Continuing with Lieutenant General Hendrik George de Perponcher-Sedlnitsky’s 2nd Dutch-Belgian Division in the Hundred Days campaign and the balance of (Colonel) Prince Bernhard of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach’s 2nd (Nassau) Brigade, and following on from the 2nd Nassau-Usingen Regiment is the 28th Oranien-Nassau (Orange-Nassau) Regiment – the unit von Sachsen-Weimar (Saxe-Weimar) was Colonel of prior to taking over the 2nd Brigade on the 15 June 1815. So as these are near completion and following the ‘Work In Progress‘ type photos theme, here’s the Oranien-Nassau regiment…
As with the 2nd Nassau-Usingen Regiment the big hold-up with these is I originally put the units together in 2008 for the SHAKO II rules, so I needed only about 38 figures in total for both battalions – although the real life battalions were both around 800 men strong at the outset of the campaign – so I now needed about 78 figures for Lasalle! So that was another extra 40 figures to buy and get painted on top of the Nassau-Usingen chaps! Like the 2nd Nassau-Usingen Regiment these were commissioned Perry Miniatures from Dragon Painting Service (Hong Kong).
Like the II/2nd Nassau-Usingen Battalion the II/Oranien-Nassau Battalion also had very little ammunition – so was not directly involved in the initial stages of Quatre Bras nor any of the heavy fighting – and again you could argue for not bothering to model the II Battalion – but again I just couldn’t bring myself to do that! The original Commander of the 2nd Netherlands (Nassau) Brigade, Colonel von Godecke, had been kicked in the shin by a horse at a parade the day or so before the French advance (13 or 14 June), so once hostilities commenced Prince Bernhard, who was Colonel of the Oranien-Nassau Regiment (the “28th” was a Netherlands distinction – the Regiment being 28th in the Dutch-Belgian line) assumed command, having that confirmed by 2nd Netherlands Division HQ the evening (15 June) prior to Quatre Bras; elevating Lieutenant Colonel Dressel, the commander of I/Oranien-Nassau and Regimental second-in-command to command of the Regiment for the battle of Quatre Bras & Waterloo.
Addendum: Not pictured is the Oranien-Nassau Volunteer Jäger Company (Compagnie vrijwillige jagers ‘Oranje-Nassau’) under Captain Emilius Bergmann which was attached to the 28th Oranien-Nassau Regiment, so I need 1 of these figs to do an additional skirmisher stand for the latter unit to represent the actual Volunteer Company here. The following was posted by John Franklin to a discussion on TMP covering the Volunteer Company which is of interest: Captain Emil Bergmann’s own extant account states that the Volunteer Jäger company, which was equipped with various rifles of different calibre, had expended all of its ammunition on the 16th, and so only twelve men and two officers served at Waterloo. The others were sent to the rear. See also my 2nd Nassau-Usingen Regiment photos where I have used a pack of the Perry Miniatures Volunteer Jäger as skirmishing 2nd Nassau-Usingen Voltigeurs. I also have pics up of Bijlandt’s 1st Netherlands Brigade too.
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