Hannibal Marchese Sommariva - painting by Francois Xavier Fabre

The wonderful painting of Hannibal Marchese Sommariva was on view in a temporary exhibition at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna Milano when we visited. I felt exceptionally lucky to visit the museum and find this piece of art - I have been visiting northern Italy on holiday for a few years now and always keep an eye out for Napoleonic era paintings, so to find a painting of an Austrian general from this period was very exciting.

 



Biographical Essay (by Digby Smith)
Hannibal Marchese Sommariva was born on 10 March 1755 in Lodi, Lombardy and entered Austrian military service in 1771 as an Unterleutnant in the Dragoon Regiment "Bettoni" N°28. In 1773 he was promoted 2nd Rittmeister and he distinguished himself both in the War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778 and in the wars against the Turks in 1788/89. Promoted to 1st Rittmeister in 1778, Major in 1780 and to Oberstleutnant in 1793 when he was posted to the Netherlands. He was distinguished in the 1st battle of Fleurus on 16 June 1794, and in 1796 was promoted Oberst and made CO of his regiment. He was again distinguished in the clash at Amberg on 24 August of that year.

In the 1799 campaign Sommariva's regiment served in Italy where, on 26 March, they took 14 guns from the French at the clash of Legnano. Four days later, his regiment again contributed greatly to the French defeat at Perona. At the battle of Magnano on 5 April 1799, his regiment saved the day at one critical point and this led to the Austrian victory over French General Scherer. For this, Sommariva was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Military Maria Theresian Order. His conduct in the subsequent campaign led to his promotion to Generalmajor on 2 October of that year.

In 1800 GM Sommariva took over command of the Tuscan army and was appointed GOC the state. The French invasion brought his rule to an end and he was forced to flee his headquarters at midnight 14/15 October. He rejoined the Austrian army's main body on 6 January 1801 and was given command of a brigade in the rearguard. He fought minor actions at Montebello and other points.

In 1805 he again served in Italy as brigade commander in FML Vukassovich's division of General Bellegarde's right wing. In 1806 he was appointed Proprietor of Cuirassier Regiment N°5 and on 1 January 1807 Sommariva received his promotion to Feldmarschalleutnant and appointed Military Commander in Silesia (Troppau). 

During the beginning of the campaign of 1809 Sommariva commanded a division in Orsini-Rosenberg's IV Corps, and on 19 April, at Dünzling, he charged and overthrew Pajol's brigade. He fought again at Eggmühl on 22 April, where he commanded the rearguard of the right wing. He was then transferred to FZM Kolowrat's III Corps and fought at Linz-Urfahr on 17 May, but did not serve in the later actions of this campaign or in 1812. In 1813 he commanded a division in the Army of Innerösterreich. On 21 January 1817 he was promoted General der Kavallerie. He died on 10 July 1829 in Vienna.

There are many interesting details on this painting, from the buttons down to the sash, that would never need to be considered for a 15mm figure, but these details are of interest to the uniform enthusiast, so I made sure I got some close up images...

 

I also liked the detail on the map, which although is upside down, the artist has the names of the countries upright. Once you get your head around which way is north or south the map is very interesting...

 

Marengo Museum Part 2 - The Austrians

As the Austrian army was my favourite and the focus of this blog I was really looking forward to seeing a lot of new resource material or learning something I didn't know already when I visited the museum at Marengo. Anything at all that I hadn't seen before would be wonderful.

What I noticed though, was that the main focus of the exhibition was on the French, especially Napoleon.

Throughout the museum there were plenty of large panel artworks on display, most of which I had previously seen in Osprey publications. These included artwork by Christa Hook and Keith Rocco, and what appeared to be the originals by Richard Hook. All very cool to see, but nothing new.

 

There was also a very nice reproduction flag. I was especially pleased at seeing this as I have been producing my own flags for my miniatures, all except the Austrians. I now have a good image to base my own artwork on so I can make my own flags. Not really a priority as these are easily available anyway.

 

 

On to the uniforms on display. There are several life size figures throughout the museum, wearing replica uniforms that were created in 2010 (according to the signage). Some of these are more than a little creepy looking and look like Madame Tussuade waxwork failures - the Austrian soldier's moustache looked really bad.

 

The first model was of an Austrian General officer. I didn't get many pictures of this guy, and most were blurry. My son had decided to run on ahead and I had to keep an eye on him. I don't think there was too much missed though.

