No. 29 - Bretlach Cuirassiers

Inhaber
1736 Lubormirski, 1745 Ludwig Carl Frhr. von Bretlach, 1767 Caramelli

Unit History
The regiment was raised in 1672. Saw its first distinguished action at Lobositz under the command of Marquis Voghera. In 1757, the second squadron participated at Prague and later the regiment joined the Reichsarmee. Present with the Reichsarmee at Rossbach, November 1757, where it was brigaded with the Kurpfalz Cuirassiers and Hohenzollern Cuirassiers under Hollenstein and suffered heavily. These units formed the advance guard which took the initial charge from Seydlitz’s cavalry corps. It did, however, manage to distinguish itself with the regiment Trautmannsdorf at the battle. The regiment was out of action in 1758 but in 1759 along with the Savoyen Dragoons was ambushed by Hessians near Meiningen. Reformed quickly, the regiment went on to fight at Meissen and Maxen.
Still with the Reichsarmee in 1760, the unit fought at Strehlen. Later at Freiburg, October 1762, the unit, brigaded under Campitelli, was on the right flank. The brigade retreated after the collapse of the Reichsarmee occurred due to a concentrated Prussian attack. Although the Reichsarmee was protected by temporary field works, the Prussian attack succeeded.
Bretlach was the only cuirassier unit to have both a lapel and a collar. Almost all of the eighteen Austrian cuirassiers regiments favoured red breeches; however, this unit wore buff breeches. Generally, the Austrian regiments fielded six squadrons of roughly ninety men each. It was deemed a regular unit throughout its service in the war.

Comments
These are actually Front Rank Russian Cuirassiers painted in the Austrian uniform because, as I reviewed my collection, I found that when I reduced my cavalry from 24 man units to 8 man squadrons that I had too many Russian cuirassiers. As I needed Austrian cavalry, I did some paging through my Osprey on the Austrian cavalry and found the only Austrian regiment with a collar – and here they are. The unit was painted in 2003.

Sources
Text: Osprey’s The Austrian Army 1740-80 (1) Cavalry (Men-at-Arms 271)
Austrian regimental information at http://www.kuk-wehrmacht.de/regiment/index.html
Image: Knötel cards at http://www.grosser-generalstab.de