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Commanding officer's pennants of the French army in Kabylia (Algeria), 1857 - Part 1

Overview
General Staff
General commanding the division
Division staff
1st division, 1st brigade
1st division, 2nd brigade
2nd division, 1st brigade
2nd division, 2nd brigade

See also:

Overview

P. Charrié, in Drapeaux et étendards du XIXe siècle [chr92] reproduces a colour plate from a private collection showing "commanding officer's pennants used in Kabylia, 1857" The flags have been drawn and coloured by hand, and captions have also been written by the anonymous author.

A first series of such pennants was prescribed by General Bugeaud in Algeria in 1837.

Concerning historical background, the "pacification" (to use the terminology of the period) of Algeria was achieved in 1857 (Second Empire, Napoléon III) with the conquest of Kabylia, which had been the last part of Algeria to have resisted colonization after the surrending of Emir Abd-el-Kader (1847). Sporadic insurrections occurred later in the area. The 1857 campaign was characterized by a better military organization than the preceding ones.

The flags are all 2:5 and swallow-tailed, the indentation depth being 1/3 of the flag length. The plate includes also two pennants of African French regiments.

Ivan Sache, 8 November 1999