Franco-Prussian War French Imperial Guard - The First Voltigeur Regiment Completed

Tonight I finished the third battalion of the 1st Voltigeurs of the Guard, which completes all three battalions of the regiment.

I hadn't noticed until yesterday, but my visitors count has ticked over 3 million, not that the visitor count means much in these days where AI tools are crawling through the web accelerating my visitor count from less than a million to 3 million in a little over a year, but 3 million is 3 million!

Franco-Prussian War French Imperial Guard Zouaves

Today's offering is the first battalion of the Guard Zouaves Regiment, the third infantry type in my guard. 

There is no doubt that the performance of the Imperial Guard in the war of 1870 was not stellar. It was poorly positioned on the battlefield and indifferently led. The result is that today it is often considered a bit of a dud. Yet in the annals of the Second Empire it had a solid, often sanguine combat record. Of the regiments in the corps the Zouaves arguably has the most impressive reputation. 

Members of the Zouaves de la Garde

Created on 23 December 1854 by drawing men from the line Zouave regiments and chasseur battalions serving in the Crimea the regiment saw service at the Siege of Sevastopol.The regiment differed from other guard regiments in that it consisted of only two battalions instead of three. During the capture of the Malakoff on 8 September 1855, the regiment stormed the redoubt and fought hand-to-hand to repel the Russian counter-attack. In this desperate action the Zouaves lost over 1,000 casualties from the 1,600 engaged.

In 1859, during the Italian campaign, the regiment suffered heavy losses at Magenta while forcing the Ponte Nuovo in concert with the 1st Voltigeurs, capturing an Austrian standard in the process. The battle cost it 347 casualties out of 1,000 men. At Solferino they carried the heights of Cavriana losing a further 14 officers and 270 enlisted men in the process.

Between 1860 and 1870, the regiment carried out duties alongside the Emperor and escorted visiting foreign sovereigns in France, notably the Empress of Russia in 1860.

In 1870, they fought again at Rezonville. The 1st Battalion held off the Prussians in front of the Bois St. Arnould and Bois Ognons, while the 2nd Battalion endured enemy artillery fire for most of the afternoon, losing 90 casualties.

Not engaged at Saint-Privat, the Zouaves contributed to the Battle of Ladonchamps on 7 October during the Siege of Metz. Upon the fall of the fortress, 1,000 men surrendered, but the regiment refused to hand over its colours. On 28 October Colonel de la Hayerie gathered the officers and the imperial eagle was unscrewed, hammered flat and buried, the cravat divided among the senior officers, and the drapeau torn into pieces and distributed as relics to the officers present. Disbanded on surrender the men of the regiment were transferred to the newly created 4th Zouave Regiment.

There appears to be a variation to the rule about the second battalion carrying the drapeau in that where a regiment consisted of only two battalions, and in this instance the Guard Zouave Regiment did count only two battalions, the first battalion (presented below) carries the drapeau while the second carries a fanion - and what that fanion looks like will be an issue for me in the coming days as there is a lack of clarity on it.

These are truly superb figures, yet tough work for someone like me whose workman approach to painting focuses on creating units and armies rather than individual figures. Nonetheless I am very pleased with this unit.

Franco-Prussian War French Imperial Guard Voltigeurs

This presentation of my French Imperial Guard is the first two of six battalions of Voltigeurs.

The 1st and 2nd Voltigeur Regiments were formed by a decree of 1 May 1854, drawn from the line regiments with the requirement of 1 to 2 years active service, a minimum height of 1.65 m, and a proven, clean conduct record.

Alongside the Grenadiers they went to the Crimea early in the war and established a solid combat record. Their baptism of fire was in the night attack of 22-23 May 1855 against cemetery on Quarantine Bay where the 2nd Regiment assaulted Russian trenches suffering the heavy loss of 14 officers and over 300 men killed or wounded. In the attack on the Malakoff Redoubt both regiments were committed during the final general assault. Operating on the flanks of the Zouaves de la Garde and Chasseurs, they took the outer trenches and suppressed Russian firing positions. Concentrated artillery fire there inflicted losses as high as 40% in many companies.

The 3rd and 4th Regiments were formed during the course ofhe Crimean War, in December 1855, but remained in France.

