The Portuguese Cavalry Project

This has been off and on for many years. A chance discovery, and the fact that I have more time to fiddle around these days, means it is probably back on again.

No-one makes Peninsular War Portuguese Cavalry in 20mm. If you are a 28mm or 15mm gamer then you are well provided for, but 20mm, nothing doing. I have approached this problem in a number of ways. For a while, I decided the easiest approach was to assume that by 1812 the Portuguese had been supplied with British Light Dragoon pattern (i.e. French style) bell-top shakos, and I should convert some kind of cavalry wearing single-breasted jackets accordingly. I even have some Scruby British Light Dragoons which I bought specially for the purpose, with the intention of grinding off the epaulettes and shako cords - enough for at least two regiments. Alas, they are among Scruby's most primitive offerings, and I cannot bring myself to invest effort or money into them. The sow's ear/silk purse department is simply not prepared to take this on, though I have warmed a bit to Scrubies of late.

So I fell back on the safe and well-tried option of doing nothing at all about it. Portuguese cavalry (with all due respect) was not usually effective in a battlefield role, so could be a lowish priority anyway, and - anyway - I have not always been entirely comfortable that I knew exactly how these guys were dressed. There was the strange sky-blue uniform on the cover of Otto Von Pivka's old Osprey book, which I believe is probably incorrect (though it appears to have influenced GMT's counter artwork for Commands & Colors: Napoleonics), and there was a wide range of interpretations of the appearance of the helmet. The headgear situation is confused by the fact that the Legion d'Alorna wore something very similar to the helmet of a French line lancer, with a high crest, while there are descriptions of cavalry units in the Portuguese army equipped with British equipment, including, apparently, Light Dragoon-style Tarleton helmets.

We are much better informed these days - the recent Chartrand books published by Osprey are a big improvement. Just to be difficult, for a moment, let's go back to 1810, and reproduce an illustration from William Bradford's very fine Sketches of the Country, Character and Costume of Portugal and Spain.

Bradford's book includes plates of relatively familiar Spanish and French subjects which demonstrate that he was a skilled observer, and recorded what he saw. The cavalryman has his side plume removed, and the wide front stripe of piping colour is unusual, but we get the idea - there is no cause to doubt its authenticity. While on the subject of ancient history, here is a photo I took in 1981, back in the pre-digital days when poor holiday snaps really were poor, at the little military museum in Morges, Switzerland. The exhibit was described as a Napoleonic Spanish coat, but the button inscription (P. JOAO VI PRINCIPE REGENTE) and the style of the jacket identify it as Portuguese, the facings (sky collars and cuffs, red lining) being those of the 11th cavalry. The wings are odd - maybe a later addition, or a trumpeter's ornament?

The recent stroke of good fortune was that I came across some 20mm Kennington (SHQ) Waterloo Dutch Cuirassiers, and I think they will make pretty good Portuguese horse. Dutch cuirassiers, luckily, did not actually bother with wearing cuirasses, which makes the single breasted jacket a good match for the Portuguese one - near enough for 20mm, anyway. Sadly, Kennington do not do matching command figures, but the troopers are available in a resting or a charging pose, and it should not be a life-threatening challenge to produce two officers and two trumpeters with dremel, razor saw and my box of spare parts. I believe the project is back on - I would not recommend that anyone holds their breath, but I have a good feeling that my hoped-for, two-regiment brigade will become a reality before long.

To finish on a complete irrelevance, I was very taken with another of Bradford's plates, which shows a Portuguese goatherd in an ingenious straw raincoat. How about thatched guerrillas, then?

I am still having problems with Blogger which mean it is a major hassle to sign on successfully, so I have been unable to comment on my usual blog haunts, and publishing is an uncertain process. I am making use of Firefox to get by, but am not happy with it as a general-purpose browser for a number of entirely personal reasons (that should get me some hate mail – there’s nothing like a perceived religious insult to get people worked up...)

