INTRODUCTION

This page is devoted to the flags, standards and guidons of various Napoleonic armies. There are so many websites offering flags these days, but they all seem to cover the same nations and miss out others -usually the ones that are either un-profitable in terms of the amount of work put in for the number of players likely to want those flags, or simply because too little seems to be known about them to produce decent facsimiles. Most aspects, as I said, are adequately covered elsewhere

These little known aspects aren't necessarily for the lesser know nations but for aspects of major players. For instance, little is available covering the whole range of British flags in terms of regular infantry, cavalry and especially the yeomanry, militia, volunteers, associations and fencibles. Once you start delving into the subject, it's amazing just how much information there is out there. There seem to be, for instance, flags available for the regiments that fought in the Peninsula and in the 100 days campaign, but few of those who were in neither. Like wise, little is known about the flags of the numerous landwehr, volunteer, Insurrectio and freikorps of the Austrian KuK or the opolchenie and irregular forces of Imperial Russia. I hope to cover these and others on this page.

Many military units - most, so I believe- despite having no "official" standard or colours, carried "flags" of an unofficial nature as a matter of efficiency -requiring a symbol upon which to rally- or as a symbol of local pride, to indicate that that particular town or region was "doing it's bit" in the nations time of need. Some of these, if you take the British auxiliaries for example, were far more elaborate than their regular (and regulated) counterparts and were often created by officer's' wives, proud town corporations etc. and as such were highly individual and meaningful to the unit to which they belonged. I believe that this urge to have a symbol around which corps pride could be accrued and rallying -even if it was only for camp purposes, was so strong that even the "battalions of detachments" formed by Wellington carried them -though only one each, just to differentiate them from regimental "colours." I shall add more thoughts on this subject as the page expands. All the flags on here are as accurate as the information I have found allows. They have been drawn using Paint.net

British Yeomanry Flags and Guidons

Yeomanry Cavalry Guidons and Flags

Foreign Units in British Service

This list is far from complete

Colours Of Regular Line Regiments

Hannoverian flags

There is some contention as to what the Hannoverian colours were like in 1815, or even if they actually carried any. These are the designs I have found. They would most definitely NOT carried a "Kings" colour with an all over Union flag, but most likely a white colour bearing the arms of the Elector of Hannover, King George. Each regiment consisted of 1 field and 3 Landwehr battalions, each of which carried individual colours.

Danish Flags

Some sources depict Danish colours as being the hearts and lion arms of Jutland on fields of varying colours. They should have the arms of the province in which they were raised rather than those of Jutland.

The image below shows how my designs for the Hussar standard changed as I gained more information. The correct, final version is the one in the cavalry standards image, but I still like these two!

The second of these images is the same as the first except for the variant on the colour for the Marine regiment which shows their ship arms instead of that of Jutland.

Swedish Colours

Russian Cossack and Opolchenie Flags

Again, not a complete list -far from it. I'll add others as and when I find them.

Flags of the Austro-Hungarian Auxiliary units of the KuK

    As I mentioned earlier, most units, whether officially allowed them or not, carried some form of flag as a rallying point, method of recognition or a symbol of local pride. The auxiliary units of the KuK -landwehr, volunteers, freikorps, insurrectio, etc. were no different. Officially, they were supposed to carry old standards from regular units and/or a regional flag showing the Austrian eagle on one side and the regional coat of arms on the other. I did these some time ago, but did them quite small. I've changed the progreamme I use to do them now so I will be updating them at some point.

Besides these, or as replacements for them, the unofficial flags were usually the regional arms on one side with the local arms, a local saint or patriotic symbol on the other. These designs were on a field of the regional facing colour, or occasionally on a field of the local regular regiment's facing colour. Several sources show the flags bearing  an inscription of the unit designation in abbreviated form in a box in the upper staff corners.  

The Army of Mysore

Sikh Flags

Rajput Flags

Mewari Flags

Mughal Banners

Jaipur, Udaipur, Lahore.

Mahratta Flags

Hyderabad

Flags of the Nizam of Hyderabad's French Corps

Flags of the "Honourable" East India Company

These flags are for the 3 Presidencies of the HEIC, Calcutta, Bengal and Bombay. They go back as far as the 1750s (the earliest information available, and up to the end of the Regency period, which is the end of my area of interest.