His Britannic Majesty’s Army in Germany

While placing the finishing touches to my map for the Northern campaign 1812 the list of projects has swung back like a pendulum to the Seven Years War. With the French army complete and organized as per order of battle for Hastenbeck I decided to work on the opposition.

One problem here, with the exception of the Duke of Cumberland there were no British present at the Battle of Hastenbeck. It was not until later in the war, that the British arrived in sufficient numbers. Even the British force at the Battle of Minden were small compared to the later battles of 1761. This left the German allies of Hannover, Brunswick and Hessen-Kassel to carry the weight of the early campaigns against the French.

Looking at my collection, I divided this into three parcels, one British, the second would become the troops of Hannover and lastly those for Hessen-Kassel. The British would have enough elements for a big battle game and Vellinghausen (1761) worked quite well. This turned out to be 13 horse, 17 foot, 3 cannon and 3 generals.

The following order of battle was taken from BritishBattles.com with description and map: Vellinghausen. 

  

Horse

Royal Horse Guards (3), King’s Dragoon Guards (3), 2nd Dragoon Guards, 3rd Dragoon Guards, the Carabineers, 7th Dragoon Guards; now the Royal Dragoon Guards.

Dragoons

1st Royal Dragoons, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, 2nd Dragoons, 7th Dragoons, 10th Dragoons, 11th Dragoons, 15th Light Dragoons (3).

Royal Artillery.

Guards

First Guards, Coldstream Guards, and the third Guards.

Infantry

5th Foot, 8th Foot, 11th Foot, 12th Foot, 20th Foot, 23rd Foot, 24th Foot, 25th Foot, 33rd Foot, 37th Foot, 50th Foot, 51st Foot, Welsh and Maxwell's converged grenadiers.

Auxiliaries

87th Highlanders and 88th Highlanders,

Total strength: 29 sqds. 17 bns.

Useful online references for the British

Kronoskaf.com/British army

NYPL/Britain

Warflag.com/British flags

Drapeaux de Frederic Aubert  

A final note.

During the Seven Years War, permanent organizations such as Corps and Division were not known. Units were grouped by brigades and the army under Ferdinand of Brunswick distributed the British infantry and cavalry brigades among his generals, with a number having troops from Hannover, Brunswick, Hessen and Britain.

The following list for the Battle of Vellinghausen is taken from Colonel H.C.B. Rogers’ book, the British Army of the Eighteenth Century.

Commander: Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick

The Erbprinz of Brunswick, four large brigades of Hanoverian infantry, cavalry and artillery.

General Conway, two British brigades of infantry and one of cavalry.

General Howard, one each brigade of British infantry and cavalry, two German battalions, British and Hanoverian artillery.

General Prinz von Anhalt, three infantry brigades (Hessian, Brunswick and Hanoverian) and a British cavalry brigade.

General von Watgineau, two infantry brigades of Hessian, Brunswick and Hanoverian troops and a Hanoverian and Brunswick cavalry brigade.

General the Marquis of Granby, a number of infantry and cavalry brigades composed of British, Brunswick, Hanoverian, Prussian, Hessian and British “foreign legion” troops.

For the DBA player, this would mean a multinational army without separate “allied” commands.

Next

The German Allies - Hannover