Foy's Sixth Law Revisited - NapoleoN Miniatures (yet again)

Just because it follows on from the last post, and the comments thereon, and because it is another appropriate reminder of Foy's mighty Sixth Law, here are some pictures from the old NapoleoN website of 20mm British Peninsular cavalry.

I did obtain a unit of the hussars, but would welcome any suggestions (on a used 5 pound note to Chateau Foy, please) as to why I never got around to buying the heavy dragoons, when I knew they were available and needed quite a few.

New Lamps for Old

To be more precise, that should read "New Lights for Old", but Aladdin never said that, so it wouldn't have worked for a heading (oh yes it would! - oh no it wouldn't!).

Old

It's that old Creeping Elegance thing - where you replace a unit that you have some prejudice against with a newer, better made or more appropriate version. For about 35 years I have been less than delighted with my 14th Light Dragoons - not because there is anything intrinsically wrong with them, but because what I really wanted was proper Peninsular Light Dragoons in Tarleton helmets, but there was never anything available. This original unit consists of Phoenix Model Developments (formerly Les Higgins) castings - nicely made if you like Higgins' stupid horses - and I didn't make a completely terrible job of the painting (Humbrol, and that orange will almost certainly be a model railway colour). It's the Waterloo-period uniforms that grate with me.

New

By dint of a few swaps and some eBay captures, I've finally collected a third unit of NapoleoN Miniatures' Light Dragoons of the appropriate period - I already have the 11th and 16th regiments in my British army. Matt very kindly did the very fine paint job for me on the new one, and here we have the replacement 14LD, ready for action. The old ones are spoken for, and will go to a very good home. Since I am a prince among skinflints, I have managed to re-use the original bases. Looking at the bases, you may wonder why I bothered, but there is some vague whiff of continuity which I find pleasing - the Executioner's Axe raises it's replacement head once again.

This little side project is especially satisfying because it is something that I didn't really need to do, but have wanted to do for many years. And now it's done - YES!!!

I don't have a big list of things to replace - the odd misfit figure of dubious scale, the odd item which I don't like for some reason or other. One recurrent theme is a back-burner intention to replace units which have the wrong period uniform whenever I can. Having all my British Light Dragoons in Tarletons is pleasing, though there is an element of rearranging deck-chairs on the Titanic, since most of my British infantry wear the Belgic shako, and most of my British heavy dragoons are in Doric-type fire-bobbies' helmets, neither of which is awfully clever for the Peninsular War around 1811-12. Still, says I, no-one knows for sure when supplies of these later items became available, do they? And by the time the answer comes, I have my fingers firmly in my ears, and am singing la-la-la-la-la.

Thank you, Matt - another small step for progress.

More of the Same

The rest of the new shipment of painted figures have now been touched and revarnished as necessary and based. They too are now waiting for flags.

Very pleased to get back the first two of my proposed 4 groups of Spanish guerrilla infantry. These are a mixture of Qualiticast and Kennington figures.

More Spanish volunteers - these are the Defensores de Fernando VII, an unusually smart looking unit from Castile, who started life as Kennington 1812 American militia (good idea, Mr Kinch - thanks for that). The flag I had intended to do for them is a horror to draw, so I may go for something simpler.

And some volunteer artillery to support them - here we have the Artilleros Distinguedos de Avila. Since I am very keen on the weirder units in JM Bueno's lovely book, these guys could have been wearing almost anything, but it occurs to me that if I dress them more conservatively as slightly out-of-date artillery of the line I get more options for their use. Figures and guns are NapoleoN apart from the midget Kennington officer, who may not actually be visible in the picture.

Lastly, the combined voltigeurs of the fictitious Vorpommern brigade - Scruby and Higgins.

The Other Side of the Mountain

On Monday, the postie brought a satisfyingly hefty package, which was a pile of figures returned from David the Painter. It's always a bit like Christmas, unwrapping everything (a lot of very serious bubblewrap - and quite right too). Then follows an experience which might be described as the reverse slope of the Lead Mountain - that brief period when there is a pile of painted figures waiting to be organised and based. Since my basing standards are minimalist, this is not a huge chore, and it's really very gratifying.

