Race ensign
The racing ensign (Cornet, military) carried the flag of the entourage of a mercenary army . In the military he was subordinate to the trosswebel .
Historical background
In each Landsknechtsfähnlein a field woman appointed by the colonel supervised the other lower ranks . The "Feldweybel" or "Feldweibel" appears for the first time as a sergeant of the Landsknechte. There were also "Troßweibel", "Hurenweibel" and " Gemeinweibel ", who were entrusted with separate areas of responsibility. The word "Weibel" is derived with the agent suffix '-el' from the Old High German verb Weibōn "drift around". The Feldweibel was responsible for aligning (military approach in exact line) of the soldiers by walking up and down in front of the front. On the march, the field woman regulated the speed of movement of the troops: like the loom he hurried back and forth, on the one hand to prevent the top of the column from rushing ahead too quickly and on the other hand to encourage slow stragglers. The sergeant has been retained as a military rank to this day , see more there.
example
During a small battle shortly before the Battle of Mount Harsány in August 1687, Karl von Lorraine-Commercy's personal company lost its standard. This incident inspired Commercy to do something that was cited in many books as a model of soldiery virtues up until the 19th century.
"Immediately afterwards, on the great day of Mohacz, Aug. 12, 1687, Commercy saw himself a Turk, superbly mounted, caracolling up and down in front of the front, and defiantly waving his copi and flapping it, challenging some Christian knight the white flag attached to it. Angry at the beginning of the Turks, Commercy asked the Duke of Lorraine to leave, to tie up with the Turks and to win a new standard for his regiment. He asked so persistently and so urgently that at last the duke had to consent. Commercy rushed forward and fired his pistol at the Turk. The shot was missing, and the enemy, taking his advantage, ran the prince the copi through the thin side. Then the latter first reached into the copi with his left hand so that the Turk would not pull it back, from the right he threw the pistol, at the same time grasping the pallash hanging on it, and with one blow he fell the Turk's head. Thereupon he pulled the bloody flag from the side to present it to the Duke of Lorraine, but then to hand it over to the cornet of his body comapgnie. He should, he told Cornet, keep this standard better than the previous one, it cost him his own blood. "
Individual evidence
- ^ For example: Dictionnaire historique d'éducation , Amable Costes, Paris 1818, Vol. 1, pp. 343-344; Johann Friedrich Kepner: Acts and character traits of famous Austrian generals , Verlag Degen, Vienna 1808, vol. 1, p. 350; N. Wanostrocht: Recueil choisi de traits historiques et de contes moraux . Guillaume Tegg, London 1867, pp. 150-152.
- ↑ JS Verlag, JG Gruber (Ed.): General Encyclopedia of Science and Arts, First Section. AG. Thirty-third part . FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1840, pp. 120–122.