"1/45e Regiment de Ligne - Talavera" Topic
13 Posts
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carojon | 12 Dec 2015 2:14 a.m. PST |
The 45e Regiment de Ligne could trace its heritage back to 1643 and with several title changes during the centuries leading up to the Napoleonic Wars demonstrated steadfast courage and determination no matter what the regiment was known as.
They were led by Colonel Jean Leonard Barrie who would be wounded at Talavera and go on to become the Commander of Cuidad Rodrigo during the assault in 1812. If you would like to know more then just follow the link to JJ's link Jonathan |
Edwulf | 12 Dec 2015 3:00 a.m. PST |
Very famous french regiment. Good work. |
GamesPoet | 12 Dec 2015 3:22 a.m. PST |
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Musketier | 12 Dec 2015 4:09 a.m. PST |
Sorry to rain on the parade, but a number does not a filiation make. Proud La Couronne, indeed ranked 45th at the outbreak of the Revolution, was broken up in 1794 to provide the regular battalions for the 89th and 90th demi-brigades, which at the second restructuring ("amalgame") in 1796 were fed into the 79th and 33rd demi-brigades respectively. The 45e demi-brigade of 1796, which would become Napoleon's 45e R.I. in 1803, was created in 1796 from the 100th and 165th demi-brigades, which included a battalion from the former Hainaut and Barrois regiments, respectively, and a volunteer battalion from the Basses-Alpes, and later absorbed the 3rd battalion of the 7th demi-brigade as well. EDIT: I know the French Army traces the history of its units by their number, but that is a 19th C. administrative shortcut. |
carojon | 12 Dec 2015 11:57 a.m. PST |
Thanks for your comments chaps. No parade rain, I as many of the other references I used are happy to stick with the French Army numbering system as a way of attributing the history of regimental forbears. Cheers JJ |
Musketier | 12 Dec 2015 3:55 p.m. PST |
Apologies JJ, for recapping something you had obviously researched already. I guess my point was just that the men at Talavera would not have seen themselves as successors to La Couronne, as that tradition was only decreed way after the Second Restoration. |
carojon | 13 Dec 2015 2:38 a.m. PST |
Hi Musketier, you make a good point and I agree entirely, however some of the men and perhaps more of the officers, especially those well read men like Napoleon himself, who spent their formative years serving in the Bourbon army would have been aware of this previous history whether they acknowledged it or not and it might not have escaped the knowledge of some of them that their forebears had achieved such notable success against another Anglo-Portuguese army at Almanza only 100 years previously in the first Peninsular War. As the Regiment is completed with the 2nd and 3rd battalions I will develop the story of its service under the Empire up to and including the Talavera campaign which will complete the picture of the unit pre and post revolution. |
Musketier | 13 Dec 2015 3:26 a.m. PST |
Well I don't know. I'd think any veterans from the Ancien Régime still in the ranks at Talavera wouldn't have thought about the number, the old regiments being really known by their names mostly, but seen themselves as heirs to Hainaut and Barrois as explained above? The construction of a filiation by number only came in 1839, when Marshall Soult wanted to re-connect with the Ancien Régime army, but obviously couldn't be bothered to set his ministry to disentangle the threads of successive "amalgames". It's been the practice of the French army ever since: A modern unit I'm currently studying was created from scratch in 1949 as 11e Groupe d'automitrailleuses, became 11e Groupe d'escadrons de chars moyens in 1951, and in 1955 was renamed 11e Régiment de Chasseurs à Cheval, receiving the standard of that unit and a tradition going back to the Légion de Soubise of the Seven Years War… |
Westerner | 13 Dec 2015 5:06 a.m. PST |
Alas, those nations not then politically mature enough to weather the transition from ancien regime to modern liberal democracy without suffering the discontinuity that violent revolutionary regime-change entails must take what comfort they may from these innocent fictions. [insert smiley emoticon here to imply irony] |
Musketier | 13 Dec 2015 9:49 a.m. PST |
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JCBJCB | 13 Dec 2015 4:36 p.m. PST |
Fictions, indeed. Lovely painting, however. |
Westerner | 17 Dec 2015 1:41 p.m. PST |
Yes, I have long admired these characterful, well researched and beautifully painted and presented units. Well worth visiting each new page of this great blog-site. |
archiduque | 20 Dec 2015 4:35 a.m. PST |
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