French Allied Infantry - Kingdom of Holland and Confederation of the Rhine

 

When I came to the end of my stock of unpainted French infantry I decided to do something a bit different with the last two battalions. Since so many of France's allies wore uniforms designed along a similar pattern to theirs, it seemed only natural to look in that direction.

I ended up choosing colours belonging to the Dutch and the smaller German country of Hesse-Darmstadt. These two were not chosen by accident; both were part of the 3rd (German) Division that fought at the battle of Talavera in July of 1809. I've been trying to find a little bit more direction for my collection as it progresses, so picking units from specific battles in the Peninsular War seemed sensible enough.

Taking a look at the Dutch first, these gentlemen in their snappy pink and white are the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment. There was a battalion at Talavera from the 2nd Regiment as well and I will have to get around to them once I have the matching figures available. From now I opted to try painting the 4th Regiment's pink rather than the light blue of the 2nd. I'd never done pink before so it was a nice new experience.

The fusiliers are Italeri while both flank companies are Zvezda. The two sculpting styles mesh very well in my opinion. The three grenadiers are Old Guard that came for free with a magazine many years ago. Hopefully they aren't too offended at the demotion I've given them!

The voltigeurs are the same Zvezda set that I've used for a number of units now. Any excuse to use more of these lovely figures.

Switching to the Germans next, this is the 1st Battalion of the Gross-und-Erbprinz Regiment. The figures for these are HaT, with the exception of the officer who is Italeri (and who, I have since discovered, should probably be wearing a bicorn, not a shako, but no matter).

Since these figures are sculpted to have a much more "campaign dress" look about them, with covered shakos and trousers, I decided to lean into that idea when painting. The trousers and shako covers are thus a motley array of colours that shows the more rugged, less uniform nature of soldiers on campaign. I don't normally go in for that sort of thing, preferring my men in bright full dress uniform if possible. However, the colour scheme was appropriate for the models and I think it helps to differentiate them a bit from their French allies.

I actually painted these figures some time ago but forgot to make a post about them (a shocking thing for me I know). I've been at work on a number of new units lately and so figured I should make a post about these before the others reach completion and need posts of their own.

Cheers!