Napoleon (2)

 

This is the Napoleon in Egypt personality set from Brigade Games.  Perry Miniatures don't have a Napoleon figure in their Egypt range, presumably because the range is more orientated towards the British intervention after Napoleon's departure in August 1799.  Before Christmas I put in an order with Brigade Games to take advantage of a sale and to buy some of their new(ish) AWI figures, and I couldn't resist this set and a couple of other Egyptian campaign things.  I was going to blog next about my recent ACW units but thought I'd just finish off these French bits first.  This is my second attempt at Napoleon, after the rather massive piece I did for a Salute Waterloo game many years ago (see here).  I won't both with any sort of potted biography of Napoleon, even one limited to the Egyptian campaign, but rather will post some observations on the paints and colours I used, in case of interest, and some inspiration.      

Back in 1799 Napoleon was 30, trimmer and fitter than at Waterloo.  His Egyptian adventure captured the imagination of French artists, and Jean-Léon Gérôme painted three depictions of Napoleon in Egypt which show a young man who is quite different to the corpulent Emperor of several years later.  Gérôme painted a number of middle eastern scenes and had travelled in the region in the 1850s.  His three best known Napoleon paintings are below.  These are very atmospheric paintings, a long way from heroic battle scenes like the work of Horace Vernet, for example.  Commentators have noted how these paintings are quite psychological, with Napoleon seeming deep in thought or contemplating some aspect of his destiny (there's a good analysis of the second painting here).  I found these quite inspirational. 

Napoleon in Egypt, circa 1863

Napoleon and his General Staff in Egypt, late 1860s

Bonaparte Before the Sphinx, 1886

I had to re-find the paints I'd used for the Dromedary Corps vignette.  The base coat was Citadel XV-88, then various layers/touches of Tau Light Ochre, Bestigor Flesh, Ushabi Bone and Foundry "Base Sand" and "Boneyard" paints.  I had to look up the colour of Napoleon's hair, which apparently was dark brown (I had thought it was black).  

Uniform information was sourced from the Osprey MAA and the first volume of Charles Grant's "Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign".  Those books suggested that the uniforms of the high command were often adapted at the whim of their wearers, particularly the hat plumage.  The chap with the telescope is supposed to be a general de brigade (hence the light blue sash) and the mounted figure is a general de division (hence the red sash and plumage).  I tried to paint as much decoration on the camels' saddle cloths as I could without over-cluttering.  The cloths on Napoleon's saddle are sculpted such that there's a lot more cloth on the left of the figure than the right, so the pattern looks a bit uneven.  I wasn't entirely sure what sort of animal the skin on the horse was supposed to be, but a leopard looked appropriate.  I had originally intended to place a few bricks and perhaps a bottle cork at the back of the base to suggest some ruins, but decided that would look too busy.  So I'm sure more could be done with this set to jazz it up, but I'm pleased with how it came out and it didn't take long to do.          

3 figures, 1 horse and 2 camels.  Painted January 2021. 

Regiment des Dromedaires (1)

As a coda to my current batch of Napoleonic French, this is the Perry pack of sitting camels and guard from the Régiment des Dromedaires, the camel-mounted unit created for service in the Egyptian campaign.  This was quite small, being two squadrons each of about 250 soldiers, and fought as mounted infantry.  Perry Miniatures have mounted and dismounted figures, and Brigade Games have some nice models as well.  This set is clearly the equivalent of a cavalry horse-holder.  Two camels doesn't really cut it if you have a unit of 12 figures on the table, and I did think about whether I should buy a second set and make a larger base; but in the end I just went for this "as is", given it is likely to be a while before I paint more of the Dromedary Corps.  

This set had lain half-finished on my painting for the best part of 2 years, and I finally finished it off at the beginning of the Covid lockdown.  I really wish I could remember what paints I used for the camels; it was a number of Citadel paint mainly, I think, with some Foundry highlights.  I really need to write things like this down in a notebook.  I owe thanks to wargaming and wine-loving chum John Baxter in Melbourne who emailed me an excellent article (in French) about the regiment and its uniforms a while back.

1 figure and 2 camels.  Painted February 2020.

75th Demi-Brigade

This is my third completed unit of French infantry for the Egyptian campaign.  The 75th Demi-Brigade appears in just two scenarios in the GdB book, The Pyramids (60 figures) and Alexandria (24 figures).  This unit is designed for the latter, and given it's 24 rather than 36 figures I've provided it with two flags rather than three.  I've mentioned before that the GdB scenario book doesn't always divide up the demi-brigades into individual battalions, which I assume reflects the fact that some battalions were absent on garrison duty.  So for the Alexandria scenario, for example (which is the French attach of August 1799, not the British attack of 1801), the orbat has the 18th, 32nd and 22nd Light demi-brigades in two specific battalions, whilst the 13th, 61st and 75th are just given one unit each of 30, 36 and 24 figures respectively.  This all makes for a decent amount of painting - for the French forces in this scenario you need 300 infantry, 8 guns and crew, and 26 cavalry.  But you can see that it's "AWI" in size, and with much less cavalry and artillery than you might usually expect for a Napoleonic battle.  Of course Alan Perry hasn't made any Albanian and Ottoman forces to provide the opposition as yet; I really hope we does one day as otherwise one's limited to French v British games in this theatre, which I think would be a shame.  In the very interesting video interview with Wargames Illustrated, Alan said he'd do Ottomans at some stage. and I know Black Hussar Miniatures (formerly Westphalia Miniatures) do Napoleonic Saudi and Afghan figures, but I don't know whether they are in any way suitable.           

