"Brothers in Arms"..

Just finished the latest offering from Iain Gale in the "Jack Steel" series - this is number 3, and deals with the Oudenarde campaign and its aftermath...

As seems to be usual with Iain Gale's books it actually opens with the battle itself - always slightly unnerving to be tipped full scale into the battle from the moment you open the first page, as most authors (and I guess Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe books are the perfect example) usually spend the book working up to it, setting it in context, etc. Either way up, the battle is well described - it's clear that Gale is most comfortable when describing the battle scenes...

Where he seems to fall down is the non-battle scenes... I find his characters a little shallow in terms of characterisation, and the plots a little thin & easy. For example, in this book Steel is asked to adopt disguise and travel to Paris to meet with a contact in the French army so as to deliver a personal letter from Marlborough to Louis XIV hoping to bring the war to an earlier close - which he then does, despite the obvious difficulties this would have caused him! With little French, he walks straight into the middle of Paris, straight into the headquarters of the French army (which somewhat interestingly was housed in the Hopital des Invalides at the time, I didn't know that) and handed over his message... OK he's captured but it all seems a little "easy" - all the issues he has are easily bypassed, enemies are persuaded to ignore him by the easiest of excuses and subterfuges....

Having got back from Paris he then finds himself embroiled in the siege of Lille which Gale likens (very heavily) to the experience in WWI, and having taken command of a converged grenadier battalion he then goes off to rescue his wife, gets involved in the battle of Wijnendale (I hadn't heard of this battle, but it sounds like it would make an interesting research topic as it featured a very small contingent on each side - no more than 15 regiments a piece) and generally performs prodigious and many feats of derring-do....

So - did I enjoy it?? Yes.. Would I buy the next one?? Yes... Mr Gale needs to develop his characterisation - give them some depth - but his plots fairly race along and are always exciting...

Steve the Wargamer rates this one as 6 or 7 out of 10.

St George's Day interest...

So St George's Day has been and gone, and how was it for you? From out of nowhere, there seemed to be a whole load of interest in the idea this year - not sure where this came from even now! From my own perspective I just wondered "why??"... ah well maybe I'm just getting old and cynical.. 'bread and circuses' and all that....

..BUT.... one interesting side effect of this was that the local village decided to hold a parade to mark the day, and therefore encouraged all the local shops & traders to put up flags and such, and dress their windows to mark the occasion. So what was so interesting about that I hear you all ask, well have a look at what turned up in the window of the Antique Shop..

...and of course I had to take my camera (and that in itself caused the current Mrs Steve-the-Wargamer to look at me in that way that ladies do when faced with incipient lunacy or dementia, and utter the immortal words "don't be stupid, they'll think you're planning a robbery"!) 😀

First up they had an actual honest to goodness Land Pattern Musket, or Brown Bess, this one (as you can see) was labelled early 18th century - if it was early 18th they'd discovered percussion caps a whole lot earlier than I thought they had! According to Wikipedia "The British Ordnance System converted many Flintlocks into the new Percussion system known as the Pattern 1839 Musket." So I think that more correctly, this one should be labelled as that...

 
Next up a tunic and hat combination - nothing like a bit of British scarlet on St. George's day! The tunic is probably from the Coldstream's as the buttons are spaced in pairs, and the buttons also have the correct markings for that august regiment - what confirms it though is the hat as that has the right cap badge. I'm assuming it's probably the "undress" cap, as normally they would wear the busby or bearskin. Whoever owned this jacket had won some kind of order as there is a fitting for it on the left breast..

 
No mistaking this uniform, which took pride of place in the window - can't see the buttons, but the coat had dark blue cuffs (signifying a Royal Regiment) and given the breastplate and helmet I've assumed this is a uniform coat and equipment for the Life Guards the most senior regiment in the British army and part of the Household Cavalry - a truly splendid sight when close up..

 
Bit more difficult this one as I didn't get close enough to check the buttons - if the uniform goes with the hat however, it's the Oxfordshire Regiment - but - my information tells me that their uniform had Buff facings and this one has dark blue. If it's a guards regiment then the single buttons would indicate Grenadier Guards.. I'll have a closer look on my way home this evening and advise later... note a longer view of the Brown Bess on the left, and a view of me taking a picture to case the joint reflected in the window!
Last one - and in many ways the most interesting one - a model 1853 Enfield muzzle loading rifle, converted at some point to become a Snider-Enfield breech loader - the Wikipedia article is good on this one. The original muzzle loader was the weapon implicated in the cause of the Indian Mutiny, but in addition was the Confederate's most imported weapon during the American Civil War. This one according to Wikipedia "From 1866 on the 1853 pattern rifles were converted in large numbers at the Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) Enfield beginning with the initial pattern, the Mark I." I think that this is a mark 1 due to the length of the barrel, and the butt markings showing that the original Enfield it was converted from dated from 1857... fantastic, wouldn't you love to know where it had been??

 
... amazing to see such history in your own little village street! 😁

Runners complete... and oh dear...

Things are a little slow on the wargaming front at Steve-the-Wargamers pad, activities are moving along, but not in the productive way I would like - having said that the campaign is moving along nicely, I am keeping up on my reading (part the way through the very latest Jack Steel novel dealing with Oudenarde and the siege of Lille - a review coming when I finish it) so all has not completely stopped..

I did finish off basing the runners though (see following)



In the end I went with four based singly (obviously carrying orders somewhere on the battlefield), and two clustered with one of my army commanders (waiting for orders to carry)


...for the time being at least these will provide wargame table colour - should I develop any rules to do with written orders (not likely as I'm not a fan..) or changing orders then they may develop a role of their own - but right now I like the colour they provide to the table..

...and "oh dear"??

...well on Friday I went down to check the boat was OK and found it was not on the mooring and had been moved to another one.. no idea why... quite worrying...

..the tides being what they were the first opportunity I had to get down and check the boat was Saturday morning so after a 5:30 start (ouch!!) I found myself on the boat and holding the frayed end of the old mooring.. looks like it had frayed and broken at the point where it is secured to the big concrete block on the harbour bottom. She must have gone adrift, but some kind soul had rescued her and moored her safely - no idea who, but I owe them a beer as the boat seems undamaged in all respects! Whew..... now all I need to do is go mud wading to find the concrete block and repair the old mooring!

So - "oh dear" (and I can promise you what I actually said was slightly pithier that that..) but all's well that ends well - I have this Wednesday off and am planning my first solo voyage; fishing rod has been found, reel unearthed from the back of the attic (neither used for at least 20 years!) - should be fun..



Oh, and family had the first sailing trip last Monday - we hit nothing, broke nothing, no-one was seasick, the sun shone, the wind was ideal and they want to go again.. job done!

Distance: 3.5 miles (8.5 miles year to date)
Wind: light

Sometimes...

...as a wargamer your mind goes off in the strangest of directions as a result of something you've read or seen. Take this lunchtime for example, where I was absolutely fascinated by the recent posting by Sir William the Aged on the Wars of Louis Quatorze [click here] blog, about the Polish Winged Hussars....

An elite unit without a doubt, but of course my mind wanted to know why they would they carry those wings - what was the purpose, or reason for carrying those massive contraptions around on their backs....??

Armed with purpose, I headed off to waste yet another lunch time researching, when perhaps I should be doing more constructive!

First stop of course was Wikipedia which tells me that the Polish Winged Hussars were not really "Hussars" at all - by the time in question they were wearing armour, helmets and carried the lance so were more properly lancers, or heavy cavalry... OK, so that's a good start but I still don't know, why the wings???

The first proposal then is that in the 16th century wings or winged claws began to appear painted on cavalry shields. Later actual wings were attached to the saddle, and later still were attached to the riders back. "In 1645, Col. Szczodrowski was said to have used ostrich wings". Wiki says that the painted wings & winged claws were "characteristic" so I'm assuming there is a Polish historical or heraldic link here - perhaps to do with the Polish winged eagle?

Second proposal - again from Wiki and also here [click here] and a number of other sites - is that they were designed to foil attacks by Tatar (or more incorrectly Tartar) lassos...

Third proposal - from Wiki, also here [click here] and also here [click here] is that they were in effect a form of Renaissance "stuka" in that the vibrating of the feathers attached to the wings during the charge made a strange sound that supposedly would upset the enemy's horses and troops....

For the fourth proposal, Tim Newark in ‘The Hussars’ (Brassey’s Book of Uniforms) thinks that the "wearing of these wings seems to point back to the feathers worn by hunter-bandits in the Balkans, especially those known as Delis [this also confirmed at this excellent website {click here}] who fought as scouts and raiders for both sides in the wars against Ottoman Turkey, and adorned their helmets, shields, and clothes with the feathers of birds they had killed". (He further further posits the argument that this in turn goes back to the earlier Slavic races or horse people rewarding bravery with feathers etc. This strikes me as being very similar to native American practice??)

Ultimately however, I think he's right when he puts forward the final theory which is simply the sheer physical presence they would have given - much like the bearskin for the guards, the size and psychological impact must have been immense. Add to that the brightly coloured, oriental style cloth worn over and about the armour, the lance, the exotic animal skins festooned around the horses and they must have been a truly frightening sight..

Last quote to Newark:

"Bernard Connor, an Irishman in Poland in the employ of Polish King, Jan III Sobieski, in the 17th century, described the appearance of the Hussars as frightful: ‘being stuck all over with wings of Storks, Cranes, Turkey-cocks and cloatted over their Armour with the skins of Leopards, Tygers, Bears, Lions, etc., all of which they do to make themselves more terrible to the enemy.’"

There you go - one little post and I learnt a huge amount about a period of history that I knew little about...

All of a sudden..

...he was 17 again.....

...sigh... still, on the plus side.... at least I don't have the spot problem any more! 😀

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Meanwhile, on the wargaming front I can report:

• An update to the Campaign Diary - interesting times in the peninsula!
  
• An update to the WSS Project Page with the addition of the Black Hat cavalry comparisons to the figures section..