On the Road to Austerlitz: A 6mm Early Napoleonics Project

This one needs a bit of explaining. The Scenario list for the Battle that I’m following has this Advanced Guard as Two Brigades but on paper it was much larger but paper can be deceiving.

On Paper there were 3 Uhlan Regiments and a Regiment of Hussars so you would expect at least 2 Bases. However two of those Uhlan units had 40 and 100 men meaning it was easier to just merge them all in to one unit. I have put the Hussars out in front to represent them screening and skirmishing for the Ulhan Lancers.

The Horse Battery I painted earlier belongs to this unit.

This next part required explanation. The next Brigade would be O’Reilly’s Brigade. Originally I thought this was another case like the Russian General MacDonald who is a descendant of foreign immigrants but Andreas O’Reilly was a genuine Irishman who joined the Austrian Army at the age of 14 at the start of the Seven Years War (1756-1763 the North American Part is known as the French and Indian War).

He purchased his Commission and by 1779 was a Major, married into a Noble Family he himself was related to nobility, he was the youngest son of a Baronet, the lowest level of Nobility in the British system and an Irish one at that so think the lowest of the low when it comes to Nobility, he really had no prospects as an aristocrat.

Ten years later he became an Austrian Nobleman (A Graf or Count much higher than his Families Baronet) and promoted to command a Regiment. When the French decided to murder their rightful King he was promoted to General-Major and given control of a Brigade. He spent the next 5 years commanding mixed Grenzer/Light Cavalry Brigades doing quite well.

O’Reilly was not the greatest General when it came to actual fighting but where he excelled was when everyone else was panicking. He was overly cautious (a rare trait for a Light Cavalry Officer of this era) but when he needed to do his main job of screening the advance or retreat of an army he did an excellent job.

At the age of 63 he was given control of Vienna after everyone else had screwed up the evacuation and was forced to surrender the city. He ended up living to 89 as an Austrian Nobleman and General der Kavallerie. Not bad for some very minor Irish nobilities youngest son from County Roscommon.

I plan on doing a video on him for my YouTube Channel now that I’m settled in to my new place.  https://www.youtube.com/c/AnotherHistorianWargamer/videos

Ladies and Gentleman I give you Feldmarschallleutnant Andreas Graf O’Reilly von Ballinlough.