Andere Andere…

The Dons have landed

So here is the first Spanish unit of my Camposanto project. This has been quite a slow-burner whilst I have concentrated on completing IV Kolonne at Aspern-Essling but I managed to get these over the finishing line yesterday evening.

These are the boys from the first battalion of the Lombardia Regiment. It is a classic Spanish National Regiment and, despite its name, is not one of the regiments raised in Italy.



The figures are Front Rank SYW French. As such I chose to accept some minor inaccuracies and a UK based company I have an established relationship with rather than the more accurate but US-based and more questionable castings of the London War Room. So, as can be seen from the rear view the hatmen have swords, which the Spaniards did not have, and are wearing the cartouche box at the hip rather than as a belly box, which was far more frequent. That said, other than the club nerd type (who would declare the figures totally unplayable) I think they look close enough and good enough to pass muster.

I have done this battalion at 16 figures strong plus the battalion gun section.As the Spanish battalions varied in size on landing I am approximating this to number of figures. So the Guards battalions (all 12 of them….) are only going to be 12 castings strong, whereas the second battalion of IR Besseler will be 24 strong.

Lombardia as a regiment landed in Italy with two battalions on the 8^th November 1741 with some 1,067 effectives. It was part of the first of two tranches of men sent to Italy, in this case 19 battalions of Infantry and 12 companies of Horse. A second tranche put ashore on the 13^th January 1742 composed of 15 battalions of Infantry and another 12 companies of Horse and this was the total number of troops sent by Spain to central Italy.

The Spanish that were sent over clearly lacked heavy guns with only battalion pieces issued. Ostensibly this was not a problem as the Spanish could call on Farnese-rules Naples and their ally Modena to supply troops too. Unfortunately for the Spanish Modena was quickly overwhelmed by a massive Piedmontese offensive before they arrived so only stragglers were forthcoming from that quarter. Naples proved a broken reed too: the Royal Navy simply sailed into Naples harbour and threatened to turn the place to rubble if Naples aided the Spaniards. This threat kept the Neapolitans at bay for two years.

So the Spanish were on their own, and with the RN dominating the sealanes they had no new drafts of men sent over from Spain. The result was that the battalions withered as the stresses of campaign took their toll. More Spanish to come soon.

K