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| Regimiento de la Muerte, 1809 |
Most wargames armies have some unit
somewhere that turns out to be a bit of an embarrassment – mostly it’s because
by rights it shouldn’t be there, and mostly that is because their owner fancied
the uniforms, or found the figures cheap at a swapmeet. How many miniature
Napoleonic French armies contain a completely inappropriate unit of Mamelukes
of the Guard, for example? My own follies in the building up of my Peninsular
War armies include a post-1813 line chevaux-legers unit (never set foot in
Spain), which I still include in the OOB when it suits – well, they might have
appeared (I got some old Garrison figures on eBay); the other was a smashing
unit of Les Higgins/PMD Scots Greys – I converted the command figures and
everything. This unit still causes me some grief, in retrospect – they were
absolutely beautiful, but historically the regiment spent the entire Peninsular
War in Britain and – more seriously – they threatened to encourage me to expand
my collection to cover Waterloo, with two distinct types of light dragoons and so on. So I sold them on eBay a few years ago, and
they went for the starting bid, which was a major heart breaker - not entirely because I am a skinflint, but because I loved them and was insulted.
In this vein, one unit which has always
intrigued me is the Regimiento de la
Muerte, one of the Spanish “new regiments” raised after the French
invasion. These guys appear in just about every known book of uniforms for the
Peninsular War, the early use of a British looking uniform is notable, and they
became such an iconic Spanish unit (beginning at a time when relatively little
was known about that army - by me, certainly) that a lot of tabletop Spanish armies had them.
Bueno did a few illustrations of them, though I’m not sure why they have such
prominence - Douglas Miniatures, in particular, had only three Spanish Napoleonic
figures – a classic line grenadier, with bearskin, and a fusilero and officer of the “Death Regt”. The Death boys will paint
up as 1812 blue-uniformed chaps, so they are useful anyway.
I have recently chanced upon a small
additional supply of 1812-style S-Range Spaniards, which is very pleasing, and
one possibility was that they could be painted up as the Muerte, and thus swell
the ranks of my 1809 army, since my 1812 army is probably quite large enough. Problem is that my OOB is based on the battles of Ucles
and (a bit) Ocaña, and Muerte were not at either of these places. Out of general
interest, I thought I’d check out my JJ Sañudo database, and see what the facts
are for Muerte.
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| Funcken: Who's the guy in the middle, then? |
Well now. First thing to note is that their
full name was Voluntarios de la Muerte o
Victoria, they were raised in 1809, and disbanded 18 months later, and the
second thing is that there was a completely different, much more famous light infantry unit named
the Voluntarios de la Victoria (this is Volunteers of Victory – nothing at all to do with the city of
Vitoria) who were featured in the old S-Range catalogue (SN7s, complete with
brimmed hat) and had a long and distinguished war record right through to Toulouse
in 1814.
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| Clonard plate: Left to Right: Voluntarios de la Patria, Leales de Fernando VII, Santa Fe, La Muerte, Voluntarios de la Victoria |
So what of the iconic Muerte, so well known
to wargamers? Since it is not lengthy, and might be of interest, this is their
full regimental history:
30 Jan 1809 - Single-battalion unit of line
infantry raised by D. Francisco Colombo
18 Mar – present at action of Villafranca
20 Mar – official army return describes
them as “Regto de la Victoria”, 1 battalion, strength 500 men, under “Capitan”
Colombo
22 Mar – 500 men, under Colombo, present at
action of Pontevedra
23 Mar – At Vigo, in Galicia – regt formed into
3 battalions, totalling 1000 men; these were built around 1 company of the
“Regto de la Victoria”, 1 company of the line Regto de Zamora and 1 company of the Granaderos Provinciales de Galicia, with a substantial intake of
volunteer recruits
24 Apr – Action of Santiago; regiment
listed as “Regimiento de la Muerte”, consisting of 3 battalions.
26 Apr – at Caldas de Reyes
2 May – attached to La Carrera’s Division
on the Miño, at a strength of 1 battalion [where were the rest?]
June – at the Siege of Tuy
7 Jun – 1 battalion present at Battle of
Puente Sampayo, with Noroña’s Divn.
30 Jun – return has “Regto de la Victoria o
Muerte” at a strength of 1725 men, which seems unlikely.
3 Jul - …they are once again “de la
Muerte”, commanded by Colombo.
18 Oct – Battle of Tomames, 1 battalion
with the Vanguard Divn, commanded by Mariscal de Campo Martin de la Carrera – 1
killed, 5 wounded, 1 slightly wounded(?).
23 Nov – Action of Medina del Campo, with
La Carrera’s Vanguard Divn.
28 Nov – Battle of Alba de Tormes – 148 men
present with La Carrera’s Divn.
18 Dec – Regimental cadre(?) marched to
Galicia; 135 men transferred to 1st
Voluntarios de Cataluña [which is, in fact, one of the units in my Ucles
OOB army].
5 Feb 1810 – Possible that 1st
Vols de Cataluña present at defence of Badajoz.
15 Jun – 1 battalion in Galicia, with
Imaz’s “Vanguardia Provisional” division.
1 Jul – regiment disbanded – remaining
strength absorbed by the Regimiento de Lobera.
And that, it seems, was that. It would
appear that the battalions served separately, and their war service was brief
but active – the numbers seem to have fluctuated wildly, though this may just
be dodgy record keeping, and I would guess that the bulk of the men in the ranks had little training or experience. I have no wish to disapprove of anyone who served in
defence of his native land, but the unit seems to be notable primarily because
plates of their uniform survive rather than as a result of any particularly distinguished
combat record. I shan’t bother adding them to my 1809 line-up – not least
because they didn’t exist until some months after my target OOB.
I find Sañudo’s database a veritable
goldmine of information – a great find.