That's pretty much where I got to with the Napoleon in Egypt project.  I also painted 6 figures of the 88th Demi-Brigade (another 36 figure unit), but that's remained unfinished since 2017.  There's a small "vignette" which I'll post about next, but in the meantime here's the current state of things:

24 figures.  Painted July/August 2017.  Flags from GMB.

4th Legere Demi-Brigade

 I'll continue posting about the Napoleon in Egypt figures I painted three years ago while I catch up with basing and photographing more recent things.  This is a unit of skirmishers representing the 4th Leger Demi-Brigade.  In the "General de Brigade" scenario book the units appears twice: 30 figures for The Pyramids and 12 skirmishers for the battle of Alexandria on 1 August 1799.  The demi-brigade began the Egyptian campaign consisting of 2 battalions and over 1,000 men and I don't know why the Alexandria scenario only lists 12 figures.  The Osprey "Napoleon's Egyptian Campaigns" provides the coat as: light green with dark brown (crimson) facings with white piping.  As is usual for French Napoleonic light infantry, the trousers are dark blue.  So this unit is a good example of "colour" of this period.   

Incidentally, in this series of Napoleon in Egypt posts, the middle eastern style buildings are by Touching History and the mat is "arid green" from Tiny Wargames.  Not much else to say, really.  The 75th Demi-Brigade are next.

12 figures.  Painted July 2017.

69th Demi-Brigade

I thought I'd begin catching-up with my Napoleon in Egypt figures, which will take 4 posts.  I began this period because I was taken with the Perry Miniatures figures and it seemed an interesting, and colourful, Napoleonic side-show (about which I knew very little).  There are some good resources out there, including the two Caliver-published books by C.S. Grant and Eclaireur's volume of scenarios for "General de Brigade", called "Against the Ottomans".  This last publication has formed my list of units to work on, although I've left out the Battle of the Pyramids scenario because the unit strengths for that battle are huge (by which I mean infantry regiments of 48 to 60 figures).  The 69th Demi-Brigade appears in two other scenarios, El Rahmieh (9 May 1801) and El Khanka (16 May 1801), both with a unit strength of 36 figures.   

Representing the French demi-brigades for this campaign is not straightforward.  Each demi-brigade consisted of 3 battalions, each of which consisted, on paper, of approximately 1,000 men.  That explains why an early scenario like the Pyramids has such large units.  However, by 1801, which is the phase of the campaign which I'm interested in, the battalions were reduced in strength.  The GdB scenarios don't state how many battalions are in each demi-brigade and presumably the unit strength is a composite figure.  The battalion structure was 1 grenadier and 8 fusilier companies, but the latter were reduced to 4 in 1799 to take account of casualties.  My this 36-figure unit I have one stand of grenadiers and five of fusiliers, and this is clearly no attempt to replicate the individual battalions but rather to have something that looks good.    One could, I suppose, have two stands of grenadiers and four of fusiliers, which might actually be more accurate.  Each of the three battalions carried its own flag, so you then need to decide how many flags to allocate to your demi-brigade unit.  I decided to give three flags to the larger units and two flags to the smaller one.  Again, there wasn't that much thought behind that decision, other than the fact that if you give everything 3 flags you need a lot of standard bearer figures and to buy those you'll probably end up with left-over officers etc.  That said, I understand that the third battalion of the 69th was on garrison duty during 1801, so this demi-brigade should in fact only have two flags.  Never mind...the GMB flags are so good is seems a shame not in include as many as possible.

36 figures.  Painted May-July 2017. Flags by GMB.

13e Légère (1)

These are Perry Miniatures French light infantry skirmishers from their 1815 range.  Five are metal figures and chap about to bite his cartridge is from the plastic box set.  He was required because I used one of the figures from the metal pack for my General Bauduin command stand.  The 13e Régiment de Légère  was in Donzelot's 2nd division in the French I Corps.  Therefore, it participated in the initial main French attack on the Allied centre, with Donzelot's division the force that had the first bite at Las Haye Sainte.  In the GdB order of battle, the 13e has two full-strength battalions of 36 figures; so these light infantry represent one voltigeur company in skirmish order.  The bases are the plastic Renedra ones that come in the Perry plastic box.  At some stage I'll get around to painting up the 13e's two battalions, but that's some way off at the moment.