 

 

The next was an Austrian Line Infantry in German uniform, possibly IR47 Kinsky. This was the guy with the creepy moustache and "dead" eyes. The uniform looked correct to my eyes, though there were a few details that I found myself questioning at second look. Is that casquet correct? What's going on with his trousers? I would have expected gaiters, or the trousers to be Hungarian if there were no gaiters.

 

 

 

And that was it for the Austrians. There was a lot of text on the walls, but as it was in Italian I have no idea if I missed anything important. So, slightly disappointed, but only because I was expecting a lot. Next I'll look at some French.

 

Austrian Artillery - 15/18mm Blue Moon

While still trying to get the painting mojo back over the holiday I was unfortunately taken ill and ended up spending some time in hospital. All was fine and I had nothing to worry about, except being careful what I eat for the rest of my life, or suffer from stomach issues. But the worst thing was that I lost any painting momentum I had managed to get back, and sitting painting for any length of time still gives me stomach pains.

So I had to start small again. No 32 figure battalions. No cavalry squadrons. Just a couple of guns.

There were bought cheaply off eBay and were listed as Blue Moon 3 pounders. The crew were included, and were as described, but the guns look different to what is shown on the Blue Moon website - mostly the wheels that are not the same. Anyway, they were cheap, so they got painted.

For these I went a bit risky with the crew. Not big risky, just a little bit. I gave some brown trousers!! And I painted an infantry officer as an artillery officer so I had an artillery crewman wearing a helmet!!! Controversial or what? I've always liked the look of the artillery in helmet, and though the helmets probably never made it onto the field, I felt I could get away with it for one officer.

That's me finished 7 artillery bases but I still have to have 23 guns in my army, so loads still to do. The ones that I have already done were from Warmodelling and were 6-pounders pretending to be 3pdrs, so these may be replaced.

Austrian Mariassy Jägers - Warmodelling/Battlemodels miniatures

I'm on a bit of a roll and getting some figures finished. And guess what! I've done some Austrians!

I eventually got round to finishing a 16-man unit of Austrian Jägers using Warmodelling's 18mm figures (I only needed 12 but went for a larger unit fe reason). I had started these on four figure bases but felt that this looked wrong, so split them to have two per base.

The figures themselves are not the best that I've worked on recently. Warmodelling were suffering from increasingly poor castings when these were purchased, which they are apparently in the process of correcting. I did order some Hussars from them but the quality of those was terrible - luckily their service is still good and I eventually got replacements, but if you want their figures I would recommend waiting until they are remastered. The jaegers may benefit from this as well hopefully, as pose-wise they are nice enough. Its just some lost detail that affects them.

These seem to be in uniforms which are possibly too late for Marengo, so will be replaced at some point with suitable figures in helmets, if I can find some with the shorter musket.

15/18mm Austrian Cavalry Comparison Part 2

After I did the comparison post on Austrian cavalry it was pointed out that I'd missed some. Obviously I don't have every manufacturers figures to hand to compare them, but there are some that I did have that I forgot about including, so here is another comparison with other figures.

These are, from left to right in both pictures, an Austrian Hussar from Blue Moon, a Uhlan from Battle Honours, a Dragoon from Boki Miniatures on a Campaign Games Miniatures horse, a line infantry officer from Old Glory, and an AB general.

These are all roughly compatible, although the Old Glory figure and horse seem a lot smaller. For other Old Glory mounted figures I've remounted them on larger horses and they look fine, but this is a single piece casting, so maybe not the best representation.

The Battle Honours figure is a little small as well, but would possibly benefit again from going onto a larger mount.

Blue Moon's figure is by far the smallest of the separately cast riders, and although he's on a larger mount he still looks like a very small 15mm figure, especially when you consider that Blue Moon's foot figures are closer to 18mm than 15mm. The other issue with this range is that the horses are very thick through the body, so other figures can't sit on them comfortably.

So, the only range that I would like to have shown that is missing is the Fantassin/Warmodelling/Battle Models range.

Here's a link to the last comparison in case you missed it... LINK

Hopefully this is a help again.

LD3 Erzherzog Johann Light Dragoons - AB and Boki Miniatures

The 3rd Light Dragoon Regiment FM Erzherzog Johann Baptist is the first unit of my light dragoons that I've finished. I've used the brand new Austrian cavalry from Boki Miniatures for the troopers, AB Miniatures for the command, with horses from Campaign Games Miniatures (Boki supply the figures without horses).

