Uniform the Cacciatori del Nizzardo—solved thanks to Jonathan and Ludovic

Ever have one of those occasions when you go around and around looking for a piece of information about a unit, campaign, person or some detail that you absolutely 'need'; and get nowhere?

So it was for me recently trying to find information about the uniform of the Cacciatori del Nizzardo (also known as Cacciatori di Nizza, chasseurs niçois, or Nice Light Infantry).

Spoiling the punch-line of this post, here's the image sent to me by Jonathan,

...and the one from Ludovic.

As part of my massive 'conversion from painted to unpainted project’ I have decided that the figures that I have gathered for the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1796 will be amongst those to be based and undercoated for more immediate attention.

The first steps along the path for me when allocating figures to units are ‘definitive’ orders of battle. This has involved many hours spent on some enjoyable delving into my books and saved pdfs as well as searching the inter-web to see if I can find anything additional and useful. Bouvier’s 'Bonaparte en Italie 1796’, a free download from the marvellous archive.org that I saved a few years back, has been a real boon that has filled lots of the gaps left in Boycott-Brown’s excellent ‘Road to Rivoli’. 

The main actions involving units from the Kingdom of Sardinia*, often referred to as the Piedmontese, were the Battles of Millesimo–Cosseria, Ceva, St Michele (Corsaglia) and Mondovi. A few infantry were also present at Dego. The Cacciatori del Nizzardo was present at St Michele (Corsaglia) and Mondovi and had 'an excellent reputation’ (according to the informative articles by Ludovic Isnard about the Sardinian army on the Napoleon Series). The Sardinian army did not repeat it's largely successful defensive campaigns of 1792–5; the Treaty of Cherasco was signed following the defeat at Mondovi and the Kingdom out of the campaign, later to be annexed by France.

*Also called the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont or Piedmont-Sardinia, or even Savoy-Piedmont-Sardinia

Books about the Sardinian army of this period are difficult to come by.

Back in 2020, when I first thought about producing an army for the Kingdom of Sardinia during Napoleon's first Italian campaign, I had found a lot of useful information on the 'inter-web'. This included two posts for "IL REGNO DI SARDEGNA DI FINE ‘700” on the blog la biblioteca militare, Federico Bona’s website, Napoleon’s 1796 bloody nose and the blog The British Are Coming, as well as Ludovic Isnard's previously mentioned articles. I also have pictures of some units from Sardinia-Piedmont represented in plates in two of the more pictorial books that I have about the campaign: Tranie’s 'Napoléon Bonaparte, 1ère Campagne d’Italie’ and Mongin’s '1796-1797 : du pont d'Arcole à la Bataille de Rivoli’.

None of these featured the Cacciatori del Nizzardo.

With orders of battle settled to my satisfaction, I spent a lot of time last Sunday going around and around looking for an image, preferably, or just some information about this now 'elusive unit'. I was getting nowhere and just seemed to come back again and again to the information that I already had.

I got excited when I found this image on Pinterest (a site which I consider ‘plagiarism central’), thinking that the fellow on the right, described as an officer of the volontari cacciatori might just have been my man.

In the usual style of that site there was no mention of the original source. Once I deciphered the signature, this lead me to Massimo Brandani. I was deflated when I found that it was from a Bourbon unit (Naples/Sicily).

My level of excitement rose again when Massimo's name lead me to a book by Stefano Ales 'Le regie truppe sarde, 1773-1814’, for which he had also painted the plates. This looked to be exactly what I was after. Trouble is, it is out of print and is commanding collector’s level prices—the only copy that I could find will cost over €120 inclusive of postage to Australia. That’s just a bit too much in an attempt to find uniform details for one unit! Besides that, I think that Giorgio (do not know his surname), who did the two posts entitled "IL REGNO DI SARDEGNA DI FINE ‘700”, has reproduced all of Massimo Brandani’s images from that book.

In my internet trawling, I found that Jonathan Freitag (of the marvellous Palouse Wargaming blog) had posted some years back about painting units of Sardinian infantry in 1799. Could he, on the off-chance, happen to have any references that mentioned the uniform of these chasseurs from Nice? As well as painting beautifully, hosting marvellous games and cycling around lovely Washington state, Jon is a cheerful, helpful and generous fellow whom I have enjoyed several email 'discussions' with from time to time. I had not sent him an email for a while, so it would be good to make contact again, even if he did not have the info. that I was trying to find.

To my delight and amazement, he came back to me, super quickly and had what I had been looking for!

His reply:

You are in luck!  I have some info on this unit.

Uniform plate below but I have forgotten the source but I think the artist was Brandani. This might have been in the Ales' book you mentioned.

Some notes I have:

Tricorn was first issued but replaced by black leather helmet (as seen in illustration) in 1795.  Plate was brass.

Pants were white with gaiters until 1795 and then changed to blue with high, black shoes as shown in illustration.

Collar/cuffs/turnbacks were crimson with white buttons. Buttons show as yellow in 1814.  

REEEEE-SULT!!!

The plate that he sent sent was definitely Massimo’s work. It must be from 'Le regie truppe sarde, 1773-1814’**, unless there is another book that I do not know of.

**If anyone reading this has a copy of this book and would like to send it to me or sell it to me for a good price, let me know, hahaha!

After sending the email to Jon (and prior to receiving his reply) I thought of one further, last (?) avenue; I sent an email to the address for Ludovic Isnard linked on the Napoleon series. You never know...

Turns out I was doubly lucky!

Ludovic also replied to me in record time and sent me the second of the images above.

Actually, make that quadruply lucky as the plate that Ludovic sent not only confirmed/added to the notes that Jon had about the Nice light infantry, but also solved a puzzle that I had about the legione truppe leggiere regarding hats or caps (and blue or red lapels).

Wonderful!

Thank you so much Jonathan and Ludovic!

I am one happy, little vegemite! 😀

P.S. Coming to a blog near you

I have have not been ‘around the blogs’ in recent weeks (months), since my wargaming time has gone on the pursuits above, some painting and a game (more on that later). I want to rectify this so will be trying to catch up on my regular blogging 'haunts' and the others that I go to less often, so watch out, hahaha!!