Interlude - the Battle of Leuthen

I bring you a short break in the War of the Austrian Succession, and lead you forward to the Seven Years War. I came across this fabulous video on You Tube today about the Battle of Leuthen, 1757.  There's so much 'military history' out there these days that is half-baked. Much of it has AI produced pictures or animations that are just so ahistorical that you have to wonder if a knowledgeable human being was involved at all (or just didn't care). 'AI slop' is the appropriate phrase.

The following video isn't that. It has great contextualisation, beautiful animated maps, and, most strikingly, the presenter walking the ground. Together, this gives you a great sense of how things unfolded.  Hope you enjoy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bh-4Zn5we0&t=18s

Normal Service Has Been Resumed

After August's "Do Not Adjust Your TV Set" moment and September's Tuesday Wednesday Happy Jaze headline*, the metaphorical TVs in Grimsby, and its diaspora, were displaying the "Normal Service Has Been Resumed" message last night.

* For our American viewers, 'Wednesday' refers to Sheffield Wednesday Football Club. The game was played on a Tuesday.

A tanking by the Bees of Brentford was only to be expected. The idea of going all the way to the final, qualifying for Europe, and away trips to Almaty and Košice, were just the dreams of a deranged mind. Mine.

Today's chip wrapper.

But there was no crying into the beer. And the outcome led to a more wide-ranging conversation in the London pub afterwards than would have been the case if the improbable had happened. One old geezer (i.e. me) reminisced about the early days of Channel 4, and this little beaut of a film (which I watched again this evening on Prime).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084459/

Ken Burns meets Yankee Doodle Dandy

 https://deadline.com/2025/02/ken-burns-the-american-revolution-london-tv-screenings-1236281377/

This is one to look forward to going by his treatment of the US Civil War and the Vietnam War.

AARs on a vlog!

Something or other made me search for Twilight of the Soldier Kings on YouTube. I was intending to look up the rule writer's videos, but found a new vlog that I hadn't come across before. Now this chap has done the Battle of Prague, 1757, and very good it looks too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5aXey2xA3w&t=29s

There are also Napoleonic and WSS games on there. All in glorious 6mm Sound n Vision.

A Battalion in line..........and column

In the last post I said I was interested to see what a battalion in line looked like. Well tonight, after watching Bastarden I set out the recently acquired troops in a three rank line.

18 bases each with 30 musketeers (or grenadiers in the case of the bases at the two ends), plus an officer and NCO per two bases, a mounted chef der battailon, 5 company ensigns in the centre, plus corps of drummers (4 in the centre and 2 at each end). I didn't put out enough NCOs and officers - should be roughly double - or drummers. 

A Prussian battalion at full strength in 1756 should have 560 privates, 18 officers, 36 NCOs and 20 musicians. I had 480 privates, s 1/7 down. However, the bases were a bit too wide for 30 men, so the overall frontage (108cm or 42 inches) was about right. There were only about 1/2 the number of grenadiers there should be for a Prussian battalion. On campaign the grenadiers would be detached to form composite grenadier battalions.

The 18 bases would work though as 18 British platoons of the WSS. Ignoring the two grenadier bases, this would also work as 8 Prussian pelotons.

You can't see much can you! To get the whole line in I had to zoom out. For context the table is 8ft by 4 ft. Sorry, I forgot to angle the overhead lights on to the line.

The mounted officer is invisible!

As I said, it's dark and you can't make out much, but at least you get a sense of how wide these formations where. And that is just one battalion. Imagine a brigade of 4-6 of these in line, let alone an army.

Battalion in column of platoons. The intervals allow enough space for the platoons to wheel into line.

In the afternoon we took a trip to Ikea to get the Youngest-of-the-Youngest the stuff she needed for uni. She's going into self-catering accommodation in halls. Whilst there, I splashed out on a new storage container as I'm running a bit low on Ferrero-Rocher boxes, and they stopped selling them in the shape of boxes I use. Should the need arise, these boxes are stackable.

The internal dimensions of most of the compartments are in multiples of 3cm, so good for my bases. The box, at c 5 cm, is very deep for 6mm figures, so I might decant some 10mm figures into it (not that they need higher boxes than I have). But at least that will keep things uniform.

I enjoyed the film by the way. I got annoyed at a couple of silly translations/bad scripting. The hero, Mikkelsen's character, was supposed to have been a captain promoted from the ranks with 25 years service. Now the film was set in Denmark roughly around the time of the SYW, and the hero had served in Mecklenburg. But the translation was given as he had "served in the German army". WTF!! In the offending section I heard them say "Mecklenburg" in so why they translated it as "German" God only knows. And later on they referred in a couple of scenes to people "serving in THE army" - to a bunch of German settlers. WHICH army? Oh, and the German settlers looked a bit well fed. Having said that, these were minor irritants and I would recommend the film (if you don't mind misery!).

Oh, nearly forgot. The title in English may have lost something in translation too. "Bastarden" became "The Promised Land".

Operational Challenges of the AWI

The following video came up in my YouTube feed. It's long, at 80 minutes, and a bit dry at the start, but it's well worth persevering with in my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoAHlGDjINI&t=1406s

There are five speakers, who are amongst the contributors to a Helion book (Casemate in the US) called: aging War in America, 1775-1783: Operational Challenges of Five Armies. There's a discount code in the notes for Casemate for 25% off. I don't know if there's a similar discount for Helion. I've seen/heard/read some of the speakers before. Don Hagist wrote another Helion title on British flank companies/composite battalions, Alex Burns contributed to and edited the The Changing Face of Old Regime Warfare: Essays in Honour of Christopher Duