Walcourt, 1689 - Deciphering the Tillroy List - Part 1: Horse

Dutch newspaper about the Battle of Walcourt

What's in a name?

Recently, I was doing some online research about the Battle of Walcourt, which took place on August 25th, 1689, trying to find an order of battle in order to set up a wargame. However, none of the information I sought was readily available, and I still have found no detailed order of battle online. So, I resolved to roll up my sleeves and compile an order of battle myself, and then had the idea to post the results of this research here, in case anyone comes searching for this same information. I hope this can be an accurate contribution to what can be found easily online about this inconclusive battle in an inconclusive war, noted for little else other than that it was Marlborough's first significant command on the continent, and the first taste of combat for the British Army against a European foe.

My first breakthrough was finding a large document online called "Army of Flanders Commentary," and I soon realized that it was connected to a wargame published by Red Sash Games, compiled by Ian Weir. At first I thought this document may have been pirated, but then discovered that all of his commentaries are readily available online: https://redsashgames.com/resources.html. He gave almost a complete order of battle for the French army, and this is what he has to say about the composition of the Allied army at Walcourt:

"The army consisted of Dutch, English, Brunswick, and Brandenburg units, totalling 35 battalions and 60 squadrons, less the odd unit that might have been detached – 28,800 (Childs) or 35,000 (Lynn) men in all. The bulk of the cavalry was Dutch (12 horse and 1 dragoon regiment), with 3 Brunswicker (Lüneburg and Wolfenbüttel), 1 Saxe-Gotha, 3 Württemberg, and 2 English regiments (the Blues and a squadron of Lifeguards). The infantry consisted of 16 battalions of Dutch, 10 English, 3 Brandenburg, and 5 Brunswick (Lüneburg, Wolfenbüttel, and Hanover)." (page 42)

This was perfect, because information about the English regiments is easy enough to find, and I could roughly identify all the Dutch units from C. A. Sapherson's Dutch Army of William III. However, combing through this resource, I discovered my most important source of all: A list of our army as it was drawn up at Tillroy Camp. This is a complete order of battle compiled by an English officer when the army was camped at Montignies-le-Tilleul a week before the battle. However, just as Tilleul is corrupted to Tillroy, many of the names of the regiments in the list are spelled in wildly different ways. Now, it would be unreasonable to demand standard spelling of an author more than 300 years ago, but nevertheless as I was working through the document and trying to identify each regiment, I found that several nationalities had been misidentified, and perhaps even two regiments of cavalry misidentified as foot. What follows is my best identification of each unit in the Tillroy list, starting with the cavalry:

Dutch Horse

Original Spelling	Probable Unit	Coat/Lining	Size
Morewitt	Marwits Dragoons	Red/white	350
Prince Waldeck	Waldeck	Grey/red	300
Obdam	Obdam	Grey/scarlet	300
Min Heer Benting	Bentinck	White/blue	300
Lt. Col. Webingha	Weybnom	White/blue	400
Prince Nassaw	Nassau-Friesland	Blue/red	300
Baron de Hay	Heyden	White/red	300
Baron de Guistle	Ryswijk	White/white	300
Count Flodorp	Flodorff	White/red	350
Grafton Nassaw	Nassau-Saarbrucken	Red/red	300
Nassaw	Nassau-Zuylenstein	White/white	300
Count Tilly	Tilly	White/white	7001

Subsidy Horse2

Original Spelling	Probable Unit	Coat/Lining	Size
Erff	1st Württemberg3	White/green	300
Holston	2nd Wurttemberg4	White/blue	300
Wittenburgh	3rd Württemberg5	White/red	300
Baron de Saxon	Saxe-Gotha	Red/pink	300
Wattlebrook	Weilburg6	White/white	350
Count Bullengburg	Lippe Dragoons7	Red/white	300
Craw	Crage8	Blue/blue	350
Brankea	Brendecke9	Blue/blue	350
Frank	Franck Dragoons9	White/red	480
Overstbrang	Branke?10	Grey/blue	400
Baron de Hinds	Spaen?11	White/green	300
De Hull	Du Hamel12	Blue/red	780

English Horse

Original Spelling	Probable Unit	Coat/Lining	Size
Duke of Ormond	2nd Troop of Lifeguards	Red/blue	26013
Oxford	Royal Regiment of Horse	White/scarlet	40014

Spanish Horse

Original Spelling	Probable Unit	Coat/Lining	Size
Count Dedamont.	D’Audemont	White/blue	300
Don Quan Degusti.	de Gusti?15	White/white	300
Monsieur Bay.	Bay	White/white	300
Don Martin de Corduva.	Cordova	White/white	300
Dumong.	Dumont	White/white	350
Monduboy.	du Puis	White/white	350
Pettincore.	Bethencourt	White/white	350
Overstrake	Ranck?16	White/white	400

Notes

1. The Tillroy list identifies this regiment as infantry, but the only regiment I find in 1689 named Tilly is cavalry. Therefore I make the assumption that the author was mistaken, though I did not change the number of men the author lists. However, if this unit is Tilly, it should be a standard 6 company/2 squadron regiment with 350-400 men.
2. Subsidy troops were raised by the German Protestant powers, but hired out and fighting under mainly Dutch (some Spanish) pay.
3. Commanded by Herman Frederik von Erffa.
4. Tentative identification, based on the regiment being commanded by Hans Adolf, Herzog von Holstein-Plon in 1694.
5. Commanded by Prinz Frederich Heinrich von Wurttemburg.
6. Hesse-Kassel.
7. Hesse-Kassel. Alias the Red Dragoons, seems to have been commanded in battle by Major Boyneburg.
8. Wolfenbüttel.
9. Luneburg-Celle.
10. The Tillroy list identifies this unit as from Luneberg, but this term was applied to troops from Hanover, Celle, and Wolfenbuttel. I strongly suspect that Overst- should be read as "Oberst," or "Colonel" in German, hence my tentative interpretation of the regiment as Branke. But this is nothing more than a guess, and I cannot find an example of this name belonging to any officer. Another possibility is that this regiment is a Spanish subsidy from Hanover, hired from 1689-1690, perhaps Breidenbach? Another very unlikely possibility, assuming the Overst/Oberst interpretation is correct, is that this regiment is the Spanish horse regiment Brancaccio, which wore grey/blue according to the 1691 Gelpines list. However, all of these are only speculation, and this regiment is unidentifiable. At least to me. 
11. Brandenburg. Colonel was Alexander, Freiherr von Spaen, though the Lieutenant-Colonel was Johann Sigmund, Baron de Heyden, who probably led the regiment in battle.
12. Brandenburg. This is another tentative identification. I suspect that this regiment was misidentified as foot, since du Hamel is the only Brandenburg unit in Dutch pay that could correspond with it. 
13. The Tillroy list distinguishes between 200 Guard cavalrymen and 60 horse grenadiers that belonged to this same troop, however I have lumped them together.
14. This is an example of how the uniform colors in the Tillroy list cannot be accepted uncritically, since the Royal Regiment of Horse was famous for its nickname, the Oxford Blues, deriving from the color of their coat. Though perhaps this regiment wore white coats in summer?
15. I lack a proper source for Spanish units in the Netherlands, and I am unable to identify this unit.
16. This unit is identified as "German" in the Tillroy list, and its white uniform corresponds with other horse regiments from the Spanish Netherlands, however I am unable to identify this specific unit. I was able to identify a Coenraad Ranck leading the Dutch Salm Regiment in 1701, which attests to the name, and it was not unknown for soldiers to transfer services to different powers, however it is only speculation.

Works Cited

“A LIST OF OUR ARMY AS IT WAS DRAWN UP AT TILLROY CAMP.” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 20, no. 79 (1941): 175–77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44220687.

Sapherson C. A. 19901988. The Dutch Army of William Iii. Leeds: Raider Books. http://www.reenactor.ru/ARH/PDF/Sapherson_00.pdf.

Weir, Ian. Army of Flanders: the War of the Grand Alliance in les Pays-Bas, 1689-1697 - Commentary. Red Sash Games, 2018. https://redsashgames.com/resources.html.

Weir, Ian. "Nine Years' War Coalition OOB Spreadsheets." Red Sash Games, 2018. https://redsashgames.com/resources.html.

Coming up next: Deciphering the Tillroy List - Part 2: Foot

Soli Deo Gloria!