The War of the Austrian Succession In Italy - the factions

A comment from the Jolly Broom Man himself made me realise that I had failed in my duty to explain the different factions involved in the Italian campaigns of the WAS. It is all rather confusing but the following should set the record straight, at least for the Spanish branch of the Bourbons.

Charles III (Spanish: Carlos Sebastián de Borbón y Farnesio;^[a] 20 January 1716 – 14 December 1788) was King of Spain from 1759 until his death in 1788. He was also Duke of Parma and Piacenza as Charles I (1731–1735), King of Naples as Charles VII and King of Sicily as Charles III (or V) (1735–1759). He was the fourth son of Philip V of Spain and the eldest son of Philip's second wife, Elisabeth Farnese. During his reign, Charles was a proponent of enlightened absolutism and regalism in Europe.

Got that? Charles VII of Naples in the game yesterday, was simultaneously King Charles III/V of Sicily, had previously been Charles I of Parma and Piacenza, and later became Charles III. More can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_III_of_Spain

Philip V of Spain (Chucky's dad) was the greatgrandson of Louis XIV of France, and inherited the throne of Spain in 1700 from the last Habsburg King of Spain (and kept most of the patrimony at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession: keep up at the back!). Not sure why there's uncertainty on the regnal number for Sicily.

One of the other characters in the game posted yesterday was the Duke of Parma, (not to be confused with the Duke of Parma and Piacenza, above) was this chap, who arrived late in the battle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_III_d%27Este

So we have the forces of the King of Spain (a Bourbon), backed up by one of his sons (the King of Naples etc). Elsewhere in the campaign is Phil V's 7th son, the Infante, Felipe. The guy with the French coming over the Alps. Why he was the Infante (sort of the Spanish Prince of Wales) when he was the 7th son I don't know, as he never ended up as King despite Phil V dying, and Phil V was succeeded by 2 of the Infante Phil's brothers. Anyway, this Phil was later Duke of Parma, Piacenza AND Guastalla. Are you still with me?

And don't forget, the French dynasty are also Bourbons. The Prince of Conti, the French leader working alongside Felipe the Infante in the Alps was also a Bourbon:

Louis François de Bourbon, or Louis François I, Prince of Conti (13 August 1717 – 2 August 1776), was a French nobleman who became the Prince of Contifrom 1727 to his death, succeeding his father, Louis Armand II de Bourbon. His mother was Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon, the daughter of Louis III, Prince of Condéand Louise Françoise de Bourbon, a legitimised daughter of King Louis XIV. His younger sister, Louise Henriette de Bourbon, was the mother of Philippe Égalité. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a Prince du Sang. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Fran%C3%A7ois,_Prince_of_Conti As far as I know he was no relation to Tom or Nina.

Glad that's cleared everything up.

I'll deal with the House of Savoy (i.e. the Piedmontese/Kingdon of Sardinia) another day. After that I'll explain the Schleswig-Holstein question.

In a mellow tone

I had cause to remember this band earlier. I didn’t nt remember the cause. Very, very romantic when they sing in French. With this song I can imagine M.Broom (qui est surnommé le joyeux) dancing with Mme Broom. And pourquoi pas, eh?

Love the way the usually pretty unvoiced e is vocalised. Reminds me of those films c1990 based on Marcel Pagnol books. And of the Little Sparrow of course.

https://youtu.be/FbqLa7vNiEY?si=Ucc6ObjLUqK2wy6B

Task List

In the last post I mentioned a burgeoning list of things to do if I'm not to have a pile of unused items build up. This is something I need to get on top of so I had a go at listing everything that needs doing.  There's probably more that hasn't come to mind, but will at some point. No doubt there's things that I've forgotten that I have bought. No doubt also that I'll change the order of some tasks and some jobs will split out into more sub-tasks. Some of the tasks listed are sub-tasks or at least linked to others, but I have deliberately avoided making this too ‘scientific’ as if it were a Real World programme.

Some of the tasks are quick wins (e.g. 15 and 16) whilst others are sizeable projects in their own right (I’m looking at you, number 18). Knocking off a few quick wins will help boost morale while the bigger jobs are pondered, analysed to death, planned and finally executed. Number 1 on the list is a reasonable sized ‘project’ (3.9 metres of river pieces) but one that pays big dividends (every period needs watercourses).

That all said, here is the first version of the list.

Tentative Order	Job
1	Finish river pieces
2	Check stock of magnetic paper and bases
4	Paint houses
3	Order storage boxes
5	Paint walls
6	Paint and base trees
7	Rebase Greeks and Persians
8	Flag SYW figures (French priority)
9	Try Alala!
10	Try Siege Works rules
11	Paint wagons and gun teams
12	Decide what to do with SYW odds and sods
13	Paint petard crews etc
14	Prepare New Year Campaign
15	Paint sheep
16	Paint pack animals
17	Paint villagers (6 and 10mm)
18	Make fortress
19	Ottoman painting guide
20	Order Irregular Ottoman army
21	Paint Ottomans
22	Run ECW siege campaign
23	Make AWI boats
24	Maybe rebase some Romans
25	Build & paint sailing ships

I should add in target dates for them all. Item 14 obviously has a time limit already, and going by that I need to get motoring.  Last time I made such a list (around 5 years ago) I did get through it in a reasonable time, so I'm confident I'll do it.

One final caveat or note: every time I used the words ‘need to’ above I really mean ‘want to’. I remind myself that nothing bad will happen if I don’t do any of the things listed.

How big is your to do list? Do you expect to complete it (ignoring any new things that come along of course!).

Wargaming Rabbit Holes

Your friend and mine, The Jolly Broom Man recently wrote about wargaming rabbit holes after he disappeared down the warren that is the Hundred Years War. I was listening to Cavalier Cast (a podcast about the Wars of the Three Kingdoms) and came across an episode about Powick Bridge. The guest, John Spiller, had done research on the battle which overturned the standard narrative promoted by Clarendon.

John, a native of Worcester, said his research into this particular encounter started as an offshoot of a lockdown project to create a wargame of Powick Bridge. At the end of the podcast, the pod presenter, Mark Turnbull asked John what happened to the original war-game project. In true wargamer style, that didn't get off the ground due to said rabbit hole.

Summer in SW London

As mentioned in the last post, things have been pretty quiet on the wargaming front at the Schloß in recent months. Partly this was due to trips and fluctuations in the population of the Schloß. Most of the time the household consisted of just 3 of us since #4 was at uni.

In May the eldest decided his sojourn in Liverpool was over and he agreed with his boss that he could work remotely from London pending a possible transfer to another office. The most obvious option for his temporary accommodation was ruled out for reasons I'll pass over, so the second most obvious option was chosen. Yours truly dutifully drove to Liverpool to bring #1 and his stuff back down south. As #4 was still away at uni he was able to use her room for a few weeks. So population increased to 4. A period extended by #3 and #4 joining us in Spain once uni was over. Once we returned the population was up to 5 for a few weeks.

Then when #1 had secured a room in a shared house, we were down to 4. Until the BF of #4 turned up from darkest Yarkshire. Population briefly back up to 5. Then when they tootled back up north to move their gear into their respective new digs (digses?) we were back to 3 for a few days. Now back to 4 since she returned.

Phew!

Now I've been doing a bit of pootling about during this time, with the odd park walk, lunchtime strolls whilst on office days and a trip to the local museum. Not forgetting wasting time in the garden. And last but not least, a sporting excursion that I've not got around to doing in my previous plenty-two years.

Entrance to an old canal by Chelsea Waterworks. I believe the canal once went up to where Victoria station is. But in my mind's eye this looks like Early Modern artillery fortification.

Slightly further upstream it distinctly looks like a bastion has sprouted on Chelsea Embankment.

Nearer to home I went to the Kingston Museum for the first time. 31 years after moving to the area. I wasn't expecting much beyond a collection of buttons or some such things, and hoped for some old photographs so I could get an idea of what the specific area I live in looked like before being built up in the early 20th century. It was much better than I expected. And free to enter.

'Wasting time' in the garden one evening after eating outdoors I started looking closely at some plants which were covered in a wide variety of insects. These ones were tiny as the flowers in question are on mint. It's been a great year for pollinators. The Margravina has made a conscious effort to attract them, showing her concern for the betterment of agriculture and the lot of the peasantry. 

Lots of time spent photographing the lavender. And failing to get good close-up video footage of the bees.

Stained glass windows at the museum

Thames Watermen uniforms

Model of Kingston town c 1820 I think

Another model, similar period, with town centre pubs shown. More than there are today with a much bigger population!

A section on the aero-engineering industry that was formerly in the town. Sopwith and then Hawker being the main names. 

Not sure how much this had to do with the military preparations of both sides in the run-up to civil war, but it looks like it could be part of developments which led to Parliament trying to exert control over the Trained Bands.

There was a section on Eadweard Muybridge, local chap who developed some of the first moving pictures technology. I'm sure he took these pictures of a nudey lady purely in the interests of science.

Upstairs had an exhibition on the Interwar period when much of the suburban development occurred 

Slightly later: Noel Coward waxing lyrical about the Kingston Bypass1

The 'motoring culture' referred to included a piece about John Cooper (another local lad, motor racer and car designer) of Mini Cooper fame.

And my little sporting trip was to watch cricket for the first time (not counting village games).  The T20 match at the Oval for the game between Surrey and Glamorgan.

The famous gasometer is off to the left. I didn't get a good shot of it.

As the floodlights came on it was possible to see that they were designed to look like the Prince of Wales feathers. (The ground was built on land owned by the PoW).

An exciting game that started off very badly for Surrey. Glamorgan batted first and ran up a decent score, and then when Surrey came in they quickly lost 3 wickets with, more importantly, a very low run rate. But they managed to stabilise things and with needing 5 runs off the last over, they got a 6 with the first ball.

I must say, I didn't enjoy the very random selection of music clips played by the 'DJ' whenever there was a boundary or wicket or halt in play. But we had a good time. I might look into going to a 'proper' county game sometime.

Back on track, and babbling on

After a two week hiatus, I got back to painting. On the go at the moment are 4 units of Reichsarmee infantry. (A unit is made of 50ish figures over two bases, and in game terms represents a brigade of approximately 2500). These are a 50:50 split of whitecoats and bluecoats. Choice of units was determined by seeing which ones were at both Rossbach in 1757 and at Freiburg 5 years later, plus a few that were at only one or the other. I have just the white cross belts, and the flags to do. Some of the contingents have rather different flags for the period, so I'm looking forward to that.

Then I'll do the cavalry contingent, which will amount to two brigades (each of 2 bases of 10 figures), and some more combined grenadier units. I have some grenadiers I finished several months ago. The fun with the grenadiers is being able to mix different coloured coats AND different types of cap. Some wore bearskins and some wore Prussian style mitres. A surprise to me was finding that some of the blue-coated regiments had grenadiers in bearskins. As ever, I'm relying on Kronoskaf for the uniforms.

Here are the units I am doing:

Regiment	Rossbach/Freiberg/Both	Arm	Qty	Coat
Hohenzollern_Cuirassiers	B	Cav	4	White
Brandenburg-Bayreuth Cuirassiers	B	Cav	5	White
Kurpfalz Leib-Dragoner	F	Cav	5	Red
Württemberg Dragoons	R	Cav	2	Light Blue
Kurpfalz von Hatzfeld Carabiniers	R	Cav	3	White
Brandenburg-Ansbach Dragoons	R	Cav	5	White
Hessen-Darmstadt	B	Inf	1	Dark blue
Varell	B	Inf	2	Dark blue
Fermtheil/Hohenloe	B	Inf	2	Dark blue
Kurtrier	B	Inf	2	White
Kurbayern	F	Inf	3	Blue
KurMainz	F	Inf	4	White
Cronegk	R	Inf	2	Dark blue
Blau Würzburg	R	Inf	2	White

Quantity refers to the number of battalions or squadrons.

Once I've completed the Reichsarmee, I have lots of undercoated figures left to paint. These will perhaps go to form the Würtemburg or Palatinate auxiliary corps. These were German states who hired out troops to foreign powers, in addition to the contingents they were bound to raise for the Reichsarmee. They were the direct counterparts to the Hessians who were hired by the British. In this case, the French paid for them. The Würtemburgers mostly served with the Austrians, partly due to their Protestant antipathy to the French - at least the Austrians were fellow Imperialists.

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In other news the Margravina and I had a week catching a surprising amount of Sun for November, and very tolerable temperatures. Your correspondent was able to spend the week in shorts and short-sleeved shirts (except indoors!) and was even able to bathe in the sea. Our base for the week was in the town of Oliva in Valencia Province in Spain.  Here are some pics.

The ruined castle on top of the dominating hill above the town. The early artillery fortification style can be clearly seen.

Old town to the left, new to the right.

View from the castle towards the coast. The pointy hill in the distance is by Denia (gateway to the Balearics).

The modern town and in the distance the 'playa' development. Or in the local lingo 'platja' (which is pronounced with more of an 'English' style J or like 'plage' with an 'a' sound tagged on.

Looking south down the coast

Looking north up the coast

Most of the roads in the old town are not this narrow, so it's not representative. 

Same street but looking up. It bends round and down to the right at the top, which is probably why it's called Sickle Street.

Another surprise to me was how prominent the local language (Valencian) was on signs and street name plates. Usually above (and sometimes instead of) Spanish. Valencian is very close to Catalan apparently (according to my Valencian informant). Google translate's Catalan erm.... 'thing' translated whatever I entered, so must be correct. To my untrained eye, it looks more of a distinct language than a dialect of Spanish. Sort of a partway between French and Spanish. A lot of the words seem more like their French equivalents than the Spanish ones (at least that's how I was able to read some stuff. Catalan, I understand, spread into what is now the French side of the border.  Perhaps it's because communications around the Mediterranean littoral were easier than between the coast and inland in early modern days - there's certainly a lot of mountains between the coast and the heartlands of the modern nation states. Here's an old poem from a sign near the beach which I think illustrates the point:

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More recently, I met up with David-in-Suffolk, of the Ragged Soldier blog fame, for another of the free lunchtime talks at the National Army Museum. The subject this time was the Jewish Brigade Group in WWII.  Lots of strands to that one! Great talk and great to catch up with the D-Man again. 

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Post Script

I finished the Reichsarmee cavalry painting (except the flags) and have just stuck them on their bases. The infantry have had their base texturing done and coat of burnt umber. I have just have one base of grenadiers to paint (the black undercoated guys on the right in the pic below.

When that lot is done I have enough leftovers for about another 4 units of line infantry, 1.5 units of grenadiers and 1.5 units of cavalry.  Main thoughts are either the Württemberg Auxiliary Corps, or some of the Würtembergers and 'French'. When I painted the French, I did enough redcoats for either the Irish Brigade or a large brigade of Swiss. Oh, I have enough for 3 brigades of artillery. I had planned do Dutch and a couple of brigades worth of British and their German allies.