French 4th Lancers in Mexico?

Long ago I planned to make some French cavalry and, as usually happens, a planned wargame has prompted their creation.

My childhood love of history was stimulated by a number of sources - The Hamlin Children's Book of World History, with its wonderful color illustrations, often of battles, various comics and magazines, especially 'Tell Me Why', toy soldiers, movies and TV.  Australian TV was saturated with American films and shows and it was Westerns that especially got my attention; many of these branched into the ACW. The sun drenched South West was a favorite with its Mexican bandits, Apaches, Comanches and Comancheros. US Cavalry, Confederates, gunslingers and cowboys. And French! Well at least in a few movies they were set in Maximilian's Imperial Mexico. This was France's client state, begun initially as an attempt to recover debt and then as a crusade to preserve conservative Mexico and the influence of its elites and church. The Mexican imperial uniforms were gorgeous and an equal to Napoleonic times. So too were the Belgian, Austrian, Egyptian and French troops. 'Major Dundee' was set in this time and featured French lancers, who incidentally, did not go to Mexico.

Anyway the film was so cool that I have long wanted to do it as a wargame. especially the last battle. Major Dundee, in pursuit of Apaches, crossed the Mexican border with a ragtag bunch of Confederate POWs (Galvanized Yankees) Federal cavalry, civilians and black prison camp guards. 

The complications are the conflict between Dundee and the Confederate officer Tyrone, a love interest with an Austrian lady and Dundee's decision to attack a rather nasty French garrison after seeing how it treated the peasants in the village and how, incidentally he needed to provision his men. 

The French take exception to this and follow the Americans. Dundee's command manages to take out the Apaches but then is faced with a large French force of lancers waiting for them on the American side of the border and another force of cavalry and infantry approaching from the Mexican side. I'll write more of this in a battle report in a few days time.

THE CONVERSIONS:

AIP uhlans with putty additions to shoulders and equipment removed except for one small pouch to represent a cap pouch. Paper shoulder belts were added and putty cartridge boxes. (paper straps are glued with PVA). Putty helmet plumes were added but I skipped making the dangly cord bits on the helmets. I wanted a mid nineteenth century look although I'll still use this unit for later periods in my Funny Little Wars games.

The lancers in the film have either plain tunics with no plastron or red plastrons and both with red shoulder fringes. When I looked up the uniforms I came up with the yellow plastrons of the 4th lancers (lanciers). It looked so good I went with this uniform. Okay, it's not completely faithful to the film but the film is not entirely faithful to history so they cancel each other out.

The flag is made of aluminium can. I wanted a French flag with the unit number readily seen. I can't say the actual flag carried by the 4th lancers was identical. Most likely it had various battle awards on it. I might add my own for each game the init is used in.