Sharpe's Rifles on BBCA

[cormacmacguardhe]

I have been watching this series on BBCA, it stars Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe, a soldier in the British Army during the war against Napolean. Actually quite good. The episode I saw today featured an infantry charge against a fort held by the French. One group in the charge were kilted, and led by a piper. Did not see much of the kilts, but it was quite fun to watch.

[cavscout]

This is a great series to read! The books are filled with all kinds of history and they are fast reads as well. Public TV in GA hardly ever shows the films but the one I did watch was very good. I believe it was the one where sharp was in Spain, I forget the name of that one.

Found this link about the series.

[kilted Kiwi2]

Recently I had Sky perfect TV installed here in Japan and one of the channels we have is the Mystery Ch and Sharpe is played about twice a week. The series is very good and Sean Bean does a great job of portraying Major Sharpe. I have never read the books but I'm really enjoying the TV series and quite often kilted soldiers are featured also one of the Officers is this chap

Wellington's exploring officer throughout the films of Gold, Battle and Sword. Munroe was one of Wellington's less serious officers - played mischeviously by Hugh Ross, himself a Scot, Sharpe meets Munroe for the first time whilst he's playing the bagpipes, badly! Munroe interviews Sharpe and then asks him which he would rather do, go on a dangerous mission or listen to more of Munroe's bagpipe playing! Naturally Sharpe prefers the dangerous mission.

If you ever get a chance to watch Sharpe please do as I'm sure you'll enjoy it


Kilted Kiwi

[An t-Ileach]

Sean Bean plays Richard Sharpe well, and it's difficult to envisage the character other than as Sean Bean (I think Bernard Cornwell has written the later books with SB in mind).

The Rifles (and the light companies reorganised into light infantry units fighting with them) were the original "Special Forces", and the special use of them grew out of Sir John Moore's experiences during the Retreat to Corunna, which amply comes out in the early books dealing with the Spanish campaigns.

Both riflemen and light infantrymen were chosen from the fittest, most intelligent, and best shots among the soldiers. The jackets of green cloth with black facings and, initially, silver buttons (later black horn) were a sort of proto-camouflage that evolved from the wars in North America.

There's a famous painting that used to hang in the Rifle Depot in Winchester called "The Rear Guard" which shows a band of riflemen and light infantrymen preparing to hold a pass in the snow of Spain during the Retreat. They look really fed up.

Matching them together was a brilliant move - the Baker Rifle was accurate but slow to load (about one shot a minute), the light infantry musket was inaccurate but could put down a reasonable rate of fire (about three shots a minute), so they covered the Rifles while they were reloading.

Later in the Napoleonic War, they were often teamed up together with the King's German Legion and in particular with light dragoons: a sort of early all-arms formation.

It doesn't come out as well in the films, but in the books you can see how Wellington used to keep the Rifle Companies under his direct command for use as he wanted them - special missions and so on - which is how Richard Sharpe gets so pally with Arthur Wellesley.

There was a reorganisation of the infantry regiments of the British Army in the 1960s that resulted in the merging of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, the Rifle Brigade (Sharpe's old unit), the King's Royal Rifle Corps (60th Rifles), and the TA units of the Queen's Westminster Rifles, the Queen Victoria's Rifles, and the London Rifle Brigade into the Green Jackets (later the Royal Green Jackets); and the Durham Light Infantry, the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, and the Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry (with the TA unit the Herefordshire Light Infantry) into The Light Infantry. The Green Jackets and the LI together formed the Light Division, still sharing the same insignia - the silver buglehorn - and still marching at the same incredibly fast pace.

The Highland Light Infantry was merged, for some reason with the Fusiliers, and the Cameronians (The Scottish Rifles) were disbanded (they refused to merge). The Royal Ulster Rifles became the Royal Irish Rangers. The actor David Niven was a career officer in the HLI before WWII, leaving for Hollywood because he got bored, but returned (to the Rifle Brigade) in 1939 rising to command Phantom (the Royal Armoured Corps Reconnaissance Regiment) at the end of the war with the rank of Lt Col.

The recent further reorganisation (which many see as an ill-conceived prelude to forming a Corps of Infantry with numbered regiments and no local loyalties and the demise of the extremely effective Regimental System that had been developing before the Cardwell Reforms in the middle 19th Century) has merged the Light Infantry and the Green Jackets into one large regiment to be named, unimaginatively, "The Rifles". This is the same reorganisation that has killed off all six Scottish Regiments into a Royal Regiment of Scotland.

So soon the Rifle Brigade of the Sharpe novels will become just another historical curiosity like Queen Victoria's Own Corps of Guides or the Bengal Lancers.

[The Frumious B.]

FYI all you fellow Cornwall and Sharpe fans, the full series of all the BBC (?) made films, 10 or 15 in all, I think, are available on DVD. Our Post Library here has the entire series, DVD and Book forms both, and they are a pleasure to read or watch.

Another good and related read, jut finished, was "Wellington's Rifles" about the history of the unit in Spain, mostly, a bit of Waterloo.

Both, as has been said, are historically accurate and a pleasure to read.

***Commercial Ends***
***Restart Film***

[Master Boid]

As an avid follower of both the books and films of Sharpe and as Cornwall himself is coming to Plymouth on the 11th of October (add that in there) I'll add my five guineas.

In most of the Sharpe films you can see at last one or two Scots walking/marching about. In Sharpe's Sword (the one Cormac watched) the pipe-major and a load of Scots do join Sharpe in the charge. In the film of Sharpes Rifle/Eagle they also pop up and in the film version of Sharpes Battle Sharpe takes command of the Spanish kings Royal Irish Bodyguard regiment.

Apart from that An t-Ileach really has summed up the history of the Greenjackets and light infantry pretty darn well.

[Panache]

... The Green Jackets and the LI together formed the Light Division, still sharing the same insignia - the silver buglehorn - and still marching at the same incredibly fast pace. ...

Would this insignia be a bugle horn with a bow and crown above it?

Cheers

[Ialtog]

I think the painting mentioned is found here: http://www.britishbattles.com/penins...ula-coruna.htm

Scroll down to the second painting, which shows BG Crauford with the 95th Rifles during the retreat. The third painting might interest some - it shows the 42nd Highlanders storming the French position.

[Ialtog]

Would this insignia be a bugle horn with a bow and crown above it?

Cheers

Yep. You can see an example here: http://www.95th-rifles.org.uk/

[macsim]

I finally started reading this series recently and they're great books. I had the first 4 and I got a whole new pile of 'em for my birthday. I think I actually enjoy the books more than the BBC series because they're so descriptive and action-packed. You never have to turn too many pages before the guns are blazing again.