In this fourth posting in my series on the army of my imagi-nation, the Barryat of Lyndonia, we review the Prussian contingent.
As I have previously mentioned, the Barryat of Lyndonia is inspired by the novel and film ‘Barry Lyndon’. In the story, Barry is eventually enlisted into the Prussian army after being captured as a British army deserter.
The movie doesn’t name the regiment, but in the book it is called the ‘Bulow’ Regiment, which could possibly have been the von Bülow fusilier regiment that fought at Zorndorf.
But I decided to name the third regiment of the Barryat’s army in honour of the movie’s famous director, so the Infanterie-Regiment Kubrick came into being.
As with the other regiments in my army, the movie’s inaccuracies are all faithfully recreated. The soldiers’ coats have the wrong coloured turnbacks, and they wear incorrectly-coloured straps.
OK, so the movie doesn’t have any grenadiers in mitre caps. But, like Gale’s Regiment of Foot, I really wanted some of these smart-looking soldiers, so I’ve conjectured how Kubrick would have portrayed them. Basically, they’re the same as his somewhat inaccurate Prussian musketeers, but wearing mitre caps instead of tricornes.
They also carry mis-matched flags (the orange, black and white flags in the movie are actually from three different real-life Prussian regiments).
The regiment is led by Captain Potzdorf on his distinctive white horse – in the movie Barry saves Potzdorf’s life, which launches his rise in society.
The figures are gorgeous 1/56th casting by Minden Miniatures, available through Fife and Drum.
By the way, I’ve been asked where in the social hierarchy a “barryat” might lie, for instance vis-à-vis a ‘barony’.
Well, I’m figuring “barryat” is a (mythical) kind of Western European derivative of the old term “banate”, a frontier province led by a military governor called a “ban” (or in my imagi-nation’s case, led by a “barry”).
Banate provinces really did exist, mainly in South Slavic, Hungarian and Romanian lands. For example, the Banat of Temesvár was a Habsburg province that existed between 1718 and 1778.
Go to the next posting about Le Régiment des Gardes Françaises.
Go back to my previous posting about le Régiment des Royal-Cravates.
DRESSING THE LINES 
A wonderful display, thanks for this continuing series
An impressive looking force.
Fantastic figures. I’m a sucker for those mitre caps in particular.
Kubrick-regiment is the right name. It’s sometimes an endless work to find the right unit from a movie and so it is with the units in Kubrick’s great film. The regiment just is a represantive for the whole Prussian army and it would not make sence to search too long.
Great paint job. I loved your idea to chose this particular “unit”.