French infantry leather cartridge pouch, taken at the Battle of Dettingen, 1743

A cartridge pouch was used by an infantry soldier to carry his supply of cartridges. A cartridge was a tube of thick paper containing the gunpowder and lead musket ball needed to fire a soldier's musket (this is where we get the term 'cartridge paper').

This pouch bears the French royal coat of arms, and it was taken at the Battle of Dettingen (1743), where a French army was defeated by an Allied force of British, Hanoverian and Austrian troops.