Sir George de Lacy Evans

George de Lacy Evans (1787-1870) was born in Ireland and was educated at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich (i.e. the training school for the Royal Artillery, the Royal Engineers and other technical corps) before heading off to India to join the army of the East India Company.  In 1806 he transferred to the British Army and secured a position in the 3rd Light Dragoons which enables him to serve in the Peninsular War.  Like a lot of British Auxiliary Legion officers, he was then transferred to America, where he served as quartermaster-general to General Robert Ross, who commanded the British troops in the US until his death in September 1814.  He appears to have been a staff officer at Waterloo, supposedly being the person who relayed to order to the Union Brigade to charge.

He then entered politics, and was a sitting MP for Rye when he was given command of the BAL.  His political career was resumed after the war ended, but he seems to have lost and regained his seat on numerous occasions.  In 1846 he was promoted to Major-General and then Lieutenant-General in 1854.  In that latter rank he participated in the Crimean War as the initial commander of the 2nd Division; however, he fell sick and had to relinquish command.  His political career continued - he was MP for Westminster from 1846-65 (Evans was a Radical) and consistently argued for reform of the Army, in particular the abolition of the purchase system.

His political career, especially as a Radical, no doubt contributed to the hostile treatment he and the BAL received in certain sections of the British press.  As I've noted elsewhere, the BAL fought under difficult conditions, often badly supplied and ignored by the British government. Evans seems to have been a thoughtful, competent officer, always fighting the authorities on behalf of his men; one sense the BAL could have done a lot worse in their commander.     

These figures are from two Perry packs - the Evans personality figure is from ISA2 and the foot figures are the rest of ISA37 (the mounted elements of which are here).  This command stand finishes off my most recent Carlist War stuff, save for a regiment of Isabelino cavalry, for which I need to get the correct lance pennants.     

3 figures. Painted August 2021.

British Auxiliary Legion / Isabelino mounted officers

These are mounted officer figures from two Perry First Carlist War packs - two are from pack ISA37 (British Auxiliary Legion staff) and the third, on the grey, is a Spanish colonel from ISA2.  These aren't supposed to represent any particular people; they are just generic figures to use as brigade commanders.  The Duke of Wellington and the army command in general were opposed to officers on half-pay heading off, in effect, to act as mercenaries in a Spanish war.  So the commander of the British Legion, George de Lacy Evans, had to look to his army friends and soldiers in India to fill his senior appointments.  

Two of de Lacy Evans' friends who were given brigadier-general rank were Charles Chichester and William Reid, who otherwise had very little to do.  Chichester went on to command the 81st Foot in 1839 and died in 1847, apparently with a reputation as the best regimental commanding officer in the British army.  Reid became governor of Bermuda 1839 and of Malta in 1851.  Another brigadier was Duncan MacDougall, who had fought in most of the major battles of the Peninsular War and then in the War of 1812, in which he served as an ADC to Major-General Robert Ross and then Sir Edward Packenham after Ross was killed (Packenham was himself killed trying to rally his troops at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815).  He was colonel of the 79th Highlanders when he resigned in March 1835 to join the BAL as its quarter-master general.  However, disagreements with de Lacy Evans over strategy led to MacDougall leaving the BAL a year later and resigning from the British army at the same time.  When the UK's national militia was revived in 1852, MacDougall formed the Royal Lancashire Militia Artillery, which eventually became part of the Royal Garrison Artillery.  I thought these thumbnail biographies are useful in showing that despite the original reservations of the likes of Wellington, service in the BAL does not seem to have had a particularly negative effect on the careers of its officers. 

3 figures. Painted August 2021.

Alava infantry - 1st battalion

Time flew away from me during December and January, so apologies for the lack of posts. It's also been very dark and taking photos has been quite difficult. But I have a flurry of First Carlist War and Napoleonic posts with which to start the new year. It's been a while since I last painted up some Carlist infantry, so here is a battalion from Alava. As you'd expect with an area sympathetic to the Carlist cause, Alava is a province in the Basque country in north-west Spain. It is also one of the provinces that makes Rioja wine. Carlos seems to have recruited at least 6 battalions from Alava, all of which served in the Army of the North.

These are rewarding figures to paint - very quick and easy to do.  This brings my Carlist forces to a total of 5 battalions - a pretty poor effort for a project that I started in 2009.  But I suppose that's what happens when you're not under the pressure of painting things for particular and/or regular games.  I think my camera may now be on its last legs - I find getting things in focus is becoming harder, although that may of course be me rather than the camera!

18 figures.  Painted November 2024.  Flag by Adolfo Ramos.     

