miscellaneous
The Lanciers of D. Julian at
Fuentes de Oñoro (1811)
lanciers of don julian "el charro"
D. Julian Sanchez (a.k.a El Charro o Don Julian) was a guerrilla leader
that acted around Ciudad-Rodrigo near the Spanish-Portuguese border. He
collaborated assiduously with Wellington acting as scouts and
providing him with a invaluable collection of captured French officers
or dispatches. His cavalry, known as the 'Lanciers of Castilla', was
included in the regular Spanish Army around 1813. In the battle of
Fuentes de Onoro, the Guerrillas of D. Julian occupied the extreme right
of the Allied line around Nava de Haver.
These Guerrillas were uniformed from the beginning. The most famous
pictorial representation is the included in the book of Goddard and
Booth, published in 1812: ('The military costume of Europe; exhibited in
a series of highly-finished military figures, in the uniform of their
several corps; with a concise description, and historical anecdotes;
forming memoirs of the various armies of the present time. London
1812'). This plate (see below) shows the Guerrilleros wearing a grey
uniform and has been adopted by J.M. Bueno in his books. However, the
Chartrand and Hook's Osprey book present them with deep-blue uniforms,
probably basing upon contemporary views cited in the book. I have
chosen a grey-blue uniform
REFERENCIAS
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British Library Images On Line |
Batalla de los Arapiles |
Uniformes Militares Españoles 1800 - 1980 | Osprey-Publishing |
| Goddard and Booth | J.M. Bueno | J.M. Bueno | R. Chartrand/R. Hook |
THE MAKING OF THE FIGURES
Obviously, there are not commercial figures available for such as unit. I
have used an ITALERI 6008
French Hussar for D. Julian Sanchez himself and several REVELL 02576
French Mounted Guard Chasseurs for the trumpet and the men of the Guerrilla.
Neither D. Julian nor the trumpet were modified (only painted accordingly to
the references) but the rest of the men were transformed by eliminating
(with a X-acto knife) their carbines, belts, sobretaches and
cartridge-boxes.
The more striking feature of the rank and file men, the Spanish 'charro'
hat, was simulated by cutting the colback of the chasseurs and fixing a
cardboard on the head with a pin and cianocrylate glue. The cardboard was
then rounded with a scissors and the rest of the hat made with a bit of
plastilline (children's modelling paste). All the zone was then fixed
with white-glue. See the pictures below.
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| The cardboard is fixed on the heads with a pin and super-glue | The hat is finished by rounding the cardboard and adding a bit of modelling paste | ||
After priming in black, the figures were painted using acrylics (Vallejo) following a scheme of blue jacket, grey-blue trouser, red facings and yellow lace. The round hat was painted black. The lances were made with wire (from office clips) and the paper flags were glued with cianocrylate glue and painted red.
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| Don Julian himself | Rank and file | Trumpet | |
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| All the gang | |||