Sunday, January 2, 2011

The Landwehr Collection, Part 1: Inner Austria

Although I already owned a substantial Austrian army for 1809 (mostly Minifigs from 30 years back), one of the things the 1809 project required a was a substantial number of Landwehr, Volunteer, Insurrectio, and other non regulation troop types. I had quite a lot of fun with these. The flags for the units were based on descriptions and/or provincial/city coats of arms. I've probably been a bit bold with the designs, giving some of them an almost Renaissance feel, but I like the resultant effect.



These Carinthian Landwehr wear the "regulation" dark green coats of the Inner Austrian Landwehr, with the red facings that indicate Carinthia (Karniten). The flag bears the coat of arms of Carinthia on one side...
 and the Imperial Double Eagle on the other. Presumably, retired old model Ordinarfahnen were used as the basis for many Landwehr flags.



Next is the Landwehr of Carniola; once again they wear the dark green coats of Inner Austrian Landwehr, but this time with the light blue facings of Carniola (Krain).


 Although a bit obscured by the fold in the flag, the emblem is the Blue Eagle of Krain.

** update June 28, 2012: see comment by AK-8 below, who actually resides in Carniola, which includes a nice link to graphic of the heraldic Blue Eagle that can be used to make your own flag - prior to the 1840's, the background should be yellow ("or", in heraldic terms) rather than white, so this flag should really have the Eagle on a yellow field instead of a white one. **




Next we have one of the 4 Landwehr battalions raised in Salzburg, City of Mozart. The Salzburg Landwehr were noted to be particularly ill equipped, hence only the "Land" or 1st/staff company is wearing the regulation dark green Inner Austrian Landwehr coats, the rest of the men are in grey peasant smocks, although both have the Yellow facings assigned to Salzburg. 


Not a good photo, but again the flag bears the coat of arms appropriate to the unit, in this case those of the city of Salzburg. These guys fought like tigers in their first wargames battle, the initial playtest of Aspen-Essling


Concluding the Inner Austrian segment of our Landwehr Collection, here is the 1st battalion, Styrian Landwehr. The image here is of a local Saint, which was usual for Stryian flags.


The Styrians wear white facings on their dark green Inner Austrian coats. Again not a good picture, but this side of the flag has the heraldic White Panther of Styria; the border has dark green flames reminiscent of the Line standards. Can't you just hear Inspector Klussnach saying "I am Styrian, NOT Austrian!"


All of these 28mm figures are by Old Glory. Next time - Upper and Lower Austrian Landwehr.

10 comments:

  1. Very nice Peter - I look forward to reading your blog moving forward!

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  2. Hi Peter

    Interesting. Look forward to future content.

    Cheers
    Gary

    sgtsteiner.blogspot.com/

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  3. Thanks, guys. I hope you continue to enjoy it!

    -Peter

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  4. Wow this is amazing man. I am from Carniola. Were Carniolian troops realy wearing green coats? I mean is it historical?

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    1. Welcome! The green coats (for the Landwehr only, of course) were what was set down in the *regulation*. It is very likely that most of the officers wore them, and probably the men of the first or "land" company. As for the rest of the men, dolubtless it was a mixed bag, some in green faced light blue, some in grey, maybe with light blue facings, and probably some with whatever clothes they had on their backs!

      There are some great contemporary prints here, and they certainly do show the green coats along others:
      http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/Austria/Landwehr/c_Eder.html

      I have a good freind who lives in Dresden, and, knowing of my interests, when he visited Salzburg he sent me pictures from the small local military museum there, and it included one of the 1809 Salzburg landwehr uniforms,and they were the grey faced yellow as described above.

      Why don't you try poking around there in Krain, and see what you can find locally, and get back to us? That would be awesome!

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  5. Hey thanks for info. Interesting indeed. I see Austro-Hun. Landwehr is basicaly called domobranstvo in slovene but it should not be confused with WWII domobranstvo which has totaly different historical context.

    Yeah i'll do some research and if i find anything i will be glad to contribute. In any case i know one thing. Colours of Carniolan land CoA was from 1463 onwards "golden" backgrounds and blue eagle. What your Carniolans wear is post 1848 CoA colours altho officialy colours were to be changed in 1836 that didnt happen becouse Carniolan land nobility objected the move. So pre-1848 CoA was most oftenly shown like this altho there were sometimes exceptions;

    http://www.grboslovje.si/Slike/friderik3grb1463.gif

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  6. Thanks for the information/correction and the link - the Slovenian Heraldry site looked fascinating. My browser claimed to be able to translate Slovenian, but when I asked it to do that (realizing the likely results would be barely decipherable hash), it just said "transalting", without ever producing results - perhaps engaging a human, LOL!

    Anyway, interchanges like this (and the ones related to my Vistula Legion post) are great examples of the benefits of the connectivity made possible by the internet.

    For what it's worth, here's the battalions that were raised in Carniola (Krain).. or at least *ordered* to be raised:

    Laibach - 3 Battalions
    Gorz - 2 Battalions
    Adelsberg - 4 Battalions
    Neustatd - 4 Battalions
    Trieste - 2 Battalions

    What are these place names now in modern Slovenian?

    Peter

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    1. To bad that site dosent have english variant. It has some realy cool info. I like this collection of Inner Austrian CoA's + two Hungarian land CoA's.

      http://www.grboslovje.si/arhivuvod.php

      Just klik on each crown land and collection of CoA's from that land will be shown. Anyway here it is Slovene names;

      Laibach (slo. Ljubljana) - 3 Battalions
      Gorz (slo. Gorica) - 2 Battalions
      Adelsberg (slo. Postojna) - 4 Battalions
      Neustatd (slo. Novo mesto) - 4 Battalions
      Trieste (slo. Trst) - 2 Battalions

      Gorica is in Italy on the border with Slovenia both Italian name Gorizia and German Görz are derivations of Slovene name Gorica which means hill or "up-place"

      Trst is in Italy too. Unlike Gorica city itself was always traditionaly Italian speaking (infact before Venetian influence they spoke a special dialect of Friulian) but all villages around are Slovene so many soliders in Trieste battalion were Slovenes.

      In any case soliders from Carniola always called themself Krajnski Janezi (Carniolan John's). So your Carniolan troops are Krajnski Janezi!!! ;D

      That is becouse name Janez was so widespread in Carniola. German name Krain is translation of archaic Slovene name Krajnska but over time letter j was put after letter n so now it is called Kranjska. Infact up to 19th century people still said Krajnska. Kraj-nska itself derives from word kraj which means place(or area and suffix -ska is typical for Slavic languages.

      Heh i got to far with this it is not language site after all. Sorry i offten go little off topic. I will be lurking for more info and not just Carniola i am interested in all of Inner Austria. ;D

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    2. The coats of arms are great! I liked the language lesson as well; I find the derivation of words and the evolution of languages fascinating. I can handle basic German and Spanish for languages, and read a little French, but that's about it. Trieste on the Adriatic is a pretty well known location, but the other larger cities and towns of Kranjska, definitely not.

      "Carniolan Johns" plays a bit funny in English, "John" also being slang for, among other things, the male client of a prostitute, LOL!

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    3. Hahahha for John slang! XD Thanks man no problem. During Napoleons time most important Carniolan towns were definetly Ljubljana, Kranj, Novo Mesto, Postojna, Kamnik and maybe Idrija. I will report if i find anything else! ;D

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