Napoleonic History- Crucial Information Resources

[OotKust]

L’ESTAFETTE… A Blog created in 2009 dedicated to Napoleonic history.
http://lestafette.unblog.fr/
No idea what the word meant… one site suggests ‘The Courier”- so be it.

One of the minions deposited deep in the bowels of a much thrashed bookmark system (c’mon you know I’m so anal retentive I have a prioritised reference library right..?) I hadn’t scoured to any degree before.

Certainly has a diverse, if mostly later part of our era, memoires, letters and ‘official’ captures of personal information on many participants of the period.

Much like the ‘de Neef’ blogs and books, brings new period material to our eyes.

On the technical layout, it is slim- a long list of titles adorns the r/hs panel; quick keys/ topics way at the bottom. You can just scroll, every article is ‘front page news’, and the working ‘index panel remains the same.

Articles are drawn from the authors direct transfer of things like historical magazines, from La Sabretache (1909) etc.

There are a few illustrations, not many but some are in much larger formats than I’ve seen before, without guarantee as to their accuracy these days!

All in all a few of the articles provided snippets of useful information, worthy of adding to the growing ‘snippets box’ of data.

Enjoy reading, cheers d

 

[OotKust]

If not crucial, then at least important- a modern historian we should take notice of- numerous Ospreys etc. (won’t hold that against him, he wrote of the difficulties…); so the accumulated comments of Dave Hollins esq. on this site:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/generaldebrigadefr/search.php?author_id=9047748&sr=posts

Very up to date compared to 1980s research- he has done much (reading and travel of German and others source material) research to uplift the position of the Austrian K und K Army in English language terms.

I haven’t been through all 19 pages, but I’m sure to do so,

regards d

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Dave Hollins shows up on at least 1 so far Napoleonic Quarterly podcast. He popped in elsewhere that’s how I found them. Have listened to half of them so far.

[OotKust]

Tue 29 August-

Just a note to advise that another minor to significant update by M. Frederic Berjaud to his own and compatriot Didier Davins articles on French regiments-

“Mise à jour 26/08/2023 “

Again there is one significant new entry ” Le 15ème Régiment d’Infanterie légère, 1796-1815 “- important if you know them. Nothing too specific on uniforms, but we know these are well covered by the petitsoldats range of historical paper figures.

Most other entries relate to ‘General’ Neys military memoires and orders for 1800 and again 1808.

cheers -d

[OotKust]

SEHRI

-you probably know it well enough. Still places I haven’t explored completly so no surprise I found another gem-

http://assosehri.fr/la-feuille-de-route-nouvelle-serie.html

la Feuille de Route- Roadmaps-

a single page of linked pdfs under various titles- mini articles with or withouT illustration, on diverse subjects. Up to approx four pages, these highlight some people and activities undertaken by French regiments and administration.

Well worth perusing and downloading,
cheers -d

[OotKust]

Well hidden away, never before seen even a reference on any forum or web site- did you know about it?

https://www.junibis.be/

‘Site dédié à la cartographie de la Campagne de Belgique en Juin 1815’.

Not in my interests but may bring something (not apart from great map definition) to gaming arena…

cheers -d

[OotKust]

Notice that another seasonal raft of updates (similar info throughout, though not exactly same) dated as ‘Mise à jour 22/10/2023′.

Most of the articles get a ‘refresh’ with content of;

Insertion d’informations tirées des mémoires du Général Pajol (1798, 1799, 1800, 1814)

though not all concurrent dates as above example.

As well Frédéric Berjaud has again dropped the premiere of the following ‘new’ regiments:

• Le 1er de Ligne, 1789-1815
• http://Le 28 de Ligne, 1789-1815
• http://Le 72e de Ligne, 1789-1815
• Le 100e de Ligne, 1789-1815.

Significantly some are just token placeholders for now, but all of these are important regiments one way or another over time- all articles by Frédéric Berjaud himself.
regards davew

[OotKust]

Ok, I realise it’s not crucial in this respect, but an online and relatively accurate colour composition is always handy.
And, while the site is in the doldrums of despair, it is still quite informative in the modelling genre.

So for Austrian facings (divided by ‘hues’):-

http://www.deepfriedhappymice.com/html/ref_sy_aus_colors.html

For artillery ‘brown’ go to Other.
Yes it really is a ‘liver’ shade not dark browns often seen.

Two points I believe of relevance to what may be cast off as ‘amateur sleuthing’-

• my pleasure to work with Dave Hollins and draw on his extensive knowledge of primary sources and contemporary artwork.
• One need only remember there is no extant Austrian uniform to appreciate the difficulty of the task.

So some excellent basis for accuracy shown there!
Given the enormous size and population of the Austrian Empire and duration I find it inconceivable that some ‘real’ uniforms don’t exist- they must be somewhere, despite the horrors of occupation that occured over and over.

However, some relevant books and catalogues exist (almanach style) to compare.

-d

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