Soldier of Spain

Inspired by a post a few weeks back on the Wars of Louis Quatorze blog, I sourced the first 3 books in the Captain Alatriste series by Arturo Pérez-Reverte as holiday reading. I only took 2 of the 3 and wish I’d taken them all.

I’d seen the film with Viggo Mortensen and the books certainly didn’t let the side down.

The stories are in the mould of the Musketeer stories of Dumas (though I haven’t read any of the latter), but certainly compared to the films are darker and more ‘adult’. They mix fictional and historical characters and episodes like McDonald Fraser’s Flashman (but without the comedy and footnotes). The cover art on the two volumes I read remind me adventure novels published in the last century and are not good representations of the contents IMO.

Sort of contemporary to the novels. 16th C built coastal watchtower near the town of Piles in Valencia province.

Information board for the tower in Valencian, Spanish, and English & French below.

Not high literature but not trashy either.

Right, I’m off to think about using my ECW armies for the battle of Rocroi. 😁

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Alatriste

Only mad dogs…and inspirations

Jonathan Freitag’s recent post got me thinking about sources of inspiration for me as a wargamer. One of my top sources is printed matter. I actually commented to Jon’s post that I didn’t really count magazines these days amongst my sources. Gone are the days of MW and WI in what for me was their heyday in the 80s and early 90s. But then I looked at this photo I took of a history magazine in a supermarket in an obscure Spanish town.

The article is about a book on Spanish soldiers in the British Army in WWII. The author gave a talk at the National Army Museum a few months ago (which I attended with David-in-Suffolk). The picture of the volunteers on the truck is similar to ones that got me interested in the SCW 45 years ago. But that is not a wargaming itch that I have scratched yet.

The same magazine also had an article on the Battle of the River Ter (or Torroella) in 1694. I passed on buying the magazine but I’m thinking that was a mistake, even though my Spanish is fledgling to say the least. 

As with the previous article, it’s the imagery that captures my imagination. At least at first. What about you? Is it words, pictures (still or moving) or sounds that spark your urge to wargame a conflict?

As for the mad dogs reference: the Margravina (who is most definitely not an Englishman) persuaded me to take a walk in to said town when most sensible locals were indoors behind closed shutters. The supermarket provided a welcome respite from the heat).

!Adiós!