"Spanish Division del Norte 1807" Topic

Over the years I have collected the odd Spanish Battalion, cavalry regiment and artillery, (painted and unpainted). Read various different articles on uninform, tactics, and Organisation. The Spanish army is certainly one of the most interesting Armies to have a go at building, but after much deliberation, I have decided on The Marquis da la Romania, Division of the North, 1807 and will later expand this to the Army of Glalcia.

I have Cronin and Summerfield book, Spanish Infantry of the early Peninsular War, (another excellent book highly recommended), as well as the Osprey books, various books on the Peninsular war and articles from TMP website and the internet as a whole.

The issue I have still surrounds what happens to the Grenadiers. I thought I'd found the answer but now not so sure after looking at the OOB for the Division of the North in the Cronin/Summerfield book.

I have listed (the infantry only brigades) below:-

Infantry brigade
1-3 Btn / 22nd Regt de Asturias
1st voluntaries de Barcelona
Infantry brigade
1-3 Btn / 27th Regt de la Princesa
3rd Btn 10th Regt de Guadalajara

We know that at this time (1807) each Regt comprised 3 Btn, 2 field and one depot, and that the 2 field Btns were broken down as:-

1st Btn 2 x Grenadier Company's 2 x Fusilier Company's
2nd Btn 4 x Fusilier Company's.
AND presumably
3rd Btn 4 x Fusilier Company's

We know that whilst generally the Spanish Army was below the paper strength but that the Regiments of the ‘Division of the North', were brought up to full strength for all three Btns of each Regt presumably by transferring men from other Regts.

We also know that they must have been the best of Spanish Infantry as Napoleon took advantage of knowing that, when he declared war on Spain when this Army was away in the North, (another reason for selecting this Army).

We know that it was normal practise to take the 2 grenadier company's out of the 1Btns and combine them form composite Grenadier Btns, and that the remaining 2 Company's would have been distributed amongst the other Btns.

So the queries are:-

1) Why is there not a listing in the OOB for a combined Grenadier Btn? (Unless of course they didn't on this occasion – although a brief search of other OOB for other engagements, I have not yet found one that lists a composite Grenadier Btn).
2) Would the other 2 companies from the 1st Btn, fought on their own? (Which I don't think they would). This leads me to think that, if they were them spread, say, a company each to the 2nd and 3rd btn, this would make those a 5 company btn? (Did this happen in practise?).
3) Looking at the OOB above should this now read thus:-

Infantry Brigade
2nd btn / 22nd (1 x company 1st btn AND 4 x company 2nd Btn)
3rd Btn / 22nd (1 x company 1st btn AND 4 x Company 3rd Btn)
1st Btn Voluntarios de Barcelona (6 Company light infantry)

Infantry Brigade
2nd Btn / 27th Regt (1 Company 1st btn AND 4 x company 2nd Btn)
3rd Btn / 27th Regt (1 Company 1st Btn AND 4 Company 2nd Btn)
3rd Btn / 10th Regt (4 Company)

Is this correct?
Where would the Composite Grenadiers have gone?
A reserve perhaps attached to the Division HQ?

I do have one further query. The Marquis de la Romana was considered a good Commander (if not the best) the Spanish had, but that generally, the officer corps of the Spanish wasn't.

Reading the various material, I suspect Romana didn't have much choice in who commanded the various regiments, but presumably he could appoint his own his staff. I just wondered how he and his subordinates would rate compared to other generals at the time. Who could we compare him with?

I am under the impression that a brigade (in theory), would be composed of two reg'ts. and it was named after the senior reg't. The grenadiers would be merged in to single bn as mentioned, the two coys left from each of the first bns. are combined into a "premier bn." So in total a brigade would have 1 bn. of converged grenadiers, the Premier bn., and the 4 remaining line bns. Whether or not the grenadiers stayed with the parent reg'ts nor not may depend upon the whim of the commander, in this case la Romana.

An OOB for la Romana's Corps of April 1st, 1808 (Denmark) shows it organised into to divisions. Each division consists of two infantry reg'ts, a light infantry reg't., and cavalry. One division has three cavalry reg'ts, the other has two. Since the converged Grenadiers aren't listed I assume they are with the parent reg'ts.

The orbat you quote seems a bit light on infantry regiments.

The Zamora Infantry Regiment and 1st Catalunya light infantry were also in Denmark, and all four line battalions are listed as having three battalions,
link

With regard to the converged grenadiers…

It has always been my assumption that since this was done on the fly and was not "official" the OOBs show the units present, not necessarily how they were re-organized. Some battle accounts will mention this but OOBs rarely seem to do so.

yes, extra crispy,
that would make sense.

For the full orbat see pages 15 & 16 of Commandant Paul Boppe's "Les espagnols a la Grande-Armée : e Corps de la Romana (1807-1808), le Régiment Joseph-Napoleón (1809-1813) : avec trois gravures en couleurs et une carte" at link

Also page 31 for Orbat on 15 November 1807.

No mention of the grenadiers being detached to form converged battalions.

Pages 44 & 45 list the towns where the regiments were billeted at the end of May 1808 – again no mention of converged grenadiers.

On page 69 (part of a passage beginning on page 68) discussing the regiments, talks about the Asturias regiment and mentions the 1st company of grenadiers, so they must have been present with their parent unit.

Dear Peter
The brigading of grenadiers was done on an ad-hoc basis so would not often be seen in an order of battle. There are very few occurences I remember where the grenadier coys were converged in a brigade. The remaining company was attached to the 2nd Bn.

This was the case for La Romana's Division. They operated as such in the siege of Stralsund and as the honour guard of the French Marshal.

In Spain the battalions from the same regiment rarely operated together.

The observation over grenadiers is true for other countries including Britain, France etc…. So if you want to storm a fort or a village then a combined battalion would be formed for a particular reason.

There is still so much to put together. Our books went a small way towards this.

Also remember that the Romana's infantry was made up of draft from the Militia and other Infantry Regiments. Still wearing their old uniforms.
Stephen

Grenadier coys were generally detached to form "Columna de granaderos" (often 2 batts)for battles (from Medina del Rio Seco till at least Talavera). Spanish armies did not have permanent brigades at all: the unit was the division, so Romana is showing French influence.
Some grenadier coys were also detached in Denmark as Bernadotte liked them at his HQ.
A 2-battalion regiment would normally fight as one 6-coy battalion after the 2 grenadier coys were detached. What happened with 3-batt regiments (very rare in Spain), I don't know.