1866 - THIRD ITALIAN INDIPENDANCE WAR - BATTLE OF CUSTOZA - Reg. Nr. 49 "PARMA"

 I always studied at school about the 3rd Italian Indipendence War as a weird war for Italy (the first) where a disomogenous Army fought and lost against Austria at the Battle of Custoza. The idea you get when you don't go to deep in the info yhey "pass" to you is that the Italian Army did not fight with honour and value at that huge battle. Well, nothin more wrong than that: if you look at the episodes and at the decorations that the Italian units got, if you look at the Austrian report of the Battle, if you are able to go deeper in history and research the orginal sources  - as usual - you will get a total different vision of that war and above all of that Battle (Custoza) and of the Italian Army.

And in fact I chose the Infantry Regiment 49 "PARMA" to explain this, not by chance. This regiment, during the Battle, by the village of Villafranca, deployes in square, protecting the Hereditary Prince Umberto di Savoia (future King Umberto I) against a valliant attach of Austrian (Polish) Uhlans.

I do like the uniforms of the period, and the Italian fashion is already visible in uniforms (those of the years 1880's will be even better!).

So I took a template from the 1887 Uniform of the Battle of Dogali and I transformed it. For the Kepy pf infatry and the right colours I took the famous (in Italy) paintings of Fattori, celebrating that episode. But let me show you.

Here (picture nr.  1) bottom a private of the 49th Infantry Regiment "PARMA". I left - bottom right - the kepy taken from the painting of Fattori. I did change the face, according to my taste.

Picture Nr.1 - Regiment Nr. 49 "Parma"

Picture nr 2. Here the painting of Fattori celebrating the episode. I did due versions: the original and one with a circle indicating from where I took the kepy.

Picture nr 3 the transformation from the Colonial Uniform to the 1866 Infantry pattern

Picture nr. 3: how to transform a 1887 Colonial Uniform to a 1866 Infantry uniform

In picture nr. 4 (bottom) I show the Fattori's painting and the template I did starting from that 

and I would like to show also how many books you need (and not just Ospreys) to reach a level of details and information to share on this blog.

I was also asked on TMP how similar are the uniforms of the Italian Army in 1866 and the French Army in 1870. This gave me the idea to use a French soldier and to transform it into Italian one: