Your country's oldest regiment?

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Lucky13

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Aug 21, 2006
In my castle....
​
Sweden's, possibly the world's oldest, is Svea Livgarde, 1521-.... Their role is reconnaissance and ceremonial..
Their mottos are; Possunt nec Posse Videntur (They can what it seems they cannot or they do what seems impossible). Motto of the Guards Battalion; Attityd är allt (Attitude is everything), Gardet dör, men ger sig icke (The Guard dies, it does not surrender)...

Battle Honours; Swedish War of Liberation (1521), Rain (1631), Lützen (1632), Oldendorf (1633), Wittstock (1636), Leipzig (1642), Warszawa (1656), Fredriksodde (1657), March across the Belts (1658.), Halmstad (1676), Lund (1676), Landskrona (1677), Narva (1700), Düna (1701), Kliszow (1702), Pultusk (1703), Holowczyn (1708.), Helsingborg (1710), Svensksund (1790)



Officer of the Swedish Lifeguards at the 2007 Bastille Day Military Parade in Paris.​

My own regiment was 358 years, when it lowered the Swedish flag for the last time 2004/12/31...
 
The Royal Canadian Regiment - formed December, 1883. Keep in mind that Canada became a country in 1867.
Motto: Pro Patria - For Country
Currently four battalions
Battle Honors:The War of 1812: Detroit, Niagara, Defence of Canada – 1812–1815
:The North West Rebellion: Saskatchewan, North West Canada 1885
:South Africa: Paardeberg, South Africa 1899–1900
:The Great War: Ypres 1915, 1917, Gravenstafel, St Julien, Festubert, Mount Sorrel, Somme 1916, Pozières, Flers-Courcelette, Ancre Heights, Arras 1917, 1918, Scarpe 1917,1918,
:Hill 70, Passchendaele, Amiens, Drocourt-Queant, Hindenburg Line, Canal du Nord, Cambrai 1918, Pursuit To Mons, France and Flanders 1915–1918.
:The Second World War: Landing In Sicily, Agira, Regalbuto, Landing at Reggio, Campabasso, San Leonardo, Ortona, Gustav Line, Hitler Line, Lamone Crossing, Valguarnera, Adrano
:Sicily 1943, Motta Montecorvino, Torella, The Gully, Cassino II, Liri Valley, Gothic Line, Misano Ridge, Rimini Line, Pisciatello, Italy 1943–1945, North West Europe 1945
:San Martino-San Lorenzo, Fosso Vecchio, Apeldoorn
:The Korean War: Korea 1951–1953
(From Wikipedia)
Geo
 
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My regiments campaigns;
The Thirty Years' War 1647–1649
The Northern Wars 1655–1658
The Scanian War 1675–1679(?)
The Great Northern War 1700–1721
The Gustav III's Russian War 1788–1790
The Finnish War 1808–1809
The Campaign against Norway 1814
 


I would have guessed the Swiss Guard being the oldest, very impressive Jan.​
 
The Papal Swiss guards date back to 1506, the Yeoman Warders date to 1485, several U.S. state guard units date back to the 1600's (States such as Virginia are disqualified because of the civil war, breaking their continious service) and there's also the Imperial Guards of Edo, though I'm not sure if their service was officially interrupted at the close of WWII or not.
 


dunno about the oldest regiment but the flag of St Cuthbert needs a mention he died in AD 687 and his colours were still being carried into battle against the Scots 600 yrs later

The inhabitants of the Palatinate became known as the haliwerfolc, which roughly translates as "people of the saint", and Cuthbert gained a reputation as being fiercely protective of his domain.[23] For example, there is a story that at the Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346, the Prior of the Abbey at Durham received a vision of Cuthbert, ordering him to take the corporax cloth of the saint and raise it on a spear point near the battlefield as a banner. Doing this, the Prior and his monks found themselves protected "by the mediation of holy St Cuthbert and the presence of the said holy Relic."[24] Whether the story of the vision is true or not, the banner of St Cuthbert was regularly carried in battle against the Scots until the Reformation,
 

Are those real regiments though, aren't they more like a lifeguard? Also, didn't the Swiss start out as mercenaries and weren't they disbanded as well?
 
As for the Yeoman Warders, the 'Beefeaters';

The Beefeaters, are ceremonial guardians of the Tower of London. In principle they are responsible for looking after any prisoners in the Tower and safeguarding the British crown jewels, but in practice they act as tour guides and are a tourist attraction in their own right, a point the Yeoman Warders acknowledge....

Plus....

All warders are retired from the Armed Forces of Commonwealth realms and must be former senior non-commissioned officers with at least 22 years of service. They must also hold the Long Service and Good Conduct medal.
 
The Swiss Guards were real regiments who's service could be employed, including the courts of the French, Austrians, Prussians, Portugese and the Netherlands. The Swiss Diet determins who and where the Guards are sent to and a entity (city/state) or person (Monarch/Pope) can petition the Diet for Guards.

The Papal Swiss guards had been employed on and off between 1471 and 1503, but were once again employed by the Vatican and started thier march to work in September 1505, reaching the Vatican in January 1506 and have been on duty ever since.
 
Well, continuous from 1506 to date, which is quite a stretch, really. And as far as mercinaries go, they were but in a fully military sense. They were an official military unit of a standing army and it wasn't unusual for a military to "rent" or "loan" thier soldiers for additional income. The British even had German mercinary troops (Hessians) that were used in the American Revolution.

So while the Swiss Guard may be referred to as mercinaries, they were still full Swiss military on active duty.
 
Heard of those Hessians....
Then again, I thought that the mercenaries were looked down upon by, eerrrmmmm......what word am I looking for here.....oh cr*p.....anyway, that they were looked down upon by the 'normal' military as not being proper and nothing but a necessary evil....

I've also seen that 'By the mid 1540′s the climate seemed right to re-institute the Guard in the Vatican.' and 'By the time of Paul III's death in 1549, the Swiss Guard under von Meggen was fully entrenched in the Vatican and had resumed its old authority.'

So at some point after 1506 the Swiss Guard were disbanded....

Need to look more into those Hessians....that's what you get when unwell and can't sleep!

Pint?
 
You have to be careful defining the word mercenary. The modern use of the word in a sort of 'dogs of war' context is quite different from its original meaning. I've even heard the Gurkhas described as mercenaries.

If you want a long list of honours check out the Gloucestershire Regiment, now sadly 'merged'. I was involved in their tercentenary celebrations back in '94, an enormous piss up that was. The fantastically named Capt. Evelyn Bufton-Morriss with whom I was working, every other serving member of the regiment and every single old comrade was keen to tell me that they had more battle honours than any other line regiment of the British Army. I think they were worried that I might have missed this important point! Their 'Colours' are certainly quite crowded! Some even mentioned the Distinguished Unit Citation awarded by the US President during the Korean 'war', a unique award to a British regiment. There were a few old boys who had been on Hill 327 at the celebration.

Cheers

Steve
 
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