"French Standards late Peninsula" Topic

Hello,

I am trying to identify when french units would have switched over to the 1812 standards in the Peninsula. Spainish units notoriously being low on the supply list (white uniforms and bicornes being mentioned by Suchet in 1809 etc.). Would Salamanca be logical? Vittoria? Does anyone have a record of captured standards?

Thanks

Salamanca, being in 1812 and thus the year of change, would probably be all the old 'lozenge' style. Vittoria, being a year later could have seen some tricolours. However, it is quite possible that the old pattern was there to the end of the campaign. The eagle was the important part of the standard with the flag simply to identify the unit. Therefore, there may not have been much of an impetus for a far-flung part of the French army to go through the rigmarole of creating and changing the flag. The eagle was already there, the Emperor was unlikely to be inspecting soon, so why bother? (The French army was notorious for ignoring regulations and the further from Paris you were, the more it happened.) The new pattern would be likely to be seen in any reinforcing units coming to Spain in 1813 but these were few and far between due to the need for troops in Russia and then Germany.

In summary, my take on it is that up to Vittoria and the throwing of the French out of Spain, the flags would be old pattern. However, when Soult came back, you might see more and more of the new pattern appearing having been obtained during the hiatus in southern France.

Hope that is useful.

The eagles captured at Salamanca did not have flags attached to them, which according to Charrie was common. The other thing relating to Salamanca is that alongside the two eagles, two plain fanions were also taken, one green (5th Battalion) and one white (2nd Battalion). These were decreed in 1811 and, although Charrie believed that no official fanions made it into Spain, those taken at Salamanca suggest that local manufacture happened under the colonel's direction. As a final point Napoleon reduced the number of Eagles to one per brigade in 1813. For more on this see my chapter 'Maucune's division at Salamanca' in Helion's 'Glory is Fleeting'.