Diablo Jon goes Napoleonic - Westphalian 1st Cuirassiers finished

[Diablo Jon]

My hobby time has been a bit scarce lately as I’ve been dabbling in some 1.1 scale modelling and painting, around the house, in my time off this summer. I did however get my kit bashed Westphalian Guard Grenadiers finished and photographed. When I started my 1809 Bohemia Project I knew very early on I wanted to collect some Westphalian units. True to form, even though I have several battalions of the excellent Steve Barber models Westphalian line infantry waiting for paint, I decided to go for an elite guard unit instead.

The Kingdom of Westphalia was an invention of Napoleon that incorporated a number of German territories including parts of Hanover, the Duchy of Magdeburg, Brunswick and the Electorate of Hesse. The king of this new Kingdom was Napoleon’s younger brother Jerome Bonaparte. The formation of the kingdom of Westphalia, in 1807, gave Napoleon a client state in the middle of Germany as well as a way to recruit German soldiers. Jerome under instruction from Napoleon set about creating a new 25,000 man army for his Kingdom. A number of the first units raised including the light infantry battalion and the 1st Chevaux-lergers were sent to Spain in 1808. At the beginning 1809 the Westphalian army was still in the process of being raised with a number of line infantry regiments still forming. The whole of the available Westphalian army took part in limited campaigning, as part of the larger X corps under Jerome, in northern Germany, Saxony and along the Bohemian border. The Westphalian’s deploying two infantry brigades, a small cavalry brigade and three artillery batteries. The Westphalians also saw some action after the armistice at Znaïm when the Duke of Brunswick refused to give up the fight and invaded his old duchy at the head of his Black Horde.

Wanting to imitate his older brother Jerome raised a Royal Guard that included a Guard Grenadier battalion, Guard Jager battalion, a Guard Chevaux-lergers regiment, a Guard horse artillery battery and a squadron of Garde du Corps. The Napoleon suggested to his brother that the cadre of this Royal guard should come from 300 German speaking French men while the rest should be recruited from middle class Westphalians who could afford to pay for their own uniforms. The Grenadier battalion consisted of six companies of a 116 men plus staff and a depot company and contrary to Napoleon’s advice was recruited from Hessian veterans, men of line infantry grenadier companies and the the best of the conscripts.

The uniform was white with red distinctions, yellow/gold buttons and yellow lace along. Head gear was a bearskin with red cords and no front plate. The grenadiers also had dark grey double breasted great coats and white overalls for campaign.



The biggest issue I had with including the Guard Grenadiers in my miniature Army was a lack of miniatures in 28mm only one company made them and that was Elite miniatures. The problem with that is Elite have a very defined style which doesn’t really fit with other 28mm ranges I’m using. The solution then was to go old school and kit bash or paint convert some other miniatures. I thought that would be easy but the Westphalian Grenadiers uniform were just a little to different from all the other Grenadiers available especially the Jackets and the lack of a bearskin front plate. I got lucky when I came across an article on Napoleon series.org detailing great coat styles and colours used by the German states during the Napoleonic wars. It just so happened that I’d come into the possession of some Victrix Old Guard in great coats, I didn’t need any French Imperial guard for my project, but it dawned on me that with a head swap these Victrix miniatures could work as Westphalian grenadiers. As luck would have it the Victrix dragoon elite company heads looked very close to the Westphalian grenadier bearskins and I had a whole bunch of spare ones after building the Dragoons set. A quick bit of gluing later as well as a little putty work on the command group and hey presto Westphalian Guard Grenadiers ready to go on campaign.

[Basementboy]

Very nice! Where is the banner from, it looks great

[Diablo Jon]

Very nice! Where is the banner from, it looks great

Thank you. I found it online and after a few tries managed to get it sized to match the  flags in the Perry's plastic French infantry set.

https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/Flags/de%5Ekwfal.html

[Tom Dulski]

 wonderful work

[CapnJim]

wonderful work

Ditto to that!

