Shako plate for infantry 51st regiment model 1812
Shako plate 51e Régiment d’Infanterie de Ligne.
Description
French shako plate, Model 1812 type, Infanterie de Ligne, crowned Imperial eagle above the number 52, brass, First Empire pattern.
Provenance
Infantry 51st regiment 1812-1815
History & Context
The 51e Régiment d’Infanterie de Ligne was one of Napoleon’s regular line-infantry regiments. It had a much older ancestry—the former Régiment de La Sarre—but acquired the designation 51e Régiment d’Infanterie de Ligne in 1803, when the Revolutionary demi-brigades were reorganised into regiments.
During the early Empire the 51st served with the Grande Armée in some of Napoleon’s most important campaigns. It fought at Austerlitz in 1805, followed by Auerstädt, Czarnowo and Golymin in 1806. In the Polish campaign of 1807 it saw particularly severe service at Eylau, as well as Ostrołęka, the siege of Danzig and Friedland. Eylau became one of the regiment’s officially remembered battle honours.
From 1808 the regiment was heavily involved in the Peninsular War, with actions at Madrid, Valencia and Bilbao, followed in 1809 by Talavera and Almonacid. It subsequently fought at Albuera in 1811, and was involved in operations around Tarifa and Cádiz in 1812. In 1813 elements of the 51st fought at Vitoria and the Pass of Maya, while other battalions appear in the German campaign at Kulm and Dresden—evidence that, like many large Napoleonic regiments at this stage of the war, its battalions were operating in separate theatres.
The regiment paid heavily for these campaigns. Colonel François-Nicolas Taillé was killed on 25 July 1813, during the fighting at Maya. In 1814 the 51st continued the retreat through southern France, fighting at Orthez and Toulouse, while other elements were recorded at Arnhem, Bergen-op-Zoom and Courtrai.
During the Hundred Days in 1815, the regiment recovered its old number after the temporary Bourbon reorganisation and joined Napoleon’s Belgian campaign. It fought at Waterloo on 18 June 1815, where its commander, Colonel Jean-Antoine Rignon, was killed. Following Napoleon’s final defeat, the regiment was disbanded with the rest of the Imperial Army during the Second Restoration.