Navarre Infantry - 1st battalion

This is the third unit of Carlist infantry I painted towards the end of 2020 (I was determined to erase my Carlist War lead-pile).  I assigned it to Navarre, for no particular reason.  The troops are wearing the same greatcoat and trousers uniforms as my first Guipuzcoa battalion, although I used a deeper red for the trousers.  It's quite a smart look, I think.  Navarre, a northern province in Spain that bordered on the Basque region, was a natural recruiting ground for the Carlist cause.  The province's rugged, mountainous terrain made it difficult to subdue, and consequently it managed to maintain a semblance of autonomy from  the middle ages into the 19th century.  In fact, it was only with the Carlist defeat in 1841 that the province was brought fully into the territory of the Spanish crown.  Conrad Cairns tells us that twelve battalions were raised in Navarre for the Army of the North, together with the elite guides.

I remember that at this stage in 2020 I was having real problems painting the faces.  I hadn't yet bought my glasses, which I now have to use for any type of painting, and so I found the eyes particularly difficult.  Some of them are pretty crappy, to be honest; but others are ok.  The great thing about these figures is that there's not much detail on them outside of the faces - just overcoats with minimal kit.  So they were good figures to do whilst I was beginning to feel a bit visually impaired.  I'm going to need a few more units like this.    

20 figures.  Painted December 2020.  Flag by Adolfo Ramos.

Valencian volunteers - 2nd battalion

This is the counterpart to the other unit of Valencians that I posted on Tuesday.  A "brigade" photo is below.  There's no much else to say that wasn't in my earlier post.  The jackets and berets were painted using the Foundry "Deep Blue 20" palette.  I like the poses of these figures, particularly the command figures (there's an excellent drummer with a bandaged head in the second row).  There's lots more FCW stuff coming up - more Carlist infantry, then Isabelino high command and cavalry.  Once that's all posted, I'll get up to date with the Paraguayan War.  After that, it will probably be time for some Frostgrave and 7-TV!     

20 figures. Painted November - December 2020.  Flag by Adolfo Ramos.

Valencian volunteers - 1st battalion

Now that Salute and the Coronation are out of the way, it's time to return to full-time blogging, with almost 4 years' worth of stuff to photograph and post about.  I'm going to start catching up with some First Carlist War units.  I painted two units of Valencian volunteers in autumn 2020, having spent most of Lockdown painting fantasy stuff for "Frostgrave".  The Perry range has two poses of these troops, marching and a more aggressive advancing.  Most of the Valencians troops were part of Cabrera's Army of the Centre, so they can join my Ontoria Hussars and Cabrera's Guard.  But both the Perry-published Conrad Cairns book and Gabriele Esposito's Osprey MAA state that there also two battalions of Valencians in the Army of the North, the troops having been raised in a Carlist march across Spain in June to December 1836.  

Cairns states that there were seven battalions in the Army of the Centre and some of these were dressed in trousers and greatcoats, so much like other Carlist troops.  He also states that "some  replaced trousers with the traditional zaraguell, a white kilt word by the inhabitants of the countryside around Valencia".  Esposito states that the first four battalions had dark blue greatcoats and white trousers, whereas the remainder had blue jackets and wore elements of civilian clothing, like the Zaraguell.  So that's what we have here.  I probably should have mixed up the waistcoat colours a bit more - they are mainly brown, albeit different shades of brown, drab and khaki. The flag is a "black banner", which were known to have been used by the Army of the Centre.  Apparently these troops were not particularly reliable, being more suited to hit-and-run skirmishing than stand-up engagement.

20 figures.  Painted October-November 2020.  Flag from Alberto Ramos (I think). 

Espana Regiment - 1st battalion

It's been over 2 years since I last posted about the First Carlist War and over 4 years since I last painted Isabelino infantry (and this post has itself been gestating for a couple of weeks while I take and re-take photos; hence the gap in posts).  For the past few months I've been making an effort to deal with the leadpile - as a result I have barely bought any new figures during the past year or so, save some boxes of Perry plastic AWI infantry when they were released, the Ewart vignette and a couple of metal AWI packs and some Maori from Empress Miniatures.  Oh, and some Napoleonics from Gringo 40s that I'm currently getting to grips with.  That's certainly saved some money, and as wargaming chum Timmo says "hoarding unpainted figures isn't much of a hobby".  One aim of this year is to become "lead neutral" on a couple of periods, by which I mean having no unpainted units left to paint and a rule that anything new is painted as soon as it is purchased. My First Carlist War leadpile consists of some Valencian troops for the Carlists and some regular cavalry for the Isabelinos, so not a huge amount to get through.  (The other period I'm focussing on is the New Zealand Wars, with about 40-odd figures and a massive 24-pounder to get through.)  The FCW leadpile also contained enough figures for another Isabelino infantry battalion, and this is it.

