In response to a question from our friend "Motorway" from the "Anno Domini 1672" blog, I felt his question deserved more than just a simple answer, and that others may have some interest as well.
Unfortunately, the Dutch Army of William of Orange's period, specifically during the Franco-Dutch War of 1672, is not very well documented, either in print or online. The French are much better documented, both in artwork and in print, and the British in print, with some online sources as already published here. I can find very little about the warlike Bishop of Münster, except for historical abstracts about his campaign and alliances. Material that you've probably already found.
The plate above is taken from the VAE VICTUS web site's page on the Dutch Wars, a Google translation of which appears here, and does give several flags and uniform details, but many of them are from the later period. Whether they are accurate or not for the 1672 period I cannot say, but they might be a good starting point.
I did find the following two commercial source items on the On Military Matters web site; one in print from Sapherson, the other a CD by Robert Hall and distributed by Dan Schorr:
1-19660 Sapherson, C.A. DUTCH ARMY OF WILLIAM III, THE Covers the Army of the Netherland and subsidiarytroops, b/w illust of flags & standards, biblio.1 vol, 80 pgs 2003 HOPEWELL, OMM PUBLISHING
NEW-softcover ......$12.00
1-74840 Belaube, Jean & Claus-Peter Goldberg, DUTCH ARMY 1701-1714 CD contains text along with b/w & color images.1 vol, 1 pgs 2001 US, DAN SCHORR
NEW-CD ......$25.00
Again, both of these are for a later period but may give good starting points. You might also try the KMLA web site on Dutch History for their page on the Franco-Dutch Wars, which does include some external links, here.
Also, while they deal more with the League of Augsburg, its worth checking out the painted figure galleries on Angus Konstam's Edinburgh Wargamer's site of his LoA Dutch Army, here, Or on Barry Hilton's League of Augsburg site for his painted Dutch, here. They don't share their sources, but I would suspect that Sapherson and Hall were included. Very nice painted troops and a lot of fun viewing them though. Sorry I can't offer more help at this time. Have you contacted the Dutch Royal Army Museum to see if they offer any printed resources?
Bill
Dear Bill,
ReplyDeleteIndeed, I am familiar with all of the resources you have posted, and yes I have asked the dutch army museum to help me out.
It's a good idea to post them again of course.
Apart from the excellent book of Belaubre there isn't a coherent book on the Dutch of the period 1672-1688, and even Belaubre admits that there are gaps. Period paintings, like the one on the siege of Coevorden supply some info, but a lot is fragmentary. I just found out that the Dutch Army museum has a copy of the 'Triomphes de Louis XIV' (well, actually a copy of it by a dutch artist) so I guess it's up to Delft for the flags!
In the mid 1670's William ordered that regiments should be clothed uniform, but it is unclear if the colonels actually followed that.
Blimey!! Two cracking posts in less than 24 hours Sir William!
ReplyDelete..because of my specific period of interest all my links refer to the later War of the Spanish Succession period but as a backup to the (excellent!) plate from Vae Victis I'd add this to help a partial translation of the numbers in the plate??
http://www.spanishsuccession.nl/maps/fotpag_dutch_infantry.html
My favourite site though is this one:
http://www.milwiki.nl/dutchregiments/
A kind of Dutch verion of the old "Regiments.Org" British Army site..
Motorway - Have you seen this thread on Barry's "Fighting Talk Forum" ragrding Dutch Flags of the Dutch Wars? It has a pretty detailed answer by "Mats", whom you recently had some discussion with I believe.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.leagueofaugsburg.com/fightingtalk/viewtopic.php?t=1771
Steve - excellent links, thank you! And thank you for the comments as well, they are appreciated.
Bill
Motorway - That strange word should obviously be "regarding", I can't even type anymore without a spellchecker!
ReplyDeleteSir William the (feeling very) Aged
Hi !
ReplyDeleteI've known J.Belaubre in Paris, we have played together wargame on 1970 years and I have his plates (great and big docs) made with CP.GolDBERG and FG De WILDE about Louis XIV's ennemies. The pictures of uniforms above from vae victis does not give accurate infos on the era. Many regts change their facing colours or basic one between 1672 and 1702.
The best sources on this period for Alliance and French army are (as you said) the plates and books made by R.Hall (source = from late P.Fouré for the infantry, a friend of myne on 1970s , ) GoldBerg and Belaubre for Palatinat, United Provinces and Imperials troups.(including brunswick and others states). A smaller but interesting book in two parts (but without flags) is the malburian from CS Grant (Caliver books).