The Blue and the Red

Dedicated to all things however loosely related to the Napoleonic Wars and the people involved in them, both before and after the actual war.

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A handwritten copy of “A Week at Waterloo”, a personal account by Lady Magdalene De Lancey. Her husband, Colonel Sir William De Lancey, was hit by a cannonball during the battle and died from his wounds on 26th June, 1815 – they had been married for less than 3 months.

Lady De Lancey wrote her reminiscences in a journal, originally intended to be circulated just to her friends and family. She may have felt the need to protect her reputation as a devoted and grieving wife – there were rumours that she had been insufficiently remorseful after Waterloo, planning her return to England even before Sir William’s death.

This copy is addressed to Charlotte Elizabeth Bathurst, a society lady and distant relative of Magdalene – who might have been one of the people spreading these ugly rumours.

In 1906, nearly 100 years later, this intensely personal story was published.

In the first photograph, the manuscript is pictured next to a picture of Colonel De Lancey and the gold medal that he won for fighting in the Peninsular War against the French.

You can read the complete text of A Week at Waterloo, for free, here and view the original manuscript here.

[respectablespy-deactivated20180]

Reblogging this because I ACTUALLY HAVE THE MANUSCRIPT IN MY HANDS RIGHT NOW

[napoleondidthat]

When everyone gets a straight sword and you get the broken one.

[borussia-in-saecula-saeculorum]

The wounding of Eleonore Prochaska in 1813, a female soldier who served in the Prussian Army during the War of Liberation. She died three weeks later from her wounds.

Art by Carl Röchling, c. 1900.

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Surgeons at sea - Royal Navy Medical Officers' Journals

The ADM 101 series consists of journals and diaries compiled by Royal Navy surgeons and assistant surgeons who served on HM ships, hospitals, naval brigades, shore parties and on emigrant and convict ships in the period 1793 to 1880.

Medical officers serving in the Royal Navy were required to submit detailed records of the health, treatment and survival rates of their charges. This has provided us with journals which exhibit a completeness, consistency and coherence unlikely to exist elsewhere for this period.

The records can be easily searched by the name of the medical officer, the patient, the ship or even by disease or ailment. The cataloguing also revealed some unexpected ‘bonus’ material contained in the journals. For example, the presence of watercolour illustrations, sketches, hand-drawn maps, charts showing details of the climate, details about the lay-out of the vessels and ideas about ventilation, and details of the countries visited and people encountered.

The journals include a variety of colourful tales of 18th and 19th century ship life, from drunken rum-related incidents, venereal disease, scurvy, shark bites and tarantulas, to lightning strikes, gun fights, mutiny, arrests and court martial - not to mention ship wrecks and even murder.

[cuirassier]

Elegant attitudes for fugel men, J.P. Gearing

[fapoleon-bonerparte]

Napoleonic tumblr discourse who had a better coat for the Russian winter: Ney or Naps?

[theblueandthered]

NO question: Ney. If you ever have a chance to look at the remake of that coat, do it. You’ll be absolutely in love.

[asheathes]

Animated posters // (click to enlarge)

[thesearethefables]

Hogwarts looks the least interesting lmao

[theblueandthered]

“Beauxbatons” is Hohenzollern Castle vertically mirrored: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohenzollern_Castle

“Ilvermorny” is actually Neuschwandstein Castle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle

Both are actual, real castles located in Southern Germany.

[stubblebrilliant]

joachim murat， Part of the image, WIP. 

[theblueandthered]

@nqpoleon look! Joachim!

[peashooter85]

Nadezdha Durova, The Cavalry Maiden

Nadezdha Durova was born in an army camp to a Russian major in 1783.  From her very beginnings as an infant Nadezha had a life of hard knocks when she was almost killed by her abusive mother, who threw her out of a moving carriage.  During her childhood Nadezdha moved with her father from military base to military base.  It was then that she learned military discipline, how march, how to ride, and how to fight.  It was said that her favorite two toys were a pistol and a saber.  

At the age of 18, Nedezdha was forced into an arranged marriage with an influential judge.  Two years later she gave birth two a son.  Nadezdha hated her husband and couldn’t stand the life of a housewife.  In 1807 at the age of 24, she ran away, disguised herself as a boy, and enlisted in the cavalry under the alias Alexander Sokolov.

Nadezdha had joined the Russian Army just in time, as Europe was embroiled in war as Russia, Prussia, Saxony, Sweden, and Great Britain formed a coalition to stop that infamous French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.  Nadezdha served with incredible distinction and was heavily decorated throughout the campaign.  In one incident she rescued a cavalryman who had suffered a concussion.  While under heavy fire she lifted the man and carried him off the battlefield.  In another she rescued a high ranking officer from certain death by eliminating three French dragoons (cavalrymen) who were in pursuit of him.

In the meantime Nadezdha’s family used their influence to find her.  When she was discovered and her gender revealed, rather than being drummed out of the army, she was summoned to the court of Czar Alexander I, who was greatly impressed by her story.  He awarded her the Cross of St. George, then the highest award offered by the Russian Empire.  She was also promoted from the ranks to Lieutenant.  Keep in mind, this was at a time when few enlisted soldiers were “risen from the ranks” to officership.  It was rarer still to have a female soldier openly serving in the Czar’s army, or any army for that matter.

In 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia, what would become the biggest mistake of his career.  Nadezdha fought in the Battles of Smolensk and Borodino.  At Borodino, she was seriously wounded by a cannonball, which shattered her leg.  She continued her duty regardless until ordered to recuperate by her command.  The war ended in 1815, and in 1816 she retired from military service with the rank of captain.  She became the most heavily decorated Russian cavalryman (or I should say cavalrywoman) of the Napoleonic Wars.

During her civilian life she became a writer,publishing four novels.  Under the encouragement of the famed playwright, poet, and novelist Alexander Pushkin, she wrote and published her memoirs entitled The Cavalry Maiden in 1836.  Throughout her life she advocated for women’s rights, becoming an early inspiration for the Women’s Suffrage Movement.

In 1866, Nadezdha Durova passed away at the age of 82.  She was buried with full military honors.

[sartorialadventure]

Ceremonial Regalia of Michel Ney, Prince of Moscow, Ca 1804

[tiny-librarian]

A portrait of Joachim Murat.

Source

[theblueandthered]

@nqpoleon

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The Battle of Waterloo: The British Squares Receiving the Charge of the French Cuirassiers, Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux, 1874 [x]

[fapoleon-bonerparte]

I’d like to think that there was a some what awkward conversation between Larrey and Davout after this discovery 

[napoleondidthat]

Famous Prohibitionists Of History: Napoleon Bonaparte

When you think of anti-cannabis crusaders, names like former President Richard Nixon and former First Lady Nancy Reagan immediately come to mind. But Napoleon Bonaparte - the French emperor and general who was tastefully portrayed by Verne Troyer on TV’s Jack of All Trades - is also among the ranks of history’s prohibitionists.

According to historian Lukasz Kamienski - author of Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War (2016) - Napoleon - who was born 247 years ago today - had an incursion with hashish during his military expedition in Egypt (1798-1801). Because alcohol was banned in the Muslim country, French soldiers found it difficult to unwind with a drink as they liked to do in their downtime. So when soldiers stumbled upon cafes selling hashish - a foreign substance to them - they quickly dabbled with cannabis resin along with the locals.

Napoleon wasn’t happy when his commanders reported that the army’s new recreation was undermining morale. So he outlawed hashish - and not just for his soldiers. He declared cannabis prohibition law throughout Egypt, undermining the centuries-long local tradition of manufacturing and consuming cannabis resin. His proclamation contained three articles about cannabis:

Article 1. Throughout Egypt the use of a beverage prepared by certain Moslems from hemp (hashish), as well as the smoking of the seeds of hemp, is prohibited. Habitual smokers and drinkers of this plant lose their reason and suffer from violent delirium in which they are liable to commit excesses of all kinds.

Article 2. The preparation of hashish as a beverage is prohibited throughout Egypt. The doors of those cafés and restaurants where it is supplied are to be walled up, and their proprietors imprisoned for three months.

Article 3. All bales of hashish arriving at the customs shall be confiscated and publicly burnt.

So as with America’s War on Drugs, Napoleon tried to criminalize cultural traditions and customs. And as with America’s War on Drugs, Napoleonic prohibition failed. When the defeated French army retreated from Egypt in 1801, their spirits were still high because they brought hash back to France with them. And toking became fashionable among intellectuals like Victor Hugo and poet Charles Baudelaire, who were members of the secret Club des Hashichins (a.k.a. The Hash Club) in Paris.

Sounds like he got high and noticed how awesome fingers are. But don’t count Baudelaire among early cannabis heroes. In the essay On Wine and Hashish (1851), Baudelaire praised alcohol and called hash “a suicidal weapon” that is “useless and dangerous.”

Or maybe he was just one of the first public figures to hide in the cannabis closet.

SOURCE

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Dr James Barry: the Irishwoman who fooled the British Empire

In 1809, during a bitter London winter, with the Napoleonic War at its height, a young Irishwoman set out on a course of deception which would fool the brightest and highest in the British Empire; dreading the confined life of a woman, she had decided to transform herself into a man.

Margaret Bulkley, niece of the great painter James Barry, became a pioneering surgeon, carrying out the first successful caesarean delivery.

Bulkley fooled the Army, high society and the whole British Empire, from Queen Victoria to Lord Raglan and Florence Nightingale.

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@fapoleon-bonerparte Pensez-vous c’est D.-J. Larrey?

Crofts, Ernest. Napoleon’s Last Grand Attack: Waterloo. 1895. Detail. Huile sur toile. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montréal.

[fapoleon-bonerparte]

There’s a possibility it could be him? But tbh I doubt it because his hair isn’t ~fluffy~ and long enough 

[theblueandthered]

I second, third and fourth the “fluffy” part.

[respectablespy-deactivated20180]

Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey

attributed to George Dawe oil on canvas, circa 1817