Monday, November 12, 2007

Painted: 2nd Battalion The Princess Victoria's Royal Irish Fusiliers

Here is the completed unit. It looks rather small but they were a small force, less than 350 men!

The Royal Irish Fusiliers landed at Trinkitat in late February 1884 and immediately began patrols with the Black Watch and the 19th Hussars into the surrounding country. There could be a few imaginary skirmish scenarios here! On 28th February they moved out, with the rest of the Expeditionary Force, to head towards El Teb, bivoucing overnight at Fort Baker. The RIF made up the forward section of the right hand side of the square with the KRRC next to them in the battle the next day.

At Tamai, in Buller's second brigade, they formed the front left hand corner of the square. The square, whilst heavily engaged, managed to drive off the Beja with rifle fire before they came into hand to hand combat, unlike their unfortunate comrades in the first square.

The Second Battalion (former 89th foot) returned to England in 1884 and were replaced by the First Battalion (former 87th foot) who joined the river column in the 1885 campaign, but that's a whole new army!

2 comments:

Giles said...

Excellent work!

Bill T said...

I have to agree, and it reminds me that I still have 12 Fuzzy's that need my attention on the painting table.