This evening I have mostly been fixing flags to my recent new units. A healthy dose of the commonplace after the giddy excitement of last week's Pommeranians. Here's a humble unit of Portuguese militia - I had enough odd NapoleoN and Kennington figures to make up a battalion. The more observant may notice that the Kennington boys are out of step with the NapoleoN figures, but this is the militia, after all. These chaps will come in useful for all sorts of duties, but one of their jobs is general labouring for the Allied siege train - heaving things about, digging holes, all that.
Once again, my clever but over-enthusiastic camera has brightened the colours - they are not really as psychedelic as this.
They also serve who only stand and guard the cookhouse.
ReplyDeleteArmed navvies, perchance? The thought makes one shudder!
ReplyDeleteThese would be the very chaps to dig the big siege battery positions at Ciudad Rodrigo and so on, so that 2nd Lt The Hon Farquharson-Smythe and his mincing chums of the RHA would not have to get their gloves dirty.
ReplyDeleteI was having a squint at Halliday's 1812 book on the state of Portugal and its army, and he is very polite about the militia, pointing out that they are superior in every respect to the Ordenanza. All these guys did stout work manning the Lines of Torres Vedras and suchlike.
Digression: Halliday also gives population stats for Portugal at this time, and, though I'd like to go over the sums again, it was not a large country. The proportion of men of military age who were serving in some branch of the military must have been staggering, and that's without considering the guys that the French had taken away to fight on the other side. I am so staggered, in truth, that I may construct a post on this subject...