All four regiments served in Italy in 1859 forming Camou's 1st Division. At Magenta, the Division was initially held in reserve, but was finally committed to secure the critical railway embankments and bridgeheads at Ponte Nuovo and Buffalora. The 1st Voltigeurs suffered heavy losses while clearing barricades and forcing Ponte Nuovo. The 2nd and 3rd Voltigeurs were engaged in skirmishing to hold the right flank against Austrian counter-attacks. While the 4th Voltigeurs, which formed the divisional reserve, were only slightly engaged.

Twenty days later the Battle of Solferino proved to be the costliest action for the Guard Voltigeurs during the Second Empire. Deployed directly against the central Austrian strongpoints around the heights, village, and cemetery of Solferino, the regiments engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat. The 1st Voltigeurs made column assaults up the steep slopes towards the Solferino hilltop tower Spia d'Italia in the face of heavy Austrian musketry fire taking particularly heavy losses in  officers and NCOs. The 2nd Voltigeurs were heavily engaged around the village centre and stone walls, also suffering heavy casualties. The 3rd and 4th Voltigeurs saw their first major battle here, with the 4th launching bayonet charges against the fortified cemetery walls, while the 3rd fought alongside the 2nd Regiment securing the high ground. Across the 1859 campaign, but primarily at Solferino, the Voltigeur Division sustained over 1,200 casualties.

The Voltigeur tunic in 1870

After the Italian campsign, the four regiments rotated between garrison duty in Paris, ceremonial duties at the Tuileries Palace, and annual grand manoeuvers at the Camp de Châlons. Selected cadres and volunteers from the Voltigeur regiments also participated in the French intervention in Mexico.

In 1870 the voltigeurs were in reserve at Rezonville, but still suffered 555 casualties, largely from German artillery fire that overshot the main line, and were not engaged at Gravelotte-St. Privat. They were involved in the attempted sorties at Metz, particularly at Noisseville where the 1st Voltigeurs lost 4 officers and 85 men, the 2nd assaulted the fortified farmhouses, the 3rd lost 13 officers and 250 men in intense fighting around the estate walls and 4th suffered losses of 6 officers and 130 men killed or wounded.

All four regiments went into captivity with the other units from Metz and were disbanded on 28 October 1870.

As with the grenadiers the voltigeurs took the field in their undress bonnet de police.

So here are the first two battalions.

While I have failed to find conclusive written evidence, it appears that the Guard followed the practice of the line regiments where only the second  battalion carried the regimental colours, or drapeau, on an eagle topped pole while the other battalions carried a fanion on a shorter staff. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I will give only the second battalion a drapeau and eagle and a fanion to the others, following the pattern in this image presented in Les Uniformes de l'Armée Française by Leinhart and Humbert.

Normally the fanion was carried by an NCO, but in my guard they are carried by a junior officer...they are guard afterall! Indications are that the fanion was a little over half the size of drapeau (50 x 40 cm compared to 90 x90 cm), but I have made my fanions a little over scale, otherwise the look a bit silly carried on a pole, even though it is a shortened pole. Although officially no fourth battalions were raised, I am assuming that the 4th battalion was the battalion formed from depot companies that formed the regiments de marche in the Republican armies. 

Franco-Prussian War French Imperial Guard Grenadiers

I have started work on some French Imperial Guard for the Franco-Prussian War.

When he established the Second Empire in December 1852, Louis Napoleon decided to reestablish the Imperial Guard, in the fashion of the Guard of his uncle's First Empire.

Formally established by decree on 1 May 1854, it was originally formed as a mixed division consisting of two infantry brigades (two regiments of grenadiers and two of voltigeurs with three battalions each), and one battalion of chasseurs à pied; a cavalry brigade (a regiment each of cuirassiers and guides); a regiment of foot gendarmerie, a regiment of horse artillery, and an engineer company. Additional decrees of 1855 and 1865 changed the structure to a full corps of two infantry divisions with two brigades each, and one cavalry division with three brigades through the addition of new unit types (zouaves, chasseurs à cheval, lancers, dragoons and carabiniers, and the creation of a third grenadier regiment, two new voltigeur regiments, and a foot artillery regiment.  

Commanded successively by Régnaud de Saint-Jean-d'Angély, Bazaine, then Bourbaki and was intended for deployment as an elite force in campaign as much as it was for ceremonial purposes. Each unit of the Guard had a sumptuous uniform unique to itself and Napoleon took a personal interest in the clothing, weaponry, quality of horses, training, billeting, and general well-being of its  regiments.

My Guard is going to be a representative force about half the strength of the original. I will form a brigade consisting of a regiment of Grenadiers (three battalions) and the Guard Zouave Regiment (two battalions - there were only two battalions), and a brigade of consisting of two regiments of voltigeurs (each of three battalions). Later, when I can find suitable figures, I will do some cavalry and artillery. I am starting with a battalion of grenadiers, because I like grenadiers. 

The 1st and 2nd Guard Grenadier Regiments were formed in time to see service in the Crimea and played an important role in the capture of the outer works of Sevastopol in June 1855, and in the final assault on the city in September. In that campaign the two regiments suffered 250 battle casualties, but three times that number from disease. All three regiments went to Italy in 1859 where they suffered 879 casualties at Magenta and a further 528 when they stormed the heights at Solferino.

In 1870 the Guard joined the Army of the Rhine at Metz in time to join the retreat towards Verdun. At Rezonville, on 16 August, the Grenadiers were a part of Picard's Division that was brought forward at around 1:00 PM to stabilise the line as 2nd Corps fell back in the face of the Prussian 3rd and 4th Divisions. Along with the Guard Zouaves they formed south of Rezonville and remained there all afternoon.  It would be easy to think that from the two images below (from the Rezonville Panorama) that they had a relative easy day, but not so. For most of the afternoon they faced the Prussian 3rd Division and were under relentless artillery fire from the massed German batteries. At day's end they counted 1,477 casualties across the three regiments

They were not engaged at Gravelotte-St Privat two days later and then spent the next two months besieged in Metz. In the attempted sorties at Noisseville and Bellevue they suffered a further 650 casualties. A total of 5,250 grenadiers surrendered when Metz fell in late-October and they saw out the rest of the war as POWs in Germany. The grenadiers, along with the rest of the Guard, were disbanded on 28 October 1870.

Unlike the Crimean and Italian campaigns, the grenadiers took the field in 1870 without their bearskins. In late-July, when he should have been focusing on his plan of campaign, Napoleon became sidetracked with  minutiae and made only three decisions of note. First, in the summer heat the he felt troops need not encumber themselves with blankets and ordered that they could be left in the depots. Second, the line infantry could dispense with the regulation shako and wear the kepi (not that it was really his decision since the troops refused to wear the shako and tens of thousands them littered the railway platforms across the length and  breadth of France). Third, the Guard Grenadiers and Voltigeurs would leave their bearskins and shakos, respectively, at barracks in Paris and were approved to wear the kepi, but there were not enough kepis in stock to supply all seven regiments so they were permitted to wear the bonnet de police in the field. Later, during the siege of Metz sufficient kepis were available and the bonnet de police was gradually replaced.

Here is my first battalion of grenadiers.

The figures are all 3D printed and have amazing detail. The only negative is that with the rank and file figures in the advancing pose the white boutonnières on the front of the tunic, which gives them a very distinctive look, is largely concealed and quite difficult to get at with the brush. The voltigeurs, that are on the painting table now, are in the marching pose and their yellow boutonnières stand out much better. 

Villages for the Franco-Prussian War - Part 12: The Final Alsace house

This is the sixth and final building in this series.

Compared to the last two chocolate box houses, this is rather simple and plain. The addition of some pent roofs (mainly to use up the last bits of roofing material), the fence and the hedge helps to lift what was otherwise a rather dull model. 

I also completed another couple of garden walls to go with the FPW buildings.

Now, all six Alsace buildings formed into a number of village configurations.

And, just for Aly, a sort of re-creation of the charge of Michel's cuirassiers in the streets of Morsbronn on 6 August 1870.

And finally the scene above rendered as a painting in the style of a painter famed for his FPW painting

In truth I am quite pleased that is the final of one of the series. Over the last three months I have made 20 buildings in a row, 23 if I include the three buildings that make up the Schirlenhof Inn, and I am suffering from building fatigue, so the builder's yard will be closed for a while. I need to move on to something else...how fortunate that something has come along...