Friday, May 4, 2012

The Portuguese Legion in French service

    The French conquered the Kingdom of Portugal without significant resistance in November 1807. The result was that the French occupying force co-existed with the Royal army of Portugal, numbering roughly 30,000 men. In order to defuse this threat (and use the manpower else where), General Junot discharged all soldiers with eight or more years of service in December 1807. The remaining men were reorganized, on paper at least, into six infantry regiments, a light infantry battalion, an artillery battery, and three cavalry regiments. In March, these troops were directed to Valladoid in Spain, for incorporation into the French army. Since many deserted en route, out of a planned strength of 10,000 men, by the time of their arrival in Frace, in May, 1808, there were only about 4,00 infantry and 700 cavalry left under arms. Ultimately, five infantry regiments and two cavalry regiments were formed under the title of the Légion Portugaise.


    For the 1809 campaign in Austria, the elite companies of the Portuguese infantry regiments were organized into the 13th demi-brigade and served in Oudinot's Corps, and fought at Wagram; similarly, a select force of Portuguese cavalry was organized into the provisional regiment of Portuguese Chasseurs a Cheval. In 1811, the Portuguese Legion was reorganized into 3 regiments of infantry and one of cavalry; only the first regiment continued to be of almost exclusively Portuguese in origin and was considered an elite formation. The remaining two regiments were largely made up of Spanish prisoners of war recruited to serve in the Legion. All three regiments served in Russia in 1812, the first and second  regiments in different Divisions of Marshal Ney's 3rd Corps, and the 3rd regiment in Oudinot's 2nd Corps.  Soldiers of the Légion Portugaise fought at Smolensk, Valentina -Gora, Borodino, 1st and 2nd Polotsk, and the Beresina; the remaining 800 or so soldiers were transformed into the battalion of Portuguese Pioneers in November, 1813. There is excellent information about the Légion Portugaise here at Histofig, and also in Guy Dempsey's book, Napoleon's Mercenaries, previously reviewed on this blog. The Portuguese Legion seems to have a had a reasonable combat record, particularly considering their origin, especially the "elite" 1st regiment.


Here is my version of the infantry of the Portuguese Legion. I did up a banner for the halberd holding NCO using MS Paint; it actually says "Legion Portugaise" in white on the red background! There is no evidence that any of the units of the Legion ever received official flags or an Eagle from Napoleon. I deliberately used "dark flesh" as the base color instead of my usual "medium flesh", to represent the relatively swarthy complexion of these Portuguese men.


Another shot of the Legion; the Portguese army was originally uniformed in blue, but a shortage of Indigo dye meant that a different color uniform was needed. Sky Blue, Grey-Brown, and Red-Brown were proposed, and Napoleon chose the later. Properly, these men should be wearing the "Barentina" style shako (same as worn by the Portuguese troops that served under Wellington, and later adopted by the British themselves as well. As this is a small unit "raised" from spare figures, I've used French Line wearing ordinary French shakos instead. I'm sure that things like that *never* happened in real life either... ahem!


A shot of the Legion infantry showing the turnbacks, which were red piped in white, just like the cuffs, collars, and lapels. Silver buttons, silver ornamentation for the officers. 

Another shot of the back of these 25/28mm Sash and Saber figures. This unit is one that we needed for Borodino; as it probably won't see action too often, I built it as a four-stand, 12 figure unit, which is all we need for Field of Battle. This is much the same as I did for my Austrian Landwehr and Russian Opolchenie units, and for similar reasons. My usual infantry unit organization is 18 figures, on six stands of three each.


This unit was part of my second round of trials using the acrylic "Magic Wash". This is a picture before the wash - no shading or dry brushing was done at all, except on the faces and hands. 


Materials used in the Magic Wash process.

