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. 

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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