The regular army battalions I chose to paint are determined solely by the flags that are available from Adolfo Ramos.  Information on the precise orders of battle for Carlist War battles is hard to come by and, in any event, are there are no distinctions between the regiments that I can discern it doesn't really matter which units one fields on the table.  A scenario needs three battalions from the Princesa Regiment?  Well, I have two already and I'll field the la Constitution Regt as the third; no one's going to complain.  I do try to make each regiment look a bit different.  The standard winter uniform for regular infantry was dark grey overcoats and trousers - I painted the La Constitution regiment like that.  But to make the Espana look different I gave the figures white summer trousers instead of grey ones and didn't add any mud splatter (which I gave to the Borbon Regiment which is otherwise similarly dressed).  If I ever get around to painting second battalions for these regiments I will continue the colour schemes of their first battalions.    

I don't as yet have any light infantry battalions for the Isabelinos, but with 6 regular line battalions and 4 other units, together with the British and French allied forces, I have enough loyalist troops for the moment.  In time I'd like to add second battalions to the Espana and La Constitution regiments and a third battalion to the Princessa.  However, in the meantime my Carlist forces need building up, as I only have 3 battalions and some skirmishers.  Next up on the blog are 4 new American infantry battalions for the AWI; then more 1815.   

24 figures.  Painted December 2014-February 2015.  Flag by Adolfo Ramos and barn by Touching History.

 

 

 

 

 

 



1st Lancers "Reina Isabella", British Auxiliary Legion

The British Auxiliary Legion raised 2 regiments of lancer cavalry.  The first regiment, named "Queen Isabella" recruited in the south of England, having its headquarters at Kingston-upon-Thames in Middlesex.  Apparently many Poles and Germans joined, who proved to be excellent horsemen.  The second regiment, called the "Queen's Own Irish Lancers" recruited mainly in Cork, Ireland.  The northern provinces of Spain where the BAL was engaged was not really good cavalry country, and the two lancer regiments do not appear to have had many opportunities for classic charges.  In fact, it seems that it took some time after their arrival in Spain in July 1836 for the two regiments to be fully mounted. 

On instance of a decent cavalry action is described by Brett in his "The British Auxiliary Legion in the First Carlist War".  On 1 October the Carlists attached the BAL's lines at San Sebastian, which the Carlists had been besieging for some time.  The Carlist attack began with an artillery bombardment that was particularly accurate as it was being directed by a BAL deserter who had served in the Royal Artillery.  Once the BAL's own guns had conducted some effective counter-battery fire (which managed to kill the BAL deserter in charge of the Carlist guns), the 1st Lancers were ordered to charge the Carlists who were attacking the flank of the BAL's position.  The charge made the Carlists retreat, but they then took position behind their own breastworks, which the cavalry were unable to attack.  The lancers in turn then took heavy casualties from the Carlist guns .  The limitations on cavalry were noted by the journalists attached to the BAL.  The correspondent of the Cork Evening Standard wrote the following day that "cavalry are of no use in this country."  

These figures are from the Perry First Carlist War range.  Save for the absence of csapska  covers, I expect these figures could also be used for the Sikh Wars and perhaps a few other things.  The lance pennants are from Adolfo Ramos.  These are the last Carlist War figures I'll be painting for a while.  I'll be concentrating on the AWI and 1815 for the next few months.

12 figures. Painted September/October 2012. 

   

Ontoria Hussars

This is my first unit of cavalry for the First Carlist War, the Ontoria Hussars on the Carlist side. Here's what the Perry/Cairns book says about them: "200 strong, organised in 1838 by General Balmaseda as part of the Army of the North.  After the convention of Vergara [August 1839], he led his men to join Cabrera, and the unit joined the Aragonese division."  The Convention of Vergara was the agreement that formally ended the war, but the Carlist general Ramon Cabrera continued fighting and in 1840 led the remains of the Carlist forces under his command into France and exile.  Therefore, this is a pretty late unit, of limited use.  However, the uniform is very dashing and smart and according to the gentlemen on the Carlist Wars Yahoo group there is evidence that these troops carried "death's head" lance pennants.  This unit had an "elite" reputation, so all in all these chaps are rather fearsome.  At a ratio of 1:30/33 I thought 6 figures was enough for a unit of around 200 men.  I think most of my Spanish cavalry units will have 6 figures (rather like the AWI).  Perry Miniatures figures, of course.

6 figures. Painted August 2012.  Lance pennants and flag by Adolfo Ramos.