My current preoccupation is mid nineteenth century warfare. You can’t travel far without meeting the resurgent French Empire. Here is my offering on french artillery around the time of the Franco Austrian War of 1859. Being a few years before the American Civil War it can be argued that conflict obscures the war which inflated French self belief and probably contributed to their Prussian undoing by 1870.
So far this year the Painting Pedestal has been a bit wonky with some units not even reaching the pedestal
So belatedly my third offering this year finally makes it to the pedestal.
The First Schleswig Holstein War was fought between the Danes and the Prussian driven German Federation – aka the Holy Roman Empire. The Danes won but the Prussian steamroller was just getting going – in 1864 the 2nd war with Danish defeat, heralded the misery of 80 odd years of German led mayhem across Europe. However it is reported, you can argue it was weakness on the part of France and the United Kingdom to stand up for territorial integrity, that condemned Europe to decades of Prussian agression.
In 1848 the Danish Infantryman was clad in red tunic and blue trousers with a bell style shako plus white belts and straps. The bell style shako had evolved from the Napoleonic era shako, both of which were also to be seen in civilian fashion changes on the journey from tricorne to bowler hat.
Almost as soon as the war started the soldiers ditched their shakoes and donned their fatigue hats – bright blue kepi’s. Add in the new all dark blue uniform with black belts and straps gets you a soldier looking not out of place in the American Civil War that was raging 15 years later.
This Piedmont unit from 1859 gives you a rough idea of the transformation in 1848 danish military uniform. The Danes led the way, not just the Prussians.
The metal figures are from Irregular Miniatures. Being 20mm they are at the small end of 1/72 so they get some extra basing to reduce the height disparity with the many 1/72 and 25mm figures I have.
Irregular Miniatures sell them under their Colonial range.
Here are some more views of the unit.
The units are set up for Piquet rules – 4 bases equals a unit.
The 3 figure basing was an idea I picked up from an article in Lone Warrior – magazine of the Solo Wargames Assocation. The article was a cost cutting exercise for DBA armies where the advent of element basing undermined the need to consider figure scale and to have full ranks. Peter Pigs Conquerors and Kings also advocated 3 figure basing as did their Bloody Barons medieval ruleset.
I am quite taken with this unit so will probably add to this force.
I will probably use Neil Thomas’s book – European C19th Wargames which gives you rough army lists to play his rules and scenarios from the book.
For the basing I used my standard three colour paintwork (burnt sienna + yellow ochre + very pale yellow/white dry brush all over budgie grit/pva. This time I have gone for paler washed out grasses. And I am quite pleased with the result.
The flag was an afterthought. I suddenly realised I had the flagstaff from Irregular with no flag! Now I could probably have bought a Danish flag online. But I had started to make crude flags from dried out screen wipes (basically I bought some wipes and found that they had lost their alcohol content). The end result is a rough paper that takes colour easily. I simply used some permanent ink colouring pens. Marking out was the longest task. So very quick – but I suspect I will change them if I get a chance.
So that is the 1848 Danish Infantry unit ready to march!
The Wargaming Erratic 