Thus far, I've based three of the new units - they haven't been issued their colours yet, but that will probably be done over the weekend. No doubt they will appear here in full splendour when their formations are complete and a parade of some sort is in order. This is just a holding post, giving a glimpse of what passes for breathless immediacy in this place.

First there are two infantry units for my fictitious Vorpommern brigade. These are mainly Scruby figures, and once again I am astonished at how well they paint up, considering how unpromising they look in the metal. Since they have a pleasing "toy soldier" look, I like them a little bit shiny.

Here are the Grenadierbataillon Zum alten Greif, nicknamed Die Tulpen (tulips) by their comrades, for obvious reasons. The yellow coats are a tradition established by the old Stralsund Town Guard in the Middle Ages, and yellow and red were in any case the colours of the national cockade of the Duchy of Stralsund-Rügen.

And here is the Jaegerbataillon Franzburg. They were organised and drilled the same as the line infantry, though their light infantry pretensions extended to having carabiniers in tall bearskins and voltigeurs in colpacks. There was supposed to be a sharpshooter company armed with rifles, but this was discouraged by the French commissariat because of the lack of suitable ammunition. A number of the Stralsund-Rügen units bore the names of towns in Vorpommern, but there was no real connection - men were recruited from all over the area, including Brandenburgers and deserters from the Swedish army. There is a theory that the names were allocated to justify the raising of taxes in the relevant towns. The Jaegers had their headquarters in Stralsund, not Franzburg.

Change of army - these are the 2nd battalion of the Loyales de Zamora - Spanish volunteers - also waiting for their flag. The castings are by NapoleoN Miniatures. If they are poorly trained and equipped, if they run away in moments of duress, remember that they will be back next day. The relentless bloody mindedness of the Spanish militia and irregulars is what eventually wore away the spirit of the French army in Spain. They fought a style of warfare which the French did not understand, and which the Russians were quick to learn from. This unit, and all the many others like them, if he had only recognised it, were Napoleon's worst nightmare.

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The Charles Creed Collection - more Pathe films

These pale into insignificance beside the Marcus Hinton Pathe film, which is what reminded me of them in the first place, but I thought they might be of interest. Does anyone know what happened to the Creed collection?

If you click on the images you can watch the movies - apologies for any ads you get with them, probably a small price to pay considering the value of the Pathe archive.





Charles Southey Creed
Born: Paris, France, 1909
Died: London, England, 1966

Son of Henry Creed of Paris – who claimed to be the first tailor to introduce tweeds into women’s suits – Charles Creed was one of the movers and shakers of British fashion in the 1940s. ‘He was pre-destined to design exquisite clothes,’ said Vogue in 1946. ‘Like any artist he seeks perfection, in his case it is tailored perfection.’

Educated in France, England and Germany, Creed joined his father’s business – established by his ancestors in 1710 – before settling in London. At 17 years old, he travelled to Vienna to study tailoring and design. In 1941 he produced utility designs and, after the Second World War, opened his own London house. He married Patricia Cunningham, a fashion editor at Vogue, in 1948.

Charles Creed was in possession of one of the finest collections of lead soldiers and porcelains of the Napoleonic era. In his autobiography, Maid to Measure (1961), he claims to have invented the concept of boutiques in 1939 and concludes, I have grown older and grey and rather bald in the pursuit of my profession and the opposite sex – and I still cannot think of a better way to spend one’s time.’

[At a completely personal level, as a would-be historian I am quietly pleased that his middle name was Southey, and the biographical note, as you will have realised, is taken from vintageleatherhandbag.com   Dressing for wargaming has been discussed recently - how about painting soldiers in your good suit?]

Hooptedoodle #26 - Why I Grew Out of eBay

I've had some excellent value out of eBay. My wargame armies have grown dramatically as a result of my constantly trawling the listings looking for vintage figures, I've obtained a load of books at decent prices and I've even made a few good friends from the people I've had dealings with. It has also been useful for selling off things I no longer needed, and, of course, eBay and PayPal have made a silly amount of money out of my involvement, which is what it is all about really, so I can feel that I have paid my way nicely. Most of all, it has given me a lot of fun.

