Commanders for Dresden

Hopefully we'll be playing my scenario based on the Battle of Dresden next month and I realised that I was short of a couple of key commanders. These are Marshal Saint-Cyr to represent the player commanding the French right and General Wittgenstein for the player on the Allied right.

Hinton Hunt never made a specific figure for Saint-Cyr so I decided to use a spare casting of Marshal Soult in his place. I particularly like this figure as he has been modelled holding a marshal's baton. Of course back in the day I would never have known this and would probably have painted it as a telescope.

FN/357 Marshal Soult on horse FNH/10 painted as Marshal Saint-Cyr.

According to my copy of  Macdonell's Napoleon and his Marshals Saint Cyr was "the strangest, most freakish, and least understandable of all the Marshals". In his youth he studied art and also tried his hand on the stage but with the start of the Revolutionary Wars quickly became a staff-officer in the army rising to the rank of General. It was said of him that "Desaix knows how to win battles, St. Cyr how not to lose them".

In 1800 while in Madrid (rather bizarrely) he was involved in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase but he later blotted his copybook when he refused to sign the petition begging Napoleon to become Emperor and even refused to attend the coronation. He had a strange habit that, after a battle, instead of following up the enemy or looking after his wounded he would lock himself in a room and play the violin for hours. He took his violin with him on the Russian campaign where he won his Marshal's Baton for his victory at the 1st Battle of Polotsk.

His men and officers all detested him but said he was the finest defensive soldier in Europe (not sure what the Duke would say about that). He was known as "The Owl".

RN.85 Russian General painted as Prince Wittgenstein.

Prince Wittgenstein was a Ukrainian General of German descent who fought in the Russian army at Austerlitz and Friedland. He later fought against and beat Saint-Cyr at the 2nd Battle of Polotsk earning the title "Saviour of Saint-Petersburg". In the 1813 campaign he took over command of the Russian army after the death of Kutusov but following the defeat at Lutzen he stepped down and became a Corps commander fighting in this capacity at both Dresden and Leipzig.