Friday, August 30, 2013

Our friends the Portuguese


Most of the time, somewhere between 20% and 40% of Wellington's army in the Peninsula consisted of Portuguese allies.  Defeated handily by the French in 1808, the Portuguese bounced back with British arms, training and money to become one of the most effective small military powers of the Napoleonic period.  There seem to be a wide variety of descriptions of their uniforms in the post-1808 period.  Some sources describe white trousers, others describe blue or grey.  I've found descriptions of the shade of blue of the uniform coats anywhere between "pale sky blue" and "dark midnight blue."  I chose a happy medium, and went with the blue trousers since they looked smart.

If you look closely, you'll see that these fellows were originally Old Glory 1809 Peninsular British.  I filed off the belly lace as well as I could.  They'll do quite nicely.  Once I attach flags to these battalions, they'll be ready for the battlefield, awaiting another battalion of line and one of cacadores.

These units are marching through some British casualties by Perry.As with anything done by the Perry brothers, they come close to being show stoppers.



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