I am beginning to grow very tired of it. For a start, the economic situation means that, like everyone, I have to watch what I spend, and eBay can be a bit dangerous at times. My armies now are pretty much complete anyway, but I am beginning to dislike some aspects of eBay. I do not like the standardisation of listings enforced by the Turbo Lister software, I do not like the restrictions placed on shipping values - many of them are poorly thought through (example - certain categories of item will try to force free shipping on the seller, regardless of the weight of the package, and regardless of the destination), I do not care for the growing preponderance of professional dealers, and in particular I do not like what has happened to the Feedback system.

I was always very partial to the Feedback - it gave an overtone, however illusory, of old-fashioned trust. If someone had a large 100% feedback record, they could pretty certainly be relied upon; in more practical terms, they would be unlikely to risk spoiling that hard-earned record by messing me around over a £5 pack of toy soldiers. It worked nicely, though there was a regrettable tendency for some sellers to hold off with feedback until they themselves had received good feedback from the buyer - the "second snowball" principle, clearly aimed to discourage any expression of dissatisfaction. Feedback has become very specific now, and the 5 Stars system by service category (accuracy of description, quality of communication, speed of shipping and level of P&P charges) seems to be too detailed an instrument to place in the hands of your average eBayer. There are a few people who will never give anything full marks, on principle, or possibly out of embarrassment - who knows? There is an even larger number of people who will always give full marks for everything, because they feel it is expected, and because it's not worth the hassle of doing anything else. I am faintly mystified, for example, to reflect that my rating for shipping charges has never been higher than 4.8 out of 5. OK - it's a good pass mark, and it doesn't trouble me at all, but I have always charged postage at cost, try to use recycled packing materials where possible, and will make PayPal refunds if I have over-estimated the shipping cost. In other words, I regularly lose small amounts of money on shipping, so I can't understand how I have disappointed my customers. Maybe they are just unhappy with Royal Mail's tariff of charges? Who knows? No matter - the point remains that the Feedback, despite attempts to bring more science to it, no longer reassures me as it did.

Recently I bought a book from an eBay seller and was surprised to have it delivered by Amazon. I worked out that this is an eBay dealer who lists books at prices a few pence higher than Amazon's, arranges for them to be sent direct from Amazon and pockets the change. Not exactly entrepreneurial, is it? Apart from my grinding irritation with portal-type industries which milk money out of a system to which they add no value whatsoever, I cannot afford that kind of pointless waste. Now I always cross-check on Amazon and Abebooks before I bid for a book (or a DVD, or a CD) on eBay - in about 60% of cases I end up buying from Amazon.

Last week I bought a small item from a large eBay seller. Last time I dealt with them, they left feedback along the lines of "Perfect eBayer - a delight to deal with", which I was quietly pleased with until I realised that their other 32000 customers all had the same comment. This time, acknowledgement of my purchase included mention of the fact that if I give them positive feedback, an automated system at their end will respond by giving me positive feedback in return. Something not quite right there - something has slipped a little. Although it all helps perpetuate the lovely Facebook world in which we can all gush at each other and bask in the warm, meaningless glow, that little old trust thing just fell off the table. Not a big deal, but another of the accumulation of small niggles which have gradually made me an occasional, marginal user.

There are some things I'll miss - my all-time favourite daft feedback comment was "In days to come, they'll speak in awe of this transaction", though you don't often get that kind of quality now. I'll miss the Jurassic struggles when two superheroes simultaneously place a Really Silly Bid on the same rare Hinton Hunt figure, and I'll miss that lovely guy who keeps listing 25mm white metal Napoleonics - "maker unknown" - although they have obviously come out of the same Prince August moulds he used last week. Perhaps he has problems with short term memory retention.

So do I - what was I saying?