Young Guard Tirailleurs

    What would become the "Young Guard" was born in January, 1809, with the creation of  (ultimately) the 1st and 2nd Tirailleur-Grenadiers, Tirailleur-Chassuers, Conscript-Grenadiers, and Conscript-Chasseurs (See my earlier post on the foot regiments of the French Imperial Guard through 1809 for details of these units). These Young Guard units saw action in Spain after the 1809 campaign in Germany wound down. At the very end of 1810 (December 30), the 1st and 2nd Tirailleur-Grenadiers and the 1st and 2nd Conscript Grenadiers (February 10, 1811) became respectively the 1st - 4th Tirailleurs. Similarly, on the Chasseur side of the Young Guard, the 4 existing regiments became the 1st - 4th Voltigeurs of the Guard; more about then in a separate post in the near future.

My newest troops - two units of Front Rank 28mm Tirailleurs de la Garde Imperiale, just finished yesterday; the matt varnish is barely dry!

    The Tirailluers added a 5th regiment in May 1811, and a sixth Regiment in August. Following the Russian debacle of 1812, the former regiments were reconstituted, and a 7th regiment of Tirailleurs was added Feb 15, 1813, an 8th Regiment in March 1813, and then the 9th - 13th regiments in April 1813. More were to follow - 14th-16th regiments in early January 1814, and the 17th -19th regiments later the same month. Thus, in less than a year, 13 new regiments were added. Not surprisingly, by 1814, the Guard composed almost 1/3 of the Army's effective strength. most of it made up of these Young Guard units. Not surprisingly, by this point the quality of the later Tirailleur regiments was little different from that of the line.

1st Battalion, 1st Tirailleurs. You knew I had to do them in the distinctive red over white plumes, right?

  Tracing the uniforms of the Tirauileur regiments can be more than a bit confusing; their initial uniform was essentially that of the Tirailleur-Grenadiers, and coat remained essentially the same with minor differences. A shorter cut dark blue coat was worn, with the lapels blue piped in white. The pointed cuffs and turnbacks were red piped white. The collar was red, sometimes piped blue. The turnbacks were ornamented with white eagle badges, and the false pockets on the back of the jackets were piped in white. The pointed shoulder straps were red piped in white. Buttons were yellow metal. The jacket initially had the lapels cut to a point, showing the white vest; later (April, 1813, at least theoretically), the lapels were cut square and extended all the way to the bottom of the jacket front. White pants were worn (dark blue often in service dress, or even brown in Spain), along with short black gaiters. Finally, a black shako was worn, with a brass Eagle plate on the front and brass chinstraps.While the original Tirailleur-Grenadier shakos had had  white cords, when the regiments were reorganized into Tirailleurs, red cords were worn (until all cords were abolished in April 1813). White lace chevron "V'"'s were worn on the sides of the shakos as well, until they were also abolished in April 1813.

Like all of the Imperial Guard Infantry except the Old Guard, the Tirailleurs did not have or carry Eagles. They did carry fanions of unspecified design (except they were not to have an inscription or indicate in any way that they belonged to a Guard unit). In March 1812, the fanions were officially decreed to be white. Exceptions to this are definitely known, however (notably the 5th regt)!

The drummers had gold lace piping on their cuffs and lapels, and shoulder wings, as seen here, but no other distinctions. It seems the new Imperial Livery didn't apply to the Guard!.

    Then there is the matter of the plumes to be addressed! Initially  in full dress at least,  the 1st Tirailleurs had tal plumes with a white pom pom at the base, the plume being red over white in equal proportions (same as they had worn as the 1st Tirailleur-Grenadiers), and it seems the 2nd regiment wore white over red plumes over a white pompom, with the 3rd Tirailleurs (and ? probably the 4th) wearing solid red. Later all the regiments had solid red plumes for full dress, until they were abolished in April 1813 and replaced with a spherical red pom-pom (boo, hiss!) for all regiments. For ordinary dress, until April 1813, the pom poms distinguished the regiments:

1st Tirailleurs: spherical pom pom, red over white
2nd Tirailleurs: sperical pompom, white over red
3rd Tirailleurs: red lentile disc with white center
4th Tirailleurs: white lentile disc with red center (or all red)
5th Tirailleurs: white lentile disc with blue center (or all white)
6th Tirailleurs: blue lentile disc with white center

The officers wore solid red plumes, as seen here, aside from the Major and Colonel, who had white. They also had gold cords on their shakos, as well as a band of black velvet along the top of the shako, piped in gold and bearing gold five pointed starts; I have settled for just solid gold - even these superb Front Rank figures didn't have the star braiding modeled on!

A final view of the 1st Battalion, 1st Tirailleurs; this rear view shows the turnbacks; again, you will have to forgive me, as I didn't attempt to paint the white eagle badges on!

The same uniform was worn by Tirailleur regiments during the 1815 "Hundred Days" campaign, except that red epaulettes replaced the earlier shoulder straps  Michael Head's Almark book shows  the epaulettes on the jacket starting in 1812, but the text doesn't indicate this.

This picture and those that follow are of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Tirailleurs. You can see the Eagle plates on the flaps of the cartridge boxes, a cast on detail. The main difference (in my case) between the units  is the slightly different pose (Front Rank makes quite a variety of poses for the Tirailleurs, in addition to being one of the few manufacturers that actually makes a Tirailleur figure in the first place!

The figure in the front rank to the left of the fanion bearer is painted as an NCO; prior to the austerity measures of 1813, their shakos were distinguished by red mixed with gold cords (similar to Fusilier-Grenadier NCO's), and red chevrons edged in gold on the sides of the shako.

This view shows the pointed shoulder straps well. Front Rank are beautiful figures, but they are HUGE; I'd say 32mm. At least Barry's Front Rank Russians can now pick on someone their own size in the French camp!  :-)

Their Fanion is by GMB designs. Note again the details of the NCO's shako. I'm happy with how these guys came out, but they did take me considerably longer than usual to paint, in part because their surface area is just greater than that of smaller figures, LOL!

And lastly, a top down view of the 2nd battalion, 1st Tirailleurs of the Young Guard.  These fellows should see a lot of action in the upcoming 200th anniversary 1813 scenarios! Next month it will be the turn of the Young Guard Voltigeurs.

Peter

Sources:
Foot Regiments of the Imperial Guard, Micahel Head, Almark Publications, January 1973
L'Uniforme et Les Armes des Soldats du Premier Empire, Fred and Liliane Funken, Casterman. 1969
The Anatomy of Glory: Napoleon and his Guard, Henry Lachouque and Anne S. K. Brown, Grenhill Books,  London, 4th edition, 1999.
Napoleon's Guard Infantry (2), Philip Haythornwaite, Osprey Publishing Ltd, London, `1985, ereprinted 1988