Colonel Prince Karl Bernard of Saxe-Weimar


Colonel of the 28th Orange Nassau regiment, Prince Karl Bernard found himself brevetted to Brigadier by the battle of Waterloo. Interestingly, or perhaps frustratingly depending how you look at it, there are few specific references to how the Prince was attired. We must therefor logically infer .
I have seen these Perry figures painted up with the Prince depicted (I presume) as the Colonel of the Nassau Usingen regiment in green with black facings. In reference to Voices from the Past: Waterloo 1815 by John Grehan the Prince's own letter to his father after the battle could not make it plainer; however, that he was the Colonel of the Orange Nassau regiment (two battalions) and that he was field promoted.

I therefore believe that the Prince must have been attired as the senior officer of the Orange Nassau regiment, with white breeches or grey overalls, blue French style coat and red facings. He is depicted as such by Hoynck J. Papendrecht above, albeit drawn in the late nineteenth century, many decades after the fact. Admittedly, there is not a lot of difference between a Dutch General's uniform and the Colonel of the 28th. A happy coincidence for the Prince?
I researched the uniforms on the run and it was because of the above picture that I have elected to run with a farmyard theme for the command base. I have the Prince with a staff officer and an officer of the 2nd Usingen Nassau regiment similar to the figure on the extreme left of Papendrecht's image. I've done a few bases of wet earth, puddles and the like for my Waterloo armies but this time I want them in the yard of a farmhouse.
I delved onto one of my many boxes of odds and ends and dug up a length of pre-printed and embossed paper - a scenic product from Noch. To be precise it's from Noch's HO scale range and is the 57710 mauerplatte "Dolomit" stone wall effect which will serve as well for a rough stone faces farmhouse yard. I recycled an old wood barrel I bought so long ago I know not from where and flanked it with a couple of 1/48th scale chickens from Pegasus.
The real trick was the time consuming afterthought of shearing the horses from their bases, drilling and fixing steel pins through the hoof and then drilling and gluing them through the surface of the base. I had to build up some foliage around the base of the staff officer's mount as this horse figure was imperfectly cast which you can see. Anyway, something a bit different for me and I like to imagine this Brigadier might be visiting Papelotte.


Comments

  1. Beautiful work Greg. You must have the patience and glands of a neurosurgeon mate with the drilling and pinning f the horses hooves. I would have put myself in the doctors surgery being ditched up for sure!

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  2. A splendid job on the base, interesting and very tempting!

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  3. Marvelous composition and painting!

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  4. Excellent work on this mini-diorama. Love the chickens strutting about.

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  5. Thanks gents. The trick was really just coming up with something a little different to what I've done in the past. I've got the Prince of Orange next. Any ideas?

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  6. Very nice General of ill fate love it

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    1. Thanks mate. I'm very near completing the small armies to re-fight my developing scenario for Papelotte. I want to create a bespoke terrain set for it - I'm still likely a year or two away. Gotta get home first, then new home, then wargames room fit-out - ah, excuses, excuses.

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