Hungarian Army 1848-1849

This is a new booklet from Partizan Press on the Hungarian Army during the year of revolutions as it sought to break away from the Hapsburg Empire. Written by Ralph Weaver, the Secretary and driving force behind the Continental Wars Society and their very useful newsletter The Foreign Correspondent.

There is a very short introduction to the uprising before we get into the meat of the work, the Organisation, equipment and uniforms of the Hungarian army. The key elements included the National Guard, the national army or Honved, the regular army units that came over to the uprising and finally, the irregular and foreign units. Each section describes the organisation and uniforms with line drawings supplement by Ron Poulter's fine colour plates.

I saw some excellent paintings of this army in Budapest last year.

This army, with its colourful uniforms just cries out to be modelled on the wargames table. I have the Austrian army of the period,  so I need to think about the Hungarians. The regular army is simple enough because they started the conflict with the Austrian uniform, so it just needs some colour changes. For the Honved, I think some Italian uniforms of the period might be capable of conversion as could some ACW figures. Plenty of Hussars and the foreign legions generally follow their home nation uniforms. So it might not be too difficult after all. Put it on the project list for later in the year. 

A good history of the uprising is The Lawful Revolution by Istvan Deak.