Season's Greetings

All the best for 2011. Image is 'British officers in the snow 1855'.

The Gray Wall by Don Troiani

One of my favourite painted battle scenes of the American Civil war is The Gray Wall, by Don Troiani. The scene it represents takes place during the 1864 Campaign in the West showing one of many skirmishes that occured along the road to Atlanta and beyond between the armies of Joe Johnston ( later John B.Hood) and William Tecumseh Sherman.

These Confederate soldiers are well armed, with imported P53 Enfields rifled muskets (3-band) and locally made Cook & Brother rifles (copied on the P56 2-band Enfield but with furniture wholly in brass rather than steel). Some of their accoutrements are also British, like the cartridge box carried by the soldier standing in the middle, in his shirt sleeves. Unlike with the American boxes (like the one used by his comrade lying at his feet), soldiers were not in fact supposed to grab ammunition from them in the heat of battle. They were only meant for storage, while there was a special "ball bag" to be carried on the front of the belt to be used for loading, which the Americans that received them discarded and used for the leather.

As I experienced as an ACW reenactor, using these boxes slows you down, a clear disadvantage when using muzzle-loaders, as they open only with difficulty.

Sous-Lieutenant des Chasseurs d'Orléans par Benigni

The illustration made by Pierre Benigni of the sous-lieutenant des Chasseurs d'Orléans in Algeria, shown in the article of Tradition Magazine posted by Charles, has been used to develop this model in 54mm (1/32 scale). So there are some "toy soldiers" around based on that theme!

You can buy that model on-line here:

http://www.makemodels.eu/index.php?SUPPLIER=88&THISPAGE=1&RADIOSORT=4&PICFILE=6478&STKNR=6478&STRH=2499&ORDN=2585&RNZ=334086

Happy Christmas

With this jovial but poignant image, I take the opportunity to wish my fellow contributors, Ralph and André, as well as all our readers, a very Happy Christmas.

De plus, je souhaite un joyeux Noël à tous nos amis français.

Charles

Sidi Brahim 1845

Following André Fonteyne’s post about Chasseur à pied uniforms in the 1840s, here is an article about Sidi Brahim that appeared some years ago in the French magazine Tradition. It contains some fine uniform illustrations by Pierre Benigni, not only of the chasseurs, but also of the 2^nd Hussars, whose 2^nd squadron took part in this disastrous but heroic action.

5th BCP at the Batterie Gervais, Sébastopol

This painting by Alphonse De Neuville shows the 5eme bataillon de chasseurs à pied in one of the last assaults on Sébastopol by the allied army.The next one caused the fall of the city.

The chasseurs are armed with 1846 or 1853 carabines à tige, while their Russian opponents are armed with the Lüttich carbine, a copy of the British Brunswick rifle made by Malherbe in Liège Belgium. Both weapons were rifled and used a sword-bayonet, the Brunswick being more primitive in its rifling system than the carabine à tige.Except for the new Enfield and Minié rifles in the hands of the British troops, these were the best weapons in the hands of combatants in the Crimea, most of whom were still armed with smoothbores.

Carabines de chasseur

Lüttich carbine

More chasseur à pied uniforms

Soldier- model 1845 "tunique", one recently for sale on Ebay but most likely a copy , a nice one, though.




Soldier-model 1860 jacket or "basquine", at the Musée de l'Infanterie.

Another one at the Musée Napoléonien de Fontainebleau ( a postcard from the early 1900s):

Musée d'Infanterie- Montpellier- chasseurs à pied 1845

One of the best museums illustrating the French Infantry is the "Musée de l'Infanterie" in Montpellier. They have recently put detailed pictures of their display rooms on-line.

For the period we are mostly interested in, here is the link for the infantry:

http://www.musee-infanterie.com/beta/vitrine/48-vitrine-n-23-bis

For the Chasseurs à pied:

http://www.musee-infanterie.com/beta/vitrine/46-vitrine-n-21

Some of the uniforms and/or pieces of equipment are copies, made in 1930, notably the ones shown in this post, which represent the uniforms worn by the 8th battallion chasseurs d'Orléans at Sidi-Brahim, where many of them were massacred by the Algerian tribesmen led by Abd-El-Kader.

French Infantry at Mentana 1867

This image comes from a recent post about Mentana on Gary Byrne’s impressive Italian Wars of Independence blog. I hope that Gary will not mind my posting it again here.

The picture is, I think, what the French call an Image d’Epinal. (One of our French experts, like Paco will no doubt correct me if I am wrong.) Although the image is small and rather primitive, I think it gives a good idea of the appearance of French line infantry at Mentana. The baggy chasseur style trousers, the absence of the greatcoat and the shako being worn rather than the kepi together give these men a distinct profile significantly different from the more familiar styles of 1859 and 1870.

Note also the Garibaldian and Papal Zouave casualties.

French Infantry Sapeur 1867-1870

Following recent discussion about French infantry sapeurs and their bearskins, here is a Sapeur of the 54^th Infantry Regiment in full dress in the period 1867-1870 (the figure on the right). This must be the last period in which the bearskin was worn by sapeurs because, as Paco has pointed out, they were discontinued under the Third Republic.

These two figures are from the collections of the Musée de l’Armée. The figure on the left is an infantry cantinière.

1/72 Crimean Turks

Uwe has pictures of the new castings on his blog. A must-have for Crimean wargamers in this scale.