More for Paco

Paco is right to reproach me for failing to mention the French contribution at Inkerman. At the end of a week in which there has been much ill-informed press comment about the possible problems of closer Anglo-French military co-operation in the future, it is good to be able to record an occasion on which it worked well enough.

Here are two details of a painting by Gustave Doré of the Zouaves arriving to rescue the British Guards:

And here is General Bosquet, widely seen as the ‘man of the match’, in a portrait by Horace Vernet:

While on the subject of the Crimea

There's a great diorama of the 8th Hussars on History in 1/72.

One for Paco

We have already had this image from Cadogan's Crimea but it seems to be depicting the Zouaves saving the Guards...

The Guards at Inkerman

A couple of well-known images of the British Foot Guards at Inkerman.

First, one of William Simpson’s engravings from The Seat of War in the East shows the Guards at the Sandbag Battery. In the course of a desperate struggle, this feature changed hands four times in forty minutes, with the Guards ultimately victorious.

The other picture is Lady Butler’s The Return from Inkerman, now in the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull. It shows men of the Coldstream Guards and the 20^th (East Devonshire) Regiment trudging back to camp after the battle. All the Devons appear to be wearing the round forage cap while the Guardsmen are in a mixture of bearskins and the Guards’ distinctive sidecaps.

Some good quality 28mm figures of British infantry in greatcoats (both Guards and Line) would be very welcome.

Inkerman

Today this battle was fought in 1854 in the Crimea. Image by David Rowlands.

French Drummers

I think that the fine drawing by Fattori of a drummer that Ralph has posted below does indeed depict a Frenchman but not, I suggest, at Mentana. This looks to me like a preliminary sketch for Fattori’s famous painting The Italian camp after the battle of Magenta, now in the Gallery of Modern Art in Florence. Look at the group of figures in the bottom right hand corner of the picture.

French line infantry drummers at Mentana probably wore the chasseur style uniform, shown in this watercolour by Lalaisse.

This uniform, introduced after the 1859 war, was abolished in December 1867, the month after Mentana.

Drummer, Mentana 1867

Looking for stuff on Mentana I found this image - is it a French drummer? Anyway if you are eagle-eyed you will notice below a new contributor, Andre who I am sure will need no introduction really from the various images and comments. Welcome!
G. Fattori, Tamburino, matita su carta, Museo Civico Fattori Livorno

More Mentana

A Chassepot

As Paco notes below, the main significance of Mentana from the military historical point of view was probably that it saw the first use in anger by French troops of the new Chassepot breechloading rifle.

General Failly, the commander of the French expeditionary force in the Papal States, notoriously commented in his dispatch after Mentana that “nos fusils Chassepot ont fait merveille” (our Chassepot rifles have done wonders) for which insensitive remark he was taken to task by anticlerical and liberal critics both in France and Italy.

Interestingly, not all the French soldiers at Mentana had the Chassepot. The French contingent in the Franco-Papal army was in brigade strength and the infantry component consisted of one battalion each of the 1^st and 29^th Line Regiments, two battalions of the 59^th Line Regiment and the 2^nd battalion of Chasseurs à Pied. The chasseurs were not issued with the Chassepot until 1868, but apparently their expert marksmen made just as good practice at Mentana with their rifled muzzleloaders as did the lignards with their Chassepots.

There remains a degree of controversy in accounts of Mentana as to how far the Franco-Papal victory was due to the superior weapons of the French contingent, and how far to the fighting qualities of the Papal Zouaves, whose finest hour this clearly was.

The following film sequence is a strongly pro-Papal celebration of the victory at Mentana, with plenty of good photos of the Zouaves.

More Zouaves Pontificaux

Thanks to Andre for finding these artefacts of the ZPs...

These great Zouave artefacts (see attachments) are for sale at this auction in Italy.

http://www.vonmorenberg.com/en.html

Andre Fonteyne

Mentana 1867

This battle was fought today in 1867. Here's the museum site of the battle for interesting articles. According to the website 2011 is the 150th anniversary of Italian unification.

A hero a day…a useful book for bloggers

Having returned from a week’s holiday, I have discovered a French book that should be helpful to Ralphus and myself in deciding what to post on this blog. It is L’Année française-un héros par jour by Charles Ponsonailhe, published in 1903. For each day of the year, it describes either a heroic event in French history or the life of a French hero who was born or died on that day. Thus for today, 2 November, we are told about General Rapp, one of Napoleon 1’s generals, who died on this day in 1821.

As this example demonstrates, only some of the men and events relate directly to this blog’s period, but quite a lot do. I’m sure that I will find it useful. Ralphus may also find it helpful for his Louis XIV and Flintlock and Tomahawk blogs.

The full text of the book is here.

The Turkish Gambit part 1

Thanks to Scott for noticing this recent (2005) Russian film set in the Russo-Turkish war is up in parts with English subtitles on Youtube. I've just watched the first half and it is quite entertaining - well worth it. The bumph reads
The film is based on the second book from the Adventures of Erast Petrovich Fandorin series of novels written by the Russian author Boris Akunin. The film takes place in 1877 during the Russian-Turkish war. Erast Fandorin has just escaped from Turkish prison and is trying to get on the Russian side as soon as possible to give important information about the upcoming attack of the enemy. On his way he meets Varvara Suvorova, a young lady who is going to see her fiancée - a soldier of the Russian army. Erast also knows that there is a spy somewhere in the Russian army, everyone is under suspicion...

Under Siege! Petersburg

Trailer for a DVD on this famous event in the Civil War.