"2/63e Regiment de Ligne - Talavera" Topic

The 63e Ligne made it's debut in the Peninsular War when it provided a battalion to join the 2nd Provisional Line Regiment in Marshal Moncey's Corps that invaded Spain in January 1808.

By July of 1809, the regiment as a whole had taken part in three victorious actions against Spanish forces and could look forward to taking on the Anglo-Spanish forces at Talavera with confidence.

If you would like to know more then just follow the link to JJ's

link

Jonathan

I never heard that Moncey was a Marshal. Is that true?

Moncey was created a Marshal of France in1804

Yes Moncey was certainly a Marshal (from 1804),he had a long and distinguished career in the French army before 1804, was also inspector general of the gendarmerie and had played a role in discovering and stopping several conspiracies against the "premier consul" (one of the reasons he was given his marshals batôn). Mocey was described by Napoleon as "un honnète homme" and later by Soult as "Le modèle de toutes les vertus" ( a model of all virtues)

Carojon, very good as always!
Just have a question as what or how did you decide on units to be with shako, when there has been information revealed that supports many units supposedly still wearing the bonnets ( bearskin) in the grenadier ranks. IE like the entire/most of the regiments of the 2nd corps in 1810…
I am still trying to sort this out with my central Europe regiments of Davout's 3 rd Corps of the same period. It would be great to here of other approaches to this dilemma…curious

MG

Hi MG Thank you.
You will see that I start the series of posts on each regiment with a summary of my uniform sources when looking at the first battalion.

All these regiments were pictured in 1807 in the Otto manuscript, with the majority of units depicting their grenadiers in shakos, or replacing them with shakos by 1809.

Unless a specific reference comes up depicting the unit using bearskins in Spain I tend to use Shakos as I intend using these battalions for later scenarios when that look will be more the norm.

As you will see for the 63e Ligne, all depictions of the grenadiers show the men in shakos.

I think the Peninsular differs from other Napoleonic campaigns in that we are looking at a six year war rather than a one or two season campaign. Wear and tear on uniforms was therefore much greater and the supply network for the French was often precarious at best, with uniform items very low on the list of needs. I reckon shakos soon replaced bearskins when supplies did come through, the latter soon reserved for parade dress.

Hope that helps
JJ

Thanks JJ!

Yes that does.

My challenge now is finding such sources that cover the regiments I am of interest, which seems sparse at the moment.

MG

Nicely painted