial auxiliary units) works out as 26 infantry battalions (12 figs), 15 large infantry battalions (16 figs), 4 cavalry regiments (12 figs), 1 large cavalry regiment (16 figs), 2 small cavalry regiments (6 figs), 10 batteries (1 gun & 4 crew) and 12 generals, for a grand total of 592 foot, 88 horse and 10 guns.  I’ve not counted the Austrian elements, as they do double duty with my Austrian army.

If I add the Saxon, Bavarian and Württemberg Auxiliary Corps painted during this period, that’s another 4 cavalry regiments, 20 infantry battalions and 3 generals, or 240 foot figures and 51 horse…  And I’ve run out of steel toolboxes in which to keep all this stuff…

So here’s the Grand Imperial Parade, followed by each Imperial Circle contingent on parade.  To avoid repeating myself, I won’t go into detail regarding uniforms and organisation.  Instead, I’ll link each unit name back to the page where they were featured.  Note however, that I buggered up the photos of the Swabian and Franconian contingents, so had to re-shoot those, hence the delay.

The Electoral Rhenish District (Kurrheinischen Kreis)

From left to right below, we have the ‘Kurtrier’ Regiment, the Köln ‘Nothaft’ and ‘Wildenstein’ Regiments, the ‘Kurmainz’ Regiment and the Pfalz ‘Effern’ Regiment.  To the rear are the ‘Kurpfalz’ Cuirassiers and the massed Kurrhein grenadier companies.  In front is some artillery from Trier and Pfalz.

The Swabian District (Schwäbischen Kreis)

From left to right below are the ‘Fürstenberg/Roth’ Regiment, the ‘Alt-Württemberg’ Regiment, the ‘Baden-Durlach’ Regiment and the ‘Baden-Baden’ Regiment.  At the rear are the ‘Hohenzollern’ Cuirassiers and the ‘Württemberg Dragoons, while in front is the Swabian District Artillery Corps.  I forgot to include the Swabian grenadiers when setting up this shot!

The Franconian District (Fränkischen Kreis)

From left to right below we have the ‘Varell’ Regiment, the ‘Cronegk’ Regiment and the ‘Ferntheil/Hohenlohe’ Regiment.  At the back are the ‘Bayreuth’ Cuirassiers and the ‘Ansbach’ Dragoons.  At the front is the Franconian District Artillery Corps.  Again, I forgot to include the massed Franconian grenadier companies.

The Upper Rhenish District (Oberrheinischen Kreis)

Moving to the smaller contingents; here from left to right we have the ‘Pfalz-Zweibrücken’ Regiment and the Hessen-Darmstädt ‘Prinz Georg’ Regiment, with the massed grenadiers to the rear.  In front is the District Artillery Corps.  As mentioned in Part 10, I decided not to do the district’s ‘Nassau-Weiburg’ Regiment as a. they didn’t do any fighting and b. there was no flag information at the time (since corrected by Frédéric Aubert).

Upper Saxon District (Obersachsischen-Kreis)

As mentioned in earlier articles, the Upper Saxon District had very few resources to draw upon, thanks to the Prussian occupation of Saxony and the district’s contingent was therefore padded out at Austrian expense, with regiments from the Army of Pfalz.  In the front rank is the 2nd Battalion of the Pfalz ‘Garde zu Fuss’ Regiment, while at the rear (in red coats) is the Pfalz Leib-Dragoner-Regiment ‘Kurfürstin’.  alongside them (in white coats) is the tiny ‘Sachsen-Gotha’ Dragoon Regiment, which was actually raised in the district.  As mentioned in Part 10, I decided not to do the ‘Ernestinisch-Sachsen’ Infantry Regiment due to the lack of flag information and the fact that they only fought in one small engagement.

The Bavarian District (Kurbayernischen Kreis)

In the front rank below is the ‘Kurbayern’ Regiment and a battery of Bavarian artillery.  At the rear is the ‘Salzburg’ Regiment and the massed grenadiers.

Imperial Auxiliary Troops

Here are the three infantry regiments initially raised at Austrian expense to fight with the Austrian Army, but who were then assigned as part of the Austrian contribution to the Reichsarmee.  From left to right, these are the ‘Mainz-Lamberg’ Regiment, the ‘Blau-Würzburg’ Regiment and the ‘Rot-Würzburg’ Regiment.  At the rear are the massed grenadier companies.  They were joined by the single-battalion ‘Anhalt-Zerbst’ Regiment in 1762, but that unit saw very little (if any) action, so I decided not to include it (it was uniformed very similarly to the ‘Rot-Würzburg’ Regiment (flags unknown).  

So that’s it for the Reichsarmee!  They’ve already fought one battle (the Combat of Strehla)  en masse, but there are plenty more to come!

My apologies for the slow pace of the blog over the last two months.  This does tend to happen during the summer and this summer has been ludicrously busy for me.  The ‘good’ news is that the weather here in Wales has turned more ‘typical’ for the time of year and provided that the local internet isn’t knocked out by flooding (as per the last two summers), the pace should pick up during August, with those long-awaited game reports and some new units such as these…