The 16th Lègére

The commanding officer of the 16th Lègére cautiously sends out his skirmish line.

One of my acquisitions from 52nd Black Watch last winter were two sets of their Spanish Light Infantry in Spain, enough to do a six stand battalion totalling 24 figures. As always, these are beautiful sculpts in metal, a nice departure from my mostly all-plastic armies.

They are identified as the 31st Lègére, mainly because they are all sculpted without jackets (with the exception of the officer and drummer), wearing instead just their long-sleeved white vests as depicted in an image by El Guil. I had originally planned to paint them up as the 31st, but decided instead to go with the 16th, a regiment that also saw extensive action in Spain. 

As much as I liked the idea of the long-sleeved white waistcoats I also felt that if I painted them all that way they wouldn’t necessarily integrate that well with the rest of my light infantry (they weren’t going to integrate well, regardless, as the Black Watch sculpts are quite differently proportioned from the slender HaT sculpts). So I decided to put most of them into the long-tailed jacket, leaving only a few in shirt sleeves. I hope the sculptor will forgive me!

After starting to paint these I decided to add coattails to 14 of the figures so they would look a but more like the rest of my light infantry.

Beyond that my only conversions were to make the extra drummer into a flag bearer (a fanion, as the light infantry in Spain had been directed to leave their Eagles at the depot) and a slight alteration to the second officer, placed on my grenadier stand, so he wouldn't look identical to the first.

A bit of history

The 16th light demi-brigade was formed in 1796. It served in the armies of the Rhine, Germany, Helvetia, Naples and Italy.

The 16th Lègére also had a long history in the Peninsula, a small contingent entering into Spain as part of the Corps d'Observation de la Gironde sent in to support Spain in its war against Portugal in 1801 and returning to France in 1802. 

In 1803 it was made a full regiment of four battalions. Elements of the 16th made up part of the Corps d'Observations which were slipped into Spain at the end of 1807 prior to Napoleon’s move to force the abdication of the Spanish monarchy and take over the country, placing it under the rule of his brother Joseph. When Spain subsequently rose up in rebellion the 16th’s third battalion formed part of the forces gathered to march into Spain under Napoleon at the end of October, 1808 to set things right.

The 16th Lègére (first three battalions) joined Marshal Victor’s 1st Corps, in Lapisse’ 2nd Division. They fought on the French right, helping defeat and disperse Blake’s Spanish army before joining Napoleon on the march to Madrid.

They later fought at Talavera in July 1809, where General Lapisse was killed, and then spent most of the next few years with Victor in the endless siege of Cadiz. By 1813 only the 1st Battalion was left in Spain, present at the battle of Vittoria and the subsequent withdrawal of the French forces from the Peninsula.

This excellently researched French site has loads more information on the 16th Lègére.

http://frederic.berjaud.free.fr/Articles_de_Didier_Davin/16eLeger/16eme_leger.htm

And here are a few photos of my results:

The flag bearer is a conversion from the drummer behind. I gave him a fanion as by this point in the war light infantry battalions had been instructed to not bring their Eagles onto the field.

My grenadier stand with a slightly altered commander figure serving as a grenadier lieutenant.

This stand of voltigeurs has two of the figures in their white long-sleeved vests. Part of me wishes I had simply left the entire unit in the vests!!

The generosity of strangers

One of the things I love about this hobby is the generosity of so many who embrace it. For the second time someone has reached out to me from far away to offer me figures that I had mentioned having a hard time to get my hands on. This time it was Clive from Australia, (almost literally on the other side of the world from my home in Canada!!) who in an e-mail casually mentioned that he was changing scale to 28mm and had a few spare 1/72 Napoleonics he was prepared to pass on to a good home. By a few extra he meant 16,000 (!!) Clive sent me a list of what he had - he was very organized - I sent him my wish list, and we came to an agreement that would have him ship these to me. In the end 2000 or more figures arrived the other day by parcel post, including about 800 destined for my friend Alan, new to the hobby and now far into the deep end.

So a big thanks to Clive, to Mark in the past, and all those who love to share in this hobby.

Packages of joy received in the mail.