I painted these figures ages ago and then forgot about them.  I'm posting about them now as I'm a bit short of photos of other stuff at the moment.  I have various AWI bits going through the basing process and hopefully I'll catch up and photograph those at the weekend.  This post reminds me that I have a large number of 1815 French staff figures waiting to be based - I keep changing my mind about how to do that.  I also have a half-painted battalion of Perry metal "at rest" line infantry, which I need to finish off.  In terms of what's planned for the balance of 2016, it's going to be all AWI: more Indians from Conquest Miniatures, the King's Royal Regiment of New York (Perry plastic British), another couple of Continental infantry regiments and some odds and ends (and some commission work).  It will be a bit of a stretch to paint everything that's left in my AWI metal leadpile, but I've already made very good progress on that front. 

6 figures.  Painted January 2016.

Captain Kennedy Clark and Corporal Francis Stiles

This is the second Perry Miniatures 1815 vignette, the capture of the eagle of the 105st Line infantry regiment by Captain Alexander Kennedy Clark and/or Corporal Francis Stiles (or "Styles"), both of the 1st (Royal) Regiment of Dragoons (the "Royals").  Precisely what happened is disputed, and there is a good account of the controversy in Adkin's "Waterloo Companion".  The 105th formed part of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division of d'Erlon's I Corps, which was involved in the big early afternoon attack on Wellington's centre.  When the attack faltered, the brigade was charged by the Royals and 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons (part of the general charge of the Union Brigade, which saw the 45th Line's eagle captured by Sergeant Ewart).  Captain Clark initially took credit for the eagle's capture, saying that he saw a party carrying the eagle, attacked it and struck down the French officer who was carrying the flag.  But he couldn't quite reach the flag as it fell, his fingers only touching the fringe, and so he shouted at the nearby Corporal Stiles to pick it up and take it to the rear.  However, Stiles' version of events was different - he said that he was ordered to attack the colour party by his troop commander.

Clark was wounded at Waterloo and while he was recovering he became concerned that his capture of the eagle would not be recognised.  He wasn't aware that the regiment's colonel had already written to his superiors recommending Clark (and two other officers) for promotion.  Clark wrote to another colonel for help in having his achievement recognised and a regimental investigation began into what happened.  Statements were taken from soldiers who were in the vicinity at the time.  Private Anderson said that he saw Clark wound the French officer and the flag then fell across the heads of his and Clark's horses and towards Corporal Stiles.  Clark shouted out "secure the colour!" and Stiles managed to grab it before it fell on the ground.  Private Wilson corroborated this account, also saying that after Clark stabbed the officer the colour fell against the neck of Stiles' horse and Stiles carried it off to the rear.  Stiles asked his troop commander, Lieutenant Gunning, to provide his testimony of the incident.  Gunning stated that he spotted the colour party and ordered Stiles and others to attack.  Gunning further claimed (I think much later) to have been the person who wounded the officer holding the colour.  The result of the investigation appears to have been that Stiles received the immediate credit for the eagle's capture.  He was promoted to sergeant and eventually received a commission as ensign in the 6th West India Regiment.  Clark seems to have spent the rest of his life feeling aggrieved at what had happened, writing to the authorities (including Lord Uxbridge) some ten times to claim credit for the colour's capture.  Clark never received any formal recognition and the quick promotion he had sought to obtain on the back of the colour's capture eluded him.  He was promoted to major in 1825 and made lieutenant-general rank five years later.   In 1835 Clark was still claiming credit for the eagle's capture, in letters he wrote to William Siborne to assist the latter with his history of the Waterloo campaign.

Who's the chap with the flag?

 

Another mystery is the identity of the French officer who was carrying the colour.  The "porte-aigle" of the 105th was Jean Chantelat, who survived Waterloo but was wounded by a gunshot in the leg.  So at some stage some other officer must have taken charge of the eagle (one of the testimonies of the cavalrymen suggested that this was the 105th's commanding officer).  A further issue was raised in the 1830s, when Private Penfold of the Inniskilling Dragoons claimed that he capture an eagle which he then dropped and was picked up by a man from the Royals.   Who knows what really happened?  Maybe it's best remembered as a team effort - in 1838 the Royals were given the distinction of carrying the eagle on their guidons and I gather the Blues and Royals still wear an eagle badge on the left of their tunics.   

I think this is a terrific vignette.  It has more immediacy than the corresponding Ewart set, and you really sense the cavalrymen desperately reaching out trying to grab the colour before it hits the gound (if you'll pardon a Classical allusion, the set reminds me of that rather gory bit in Book II of the Aeneid when, during the sack of Troy, the Greek Pyrrhus is pursuing Priam's son, Polites, and eventually cuts him down right in front of Priam: "iam iamque manu tenet et premit hasta" - "now, even now, he holds him with his hand and presses him with his spear").  The drummer figure is a great touch - he suggests how terrifying it must have been to be ridden down by cavalry.  I found some conflicting sources on the dragoons' uniforms.  The stripe on Captain Clark's trousers is either yellow or red, depending on what source you use.  Apparently the Royals' horses were supposed to be blacks, but they had supply problems in 1814/15 and so I think it's legitimate to use bays.  I see that I forgot to add golden "N"s to the French officer's turnbacks, and I didn't bother trying to replicate the muddy/cornfield look of the Waterloo battlefield on the base - never mind!  

4 figures.  Painted November-December 2015.  Flag from GMB.