French Line Infantry Mounted Officer

The Chef de Bataillon — Battalion Commander — was the only officer in a French line infantry battalion authorized a horse on campaign. Captains, lieutenants, and sub-lieutenants walked alongside their companies. His job was not to lead from the front the way novels and paintings later suggested, but to take a position where he could see his battalion's six companies as one formation, send orders to specific company captains by adjutant-major or runner, and adjust the battalion's response to whatever the regimental colonel signaled from his own command position behind. Mounted command in the French line was about visibility and communication, not heroics — and a horse made it possible to do both in the noise and smoke of a battalion under fire. This K&C figure wears the standard French line infantry officer's full dress: dark blue habit-veste with white lapels and turnbacks, white waistcoat and breeches, black knee boots, and the crimson silk officer's sash that identified him at any distance. The red shako plume is the detail that places him precisely — red was the grenadier-company color, worn by the battalion's elite right-flank company made up of the tallest and most experienced soldiers. An officer wore the red plume when commanding that company or serving as an adjutant attached to it, which is exactly the role this figure depicts: a senior mounted officer riding the grenadier flank, raised hand and open mouth caught in the act of relaying the next command. Pair him with the French Mounted Officer of the Old Guard for a deliberate contrast between line and Guard command, with the F.L.I. Advancing Drummer at his side relaying signals to the companies, or set him into a contested-village diorama against the European Walls and Gates.  Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. King & Country model NA533. From the Napoleon's Army (NA) series. Single mounted figure, painted and ready for display.