The 32me Infanterie de Ligne

While my left eye is out of commission I figured I would tackle some French in greatcoats, a simpler painting proposition as I can avoid any piping on collars and cuffs. I still had a number of French left over from the HaT 1805-1808 French in Greatcoats set, some of which I had previously converted, so scalpel in hand I once again removed their bicorned heads and replaced them with shakoed heads from a box of 1805 Légere, also HaT (and a set full of stiff poses that I don't like!)

Figures with bicornes lopped off and shakos attached, to which I added covers and pompoms.

A bit of modelling putty transformed these into covered shakos, to which I added pompoms and plumes for the light infantry. The only major conversion was the standard bearer, an altered fusilier.

Fusilier converted to standard bearer. The modelling is a bit rough byut works from a distance.

 I thought I would set them somewhere in France this time, doubtlessly after their repatriation from Lisbon and prior to their return to Spain in 1808. And I especially want to point out all of my new trees in the background - another one-eyed project! I hope you enjoy the results.



A little history
Created in 1775 from two battalions of Aunis, the 32nd was reconstituted during the reorganization of the French army in 1803 into three battalions of 800 men each.
The 32nd (3rd battalion) marched with Junot into Portugal as part of the Gironde Observation Corps in 1807, entering Spain via Salamanca and arriving in Lisbon as part of the Army of Portugal in December 8, 1807. After Junot’s defeat at Vimiero the 32nd was repatriated to France by sea and reorganized, after which the first three battalions were sent to Spain as part of the 1st Division of the 4th Corps under General Sébastiani. The regiment subsequently participated in the battles of Talavera, Almonacid, Baza, Ocana and Vittoria as well as other engagements in the Peninsular War.

Regimental war record (Battles and Combats)

1791: Antilles

1793: Mainz

1795: Loano

1796: Montelgino, Dego, Lonato, Arcole and Saint Georges

1797: Rivoli and Mantoue

1798: Malta, Alexandrie and Les Pyramides

1799: El-Arish, Jaffa, Acre, Mont-Tabor, Aboukir and Damiette

1800: Heliopolis

1801: Alexandrie

1805: Haslach, Diernstein and Ulm 

1807: Mohrungen and Friedland

1809: Talevera de de Reina and Almonacid

1810: Baza

1811: Ubida, Venta-del-Baul and Ticola

1812: Ocana

1813: Vittoria, Sorauren and Bayonne

1813: Lutzen,Wurschen, Buntzlau, Dresden and Leipzig

1814: Orthez and Toulouse

1814: Nogent-sur-Seine, Nangis, Monterau and Limonset

1815: Mundolsheim and Srasbourg

Zaragoza Light Infantry 1808

Continuing with a theme, I painted up another battalion of round-hatted Spanish infantry for my ever-growing Spanish army. The beauty of painting the Spanish, as a wargamer, is that you will literally never run out of new and varied units to paint! Especially in the myriad of units that emerged (and disappeared again!) in 1808 as a result of the Central Junta’s call to arms, virtually every region and municipality in the nation had its own unique uniform.

This week’s offering is the blue-coated light infantry formed in 1808 in defence of Zaragoza during its prolonged sieges over 1808-09. These were bloody affairs that resulted in the estimated deaths of 54,000 Spaniards (20,000 soldiers and 34,000 civilians). The French also lost terrible numbers during the siege, both in battle and from disease, although nothing close to the Spanish losses.

The figures are again from the HaT Spanish Guerrilla box. I had earlier decapitated a few of these for another militia unit so those figures received new heads, some bandaged or with different hats, giving the unit a more battle worn appearance. The uniforms on these figures, as stated in the previous post, also vary, with different coat cuts and leggings - the official uniform, according to the Osprey image, has the Zaragoza light infantry with full lapels and short tails with red turnbacks. But only a few of these figures have those. I would imagine in the privations and desperation of a prolonged siege, uniformity was probably not universal!

A bit of history...
There were two battalions of Zaragoza Light Infantry raised during the two sieges, the first on the 29th of May, 1808 and the second December 1 of the same year. At the conclusion of the second siege on February 21 1809 the first battalion had only 87 survivors and the 2nd 62, and on surrendering all were led into captivity in France.

Head swaps I made for a few of the figures to add more variety to an already mixed bag.

In skirmish formation with half the figures detached from their four-up magnetic bases.