Saturday, June 23, 2018

The Papal Zouaves are Recruiting

Some 500 Canadians joined the Papal Zouaves, largely French Canadians but also some Catholic Irish of whom there were significant numbers in Montreal.
This one appears to be Scottish in origin.......
now to make him some baggy pants.

Once done he'll look a bit like the fellow below, all natty in grey trimmed red, but in the charging pose used by Britains for their Zouaves. Its a bit late for the Montreal contingent to go save Rome but it seems that there are plenty of Heathens right here at home.

Pontifical Zouave c 1865
Lombardi Historical Collection
Author Photographer, Fratelli D'Alessandri, Roma

10 comments:

  1. Fascinating photo and a really exciting looking figure. They will be a dashing contingent for your army. Will they have a flag or even a chaplain figure?

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    1. Chaplain? That's a good idea, I used to have a priest in full ceremonials, if I can find him there might b a use for him in some scenarios but no no attached chaplain and no flag. I'm not eben sure that they'll have an officer now that I found out that they wore a zouave outfit unlike American and French Zouave officers.

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  2. Very nice. I look forward to seeing his dashing uniform!

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  3. A fine body of men. There’s lots to do there.

    Will you be adding any other papal troops?

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    1. These are being included as the only Canadian Zouaves ever raised, to the best of my knowledge anyway.

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  4. Always liked Zouaves - used to have loads of Airfix conversions based on an Airfix Magazine series back in the 60s - all long gone. Hard to remember that at one time I did actually have some ACW armies!

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    1. Occasionally I find a photo or straggler from some forgotten unit/army. The records department for my wargames armies have always been a bit slack.

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  5. I'd never even heard of this unit before, thanks Ross. Did I miss a step, though - are you planning on gaming the Risorgimento?

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    1. No, I'm still focusing on Canadian and American units and some 400-500 of the Papal Zouaves were recruited in Quebec. That's close enough for my purposes.

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