The battle of Talavera (27-28 july, 1809)

The battle of Talavera or Talavera de la Reina (Toledo), was a bloody battle of the Peninsular War, which was held the 27 and July 28, 1809.
50.000 French (and Allied) under Marshall Victor, General Sebastiani and the overall command of King Joseph Bonaparte, fought against 20.000 British (and German) and 33.200 Spaniards commanded respectively by Arthur Wellesley and Gregorio de la Cuesta.

The battle was mainly fought bewteen the British (and German) and French (and Allied) contingents, with the Spanish units only having a subsidiary role, covering the right flank of the Allied position.

The battle concluded with the tactical victory of the Allied (6.500 losses) with the French having around 7.400 casualties. However, the strategical game was lose to the Allied when Marshall Soult menaced the British rearguard forcing Wellington (which received his tittle after this battle) to hastly retire towards Lisbon.

There are many versions about the battle, slightly different according to the writer's country!
See a sample of the web sites (you can found many more with Google):
Bataille de Talavera (French)
La bataille de Talavera de la Reina (French)
Battle of Talavera (English)
The Peninsular War. The Battle of Talavera (English)
Batalla de Talavera (Spanish)
Talavera 1809 (Spanish) The best Spanish site about the battle
In my opinion, the best information can be found at the Napoleon Series site

Some books:
- La Crisis de una Alianza (La campaña del Tajo de 1809) by Juan J. Sañudo and Leopoldo Stampa, Ministerio de Defensa, Madrid (1996) The Spanish academic definitive work!
- Talavera 1809 Primera victoria Aliada by Jose M. Rodriguez and Dionisio Alvarez Cueto, Almena, Madrid (2004)
- Talavera: Wellington's Early Peninsula Victories 1808-9 by Peter Edwards, The Crowood Press Ltd (2007)
- Talavera: Wellington's First Victory in Spain by Andrew Field, Leo Cooper Ltd (2005)

For the bicentenary
The official site Talavera, un lugar en la Historia (with English translation)
The blog of the Bicentenary Coordinator Sergio de la Llave

A wargaming version can be found in my main web-site Battle of Talavera . Above, you can see a picture from my "home-battle", depicting a charge of the Spanish Cavalry Regimento del Rey: an event very similar to the historical!

I'm back

I'm back from San Sebastián after attending the XV Meeting of the Spanish Society of Analytical Chemistry. The meeting was a well organized events, and all the scientific communications were very interesting.
The organizers also carried us to the Txillida Leku Museum to see the sculptures of this great artist.
And now... Leipzig is waiting!

My next painting job?

After I'll come back from the Analytical Chemistry meeting of San Sebastián (see previous post), I will hopefully retake the painting job, after a long time without any incorporation to my Napoleonic armies.
This time, I'll change to metal. I buyed some months ago a bargain pack (Reference number FR19) of Newline Designs, comprising 100 French Line Infantry in greatcoats.
It is the first time I'll paint Napoleonic infantry in such uniform item, so I'll use as reference the work of Matt in his blog In The Grand Manner. Matt is a fan of great battallions but he uses 20 mm figures so his experience is very interesting.

The Matt's painting work is several levels above me, as can be seen in the above picture, so don't expect a similar result...
See you the next week! after the San Sebastián trip.

A break for work

I will out the next days (19 -22 july) attending the XV Meeting of the Spanish Society of Analytical Chemistry. My contributions will be some posters about the environmental effects of the heavy metals (all interested in this and other environmental topics could visit my other blog Heavy Metal) and the use of chemometrics tools to highlight the information.

The meeting will be at San Sebastián in the Basque Country. This town was besieged and taken by the Wellington's Allied Army (7 July - 8 September 1813) during the campaign of Vitoria.

For a basic outline of this siege see the Wikipedia or the Osprey books Vittoria 1813 and Fortresses of the Peninsular War 1808-1814.

Rohan cavalry à la Armand d'Arc

This is the last painting-work of my Argentinian friend, Armand d'Arc: the Rohan cavalry.
"The Rohan cavalry was taken into imperial service in 1795 alongside the infantry, the original six squadrons increasing to 12 by 1796. Uniforms consisted of white shakos with rosettes and yellow-black plumes, yellow cords, poplar green dolmans with yellow-black braid, crimson facings, white lambskin trim and yellow buttons, sclaert Hussar breeches, white leatherwork, red sobretache with 'FI' cypher and yellow-black braid."
(Taken from "Austrian Auxiliary Troops 1792-1816" by Dave Hollins and William Younghusband, Osprey Men-at-Arms 299)

The Armand's squadron is 137 men strong. All the men are conversions from HäT 8013 Napoleonic French Horse Grenadiers, and the officers are carrying red tipped plumes. The only varion is that shakos were painted black (instead white) and . The squadron is commanded by the Prince of Rohan, Jallachich De Buzin. The unit was actually part of the Prince Charles bodyguard during the battle of Wagram, and must not be mistaken with the "Hussars of Rohan", an emigré unit at British pay.

These pictures and many more will (hopefully) appear at the ETS page of the HäT web-site
Enjoy!