[Diablo Jon]

Like the Guard grenadiers in my previous post I couldn’t find 28mm Westphalian Garde-Jager I liked so I turned to the Victrix Old Guard Grenadiers in great coat and added Victrix and Perry French Voltigeur heads. The officers are from the Victrix French infantry set with some Greenstuff work to give them Hessian boots and re-work their jackets to look more Westphalian. The Garde-Jager wore a very fetching green and yellow dress uniform with white/silver buttons. I found reference to grey overall trousers for campaign dress and found some info saying they wore dark green great coats (which sounded ace I won’t lie). The info on great coats came from the Napoleon series website

https://www.napoleon-series.org/military-info/organization/c_greatcoats.html

Of course when I posted them up to Facebook some people queried my great coats and claimed they should be grey. Looking back to my source it appears he got his info off Rawkins whose 1980s uniform guides used to be considered very good but have more recently been criticised for containing more than a few mistakes. My new uniform book WESTPHALIAN GUARD OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS by Dr S. Summerfield (which I of course picked up after finishing the unit) says grey great coats and green great coats for officers only. I’m not sure whether  to repaint these guys especially as a grey great coat and grey overall trousers would make for a very boring looking unit and repainting in my experience rarely goes well. As usual painting Napoleonic uniforms leaves me feeling slightly overwhelmed. I do try to research the uniforms before I paint a unit but the Napoleonic era seems to have a glut of information on uniforms which often seem contradictory or changes depending on the date. For example my new uniform book on the Westphalian Guard, that had a lifespan of six years, gives me as many as three different uniforms based on time period (I mean three uniform changes in six years seems excessive but okay) as well as campaign dress and full dress options for trousers, jackets and head wear during these three different uniform periods (and don’t even get me started on musicians like drummers and their back to front uniform colours) its enough to make your head explode at times.

Like the Guard Grenadiers the Garde-jager were formed in 1808. They started as a 4 company battalion but in either 1809 ( according John Gill) or 1811 ( according to S. Summerfield) they moved to a 6 company battalion that mirrored the Guard Grenadiers including an Elite carabinier 1st company. Despite the name the the Garde-jager carried muskets not rifles and seem to have acted like a French light infantry battalion.

Anyway here are some shots of my battalion plus the casualty marker I make for each unit and a final shot alongside their brother guardsmen.

[Basementboy]

Really nice job! I have to agree with you, Napoleonics can be a right pain in the rear to paint... At least you've gotten a good end result though.

[OSHIROmodels]

I think they look great 

[Diablo Jon]

Thanks chaps 👍

[Freddy]

They look great!

[Diablo Jon]

Unit number three in my kitbashed Westphalian units for 1809 is the 1st Cuirassiers. This unit was raised in 1808 and consisted of four squadrons, each of two companies, for a full strength of 652 men. the regiments uniform was white with rose turn backs and cuffs. initially the unit had no armour and seem to have received black, German style, front cuirass in 1810 (I suspect these were war booty from the 1809 war). For the invasion of Russia, in 1812, it seems the regiment upgraded to French Cuirassier armour with front and back plates. The regiments helmets resemble French cuirassier helmets but with an Austrian style comb rather than a horse hair plume. Napoleon was unimpressed with his brother raising a cuirassier regiment and wrote to him.

“I see that you have a regiment of cuirassiers. This arm does not seem to me appropriate for you. You are not a power large enough for a respectable body of heavy cavalry, what you should have is light cavalry. Your cavalry should be composed entirely of chasseurs.”

It clearly had no effect on King Jerome who went on to raise a second cuirassier regiment before the invasion of Russia. The painting below, painted by the Suhr Brothers, shows the uniform of 1st cuirassiers in Hamburg in 1810



For the kitbash I used Victrix French Dragoons (legs, horses and elite company arms), heads from Warlord Games French lancers and finally Perry miniatures Austrian cuirassier bodies. As I said above technically in the 1809 campaign the cuirassiers wouldn’t have breastplates but honestly I don’t like cuirassiers without a cuirass so history be damned rule of cool wins on this one.

[CapnJim]

Great job on the Garde-jager and that cavalry.

But, I gotta ask:  How long did it take your eyes to recover from painting all that very vibrant green?   

[Baron von Wreckedoften]

Superb!!!

I'm looking at creating a "formation" of these chaps for a Sharp Practice game centred around the battle of Olper in 1809 (probably 3-4 groups of 8 figures each, plus some "big men").  I'm using Perry plastics throughout - French dragoon bodies with Carabinier heads (and the occasional Victrix elite company arm) on dragoon/heavy cavalry horses. Unlike you, I quite like the pink lapels, so I'm going to go with "historical" on the cuirass front!  Plumes, any missing epaulettes and the rounded ends of the portmanteaux all courtesy of Greenstuff.

I have one question: did you find any information as to which long firearm the Cuirassiers carried - musketoon, carbine, or nothing?

[Basementboy]

Gorgeous! Love the attention you’re giving to the lesser known units like these, they look amazing.

[schoey]

Wonderful collection.

Paul