Following feedback from the originator of the formula I based my first trials on, I used Distilled water instead of tap water in the wash, prevarnished the finished figures with the Kamar Varnish (my usual), before re-reading the instructions which called for gloss *acrylic* varnish, so I sprayed over that with the Krylon Clear Coat, a gloss acrylic varnish. I then applied the magic wash. Unfortunately, I still couldn't find any of the "cheap acrylic drawing ink" the recipe calls for at the nearby Michaels or a local art store, so I used a fresh bottle of cheap India ink. I knew from my previous trials to use the India ink very sparingly.
So my final composition for this wash was 60ml Distilled Water, 60ml Future, 2,5ml Jet Dry (which is a surfactant made for Dishwashing Machines), and 5 drops of cheap India ink. Once again, once mixed up in the bottle, this mix looks dark as midnight, but is almost colorless on the brush. Given the dark nature of these uniforms, I used this mix on the Fusilier and Voltiguer stands, and a darker formula (Mixture "C" from my earlier trials) on the Grenadier and command stand. On these rather dark uniforms, I think I actually prefer the darker wash on these particular uniforms, which isn't surprising. Neither seemed to significantly grey the white piping this time out! After allowing the wash to dry overnight, I applied the relatively glossy Kamar varnish again (I happen to like a medium to high gloss finish). Later this month I'll be posting 2 more units where I used the current "Magic Wash" formula. 

Anyway, my Portuguese Legion is now all ready for our next Borodino playtest (the Fleches and the Utitsa sector) this weekend!

Peter

14 comments:

  1. Some great info, all very helpful. Its nice to see the more unusual Napoleonic units painted up, and it does make a difference from the usual French blue coats.

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    1. Agreed, Ray! Soon to come are Provisional Croats and the Neufchatel Battalion, talking about "not in blue"!

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  2. Fantastic Peter; your usual great mix of interesting and useful info. and beaut photos. A bloke in a hobby shop here told me about the distilled water trick a little while back. Seems to make a difference with acrylic paints, so no doubt the same with your wash.

    Are you planing to do a report of the flêches/Utitsa game like you did for Polotsk?
    We played a game based on the Utitsa section of Borodino a while back. I completely stuffed it, failing in all my attacks and wiping most of the army out (in terms of broken divisions)! I hope that you fair better. Watch out for Stroganov's grenadiers!

    James

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    1. Hi James,

      For sme reason Blogger decided yur comment was spam... first time that's ever happened, so I had to resurrect it from the trashbin!

      I'll do a report on the playetest, although almost certainly not at the level of games machanics detail that I did for Polotsk - way too time consuming to do thar more than once in a while! Hopefully the French will do better here than they did in your version, but I expect a bit of a meat grinder regardless!

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  3. Exciting unit ! Not something you every day.

    I like the idea of using standard figures and doing paintbrush conversions. This is a great unit that fits that well !

    Thanks for posting, always good detailed info here.

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    1. Quite a bit of opportunity for "paint conversions" with the French and their allies/foreign troops, as you well know. The Irish Legion and Isembourg regt are other famous examples... the Portguese saw more action and were more effective, though!

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    2. Oooo ! interesting.

      More reading for me ! The Irish Legion has to make an appearance on the field I say.

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    3. Dempsey's book has a LONG section on the Legion; they had a very unique flag, green with the "maid of Eyre" harp on it. The Histofig site also has a good article on the Irish legion:

      http://empire.histofig.com/Irish-Regiment.html

      Any true Irishman who has a French Napoleonic army HAS to have a unit of Irish Legion! Joe can tell you what happened decades ago when they first made their appearance on the table oppposite a British unit recruited from Ireland..

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    4. Begosh, Peter, I'd nearly fergotten meself of that great meeting, the lads from both sides getting a bit tossed rather than coming to blows. Really fried the ice of the French wing commander as I remember it.

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  4. Looks good, Peter...now I know why your posting volume dropped off recently.

    Looking forward to playtesting with these fellows.

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  5. Looking good, Peter! I can't wait to see them in person.

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    1. Thanks, Gabriel, and Joe should see them in the flesh on Sunday!

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  6. Nice unit! (I'm doing the Legion for 1809 in 6mm- still can't seem to find definitive confirmation they were brown in '09 like they were later-got anything on that?)
    I can see going darker with the wash for these uniforms. That high gloss keeps those whites white, huh?
    Looking nice-may victory follow you!
    Rob

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    1. According to Dempsey, the decision to go with the red-brown uniforms was made in July, 2008, and the uniform described in detail in latter from the Minister of War later that month. Hardly proof they were issued by 9+ months later, but it seems plausible at the vey least, especially considering the troops sent in 1809 were the pick of the Legion.

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