miscellaneous
The Lanciers of D. Julian at Fuentes de Oņoro (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 Espaņoles 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 | |||