BATTLE OF LEUTHEN - THE DEFEATED AUSTRIAN GENERAL COMMAND

It's evening; in the suburbs of the Village of Leuthen the last stand is almost over for the Austrian. They lost the battle, their will for fighting and above all Slesia for ever.

 Finally I was also able to recreate the roofs of the buildings in straw as it was very common at the epoch.

 I know: I forgot to add some paper to make the reverse of the roof! the white part is awful to me

From the top: the roofs are really good. The Commanders are in white and a little desperate. Some Eszterhazi hussars are escorting them.

 Here a view from the front: they really look great!

Here is visible also 1 standard-bearer of the Harrach Regiment.

THE PROTESTANT CHURCH OF THE VILLAGE OF LEUTHEN

When  it is about the Battle of Leuthen all the attention - or almost - is paid on the attack of the Prussian Guard on the Catholic church of the village of Leuthen.
It is sometimes sad to consider that some parts of a famous and huge a battle of the past are forgotten because no one is passing the chronicles from the first sources till now.
The attack on the Protestant Church of Leuthen is nowhere told; one of the (new) aims of this blog is also to reconstruct that parts of battles that are forgotten, but that is possible with a historical perspective to suppose.
The village of Leuthen, nowadays Slesia in Poland and called Lutynia, had and has two Churches is a balanced respect for its communities, the Catholic and the (in the past) Protestant.
The two churches are still visible today; they are located one in front of the other on a west/east line runnig through the village of Leuthen. 

The Protestant church is more on the west part of the village and suffered a less impressive attack by the Prussian, but indubitably it was also a center of hard fighting.
I recreate - in paper, as usual, this Church in accordance with the current pictures of it.
I imagined also it was surrounded by a low wall, with a sort of white color., as in the pictures here.

 In these pictures the Protestant Church is defended by 1 battallion of the Hungarian Regiment Haller; the Hungarias wore very colurfull uniforms, usually with very tight trousers and low shoes.

 Thanks to the papersoldiers it is possible to host inside the little yard of the church (about A4 size): this is something quite unique.

Here a wider vision of the Village; The Protestant Church, the center of the Village with the little mayor.

A LITTLE GIFT: THE "NAPOLI" REGIMENT AT THE BATTLE OF TURIN 1706

Hi guys,

I have to confess I keep in my bureau about 20.000  papersoldiers. 

They are really in every single spot of it and so also in my meeting room; so, by chance a client of mine pop in last Friday and saw them; she liked them very much and requested me to have a "little gift" i.e. some papersoldiers.

Considering she is - as origin - from Napoli, I had to find something really appropriate.

So here I came out with the idea to gift this little formation, together with the Ordonnance colours of the Spanish Regiment "Napoli" that fought at the Battle of Turin on 7th September 1706.

Obviously, considering they are going to leave me, I had to sign and attach to this unit also the "lettre" to give the command of this troops to my Client.

As it was customary at that epoch the "lettre" is in French and states:

"A.D. 2016, mois Octobre, jour 10; 

Avec la présente lettre nous donnons à Madame pour tout le temps à venir cette formation d'honneur attachée à la bannière d'ordonnance du Régiment "Napoli" de sa glorieuse Majesté Philippe V pour grâce de Dieu Roy d'Espagne"

Translation... well guys.. French is a language to know... :-)

LEUTHEN 1757: THE TWILIGHT OF THE BATTLE

The battle of Leuthen is over... the Darkness of the alte winter afternoon is covering the cries of the wounded soldiers, laying on the field, and the tiredness of the poor men is grasping their souls. 

The Austrians are gathering around theirs colours (in this case the Harrach Regiment) while in front of them there is a Captain of the Zieten Hussars and on the background some Cuirassiers of the Sedlytz Regiment.

On the back of the house a coloumn of Zieten hussars is going to the bridge of Lissa where Friedrich II is waiting for.

The Captain of the Prussian Zieten Hussars (please note his red trousers) is facing some Hussars of the Austrian Eszterhazy Regiment; this scene is quite visible here (bottom). The sadness on the face of the Austrian Hussars is quite evident.

This scene is quite visible here (top). The sadness on the face of the Austrian Hussars is quite evident.

On the background of the Captain of the Zieten Hussars (actually he has blue trousers)

 Here we see a very sad moment (well actually I support the Austrians, due to "familiy reasons"): the Standard Bearer of the Harrach Regiment, with the Leibfahne, is going to deliver the Colours of the Regiment to the Officers of the Zieten Regiment.

Top: the escort of the Captain; note also the other colours of the other Austrian Regiment that are going to be delivered to the Prussians.

AUSTRIAN REGIMENT "HARRACH" 1757 - Part 2

Finally, I was able to array 1 complete battalion at 1:1 ratio of the Harrach Regiment at the Battle of Leuthen. It has 6 Infantry companies 95 men each (considering the loss of that regiment) + 1 Grenadier Company with about 80 men
This gives all together a force of about 650 men. 
There are 2 colours with NCO's and officers.

Note the difference with the usual figures of wargaming: the colours of this battalion are like lost in the middle of the number of soldiers; the picture here bottom gives the idea also of what really meant in that epoch to maneuvre a so huge number of soldiers

Every soldier has been glued to a stand with prefixed distances; every stand has 5/4 figures (the most 5 figures actually). Then each stand has underneath a magnet that holds that stand fixed to the bigger stand (1 company) where I put and glued 4 barrels of metal and then covered with a paper layer representing the ground.
This allows to move single stand of about 100 papersoldiers in one move and at the same time to pick up little units or to remove them in the tide of the battle as in reality.

 Top: here it is well evident the Grenadier Company at the very side of the Battalion. I have to admit that is really wide: about 80 cm

At the battle of Leuthen this Regiment fought with 2 battalions (I am cutting the second one... so long) and it was arrayed in the front line in the defense of the village and sustained the hardest attack depleted that day by the Prussian Army

AUSTRIAN REGIMENT "HARRACH" 1757 - Part 1

The 259th anniversary of the Battle of Leuthen (5th December) and still I have to finish a lot of Regiments. I am afraid also this year the diorama of the battle will be not ready. But reproducing 70.000 papersoldiers it's really a huge task.
By the way, I used this summer to request to some friends of mine to start cutting papersoldiers. The result was quite impressive, with thousands of new recruits just arrived to the barrack (i.e. at my office) for being enlisted.
I want mostly to finish the Austrian troops that were actually defending the village of Leuthen. Therefore on the west of the village was the Harrach Regiment on 2 battalions.
Its uninorm in 1757 was quite beautiful (see http://kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=Main_Page) were the trousers and the shirt were still dark blue.
By myself I trimmed the colours, that you can see here bottom:

 This is part of the huge numbers of new recruits; the total papersoldiers that will be enlisted for reencting this regiment will be about 900!

 Some of them are already training!

 

AUSTERLITZ 1805: THE NOVGOROD REGIMENT 1st & 2nd Battalions

Hi everyone,

holydays are gone and we are all back to work. During this summer spent in Sardinia I had the occasion to finish the 1st (Grenadier) and 2nd (Musketeers) of the Novogorod Regiment at the Battle of Austerlitz on 2nd December 1805

Here a coloumn of the first Battalion marching. In front the Battallion Commander. Just after him with his sword one captain.

Here bottom: presenting the forces to the Commander

Top: in the foreground the Leibfahne and on the background the Ordinar colour. 8 drummers beat the rythm of the marching troops!