I'm quite happy how these turned out, though to be honest I struggled with a lot of the detail. Sho Boki had some excellent detail that I couldn't paint with these old eyes and fingers, especially on the saddle cloth. I wasn't sure if they should have had white or green jackets as there is conflicting information as to when, or even if, the coats of every unit were changed to white, but my plan is to create 4 units, two with bicorne and two with kasket, with one of each in white and one in green. Here's the plan to ease confusion (it may not be 100% correct, but I'm hoping to show the variety that may have been seen in these units).

So here are the figures...

These are great figures and fit in really well with my collection. I've ordered more horses and Boki is planning to release new figures really soon, including line infantry officers, so there will be loads more mounted miniatures coming to my collection soon.

15/18mm Austrian Cavalry Comparison

Whilst I've managed to build a large contingent of Austrian infantry and artillery for my Marengo campaign, and have a few French infantry and cavalry units ready, I had been neglecting my Austrian cavalry.

With a few new releases becoming available it was the right time to sort this out, and a few orders were placed.

All the suppliers I received figures from provided a great service and everything arrived safely and on time.

The first order to arrive was from Fighting 15s who as the supplier of AB miniatures here in the UK. I ordered some Revolutionary period Austrian infantry, and more importantly for this post, their Dragoon command set. There are two figures in this set, an officer and a bugler, and these are as good as you would expect from AB.

The next order was from Campaign Games Miniatures in Barcelona, and was of a set of 12 Austrian Chevauxlegers / Dragoons in charging poses that had just been released. I think I may have been one of the first to order these. You can see these already painted in an earlier post with a full review.

Last to arrive was an order of Revolutionary period Dragoons in bicornes from Sho Boki Miniatures in Estonia. Supplied without horses, these mounted figures are designed to compliment the AB range. And they certainly do that, and the command set that I'd ordered from AB fit really well. They're on the painting table at this very moment, and will be mounted on horses from Campaign Games Miniatures (these aren't quite as good as AB but the cost is a lot lower, and you can order individually posed horses). The detail on these is great and the faces paint really nicely - those are done already. The moustaches are great! I also received a couple of free figures from Sho Boki as I'd won the "guess the figure" competition on TMP.

One of the freebies was a Chevauxleger with a peaked casket hat, which is as nice as the dragoon figures, though the head, or maybe neck, looks a little strange. It's maybe too narrow. I'll paint this one up and see how it looks.

So here are the unpainted figures for you to compare.

These are, from left to right, AB officer, Boki dragoon, AB bugle, Boki Chevauxleger, then 2x CGM Chevauxleger/Dragoons. As you can see they all mix very well in size and could easily compliment each other in the same army.

AB are available here.... LINK
Boki Miniatures here.... LINK
CG Miniatures here.... LINK

Jager-Regiment zu Pferde Graf Bussy

In the campaign of 1800, and especially at Marengo, Johann Maria Philipp Frimont, Count of Palota, Prince of Antrodoco, distinguished himself greatly as a cavalry leader, and in the next year became major-general.

As part of Frimont's brigade the Bussy Light Horse, or Jager-Regiment zu Pferde Bussy, played an important part in the battle. Consisting of 186 men in 2 squadrons, the Bussy Horse Jager regiment included many French emigres. During the battle, according to Stutterheim, the "Bussy Jager Regiment (émigré French) came on, galloped from the main road and fell into the rear of the Guard. This attack decided and ended all fighting. Many of the Guard were sobered down, the bigger part and four guns surrendered".

I was able to find very useful reference images for this unit, including Mollo and Knotel, plus Osprey.

 

For the figures I had a lot of choice, with most companies supplying suitable miniatures. As luck had it though, just as I was about to go looking, I got an email announcing Campaign Games Miniatures had just that day released their Austrian cavalry. They had a 12 figure unit available, so an order was placed and arrived a day or two later... not bad for coming from Barcelona.

These new figures are nicely cast, with no flash and minimal mold lines. The poses are reasonable animated, with my only issue with them being that the uniform under the raised arms looks a bit strange. Otherwise they are great, and a joy to paint. The set I bought included a standard, which probably is totally wrong for this unit, but I included it anyway. I'm really happy how these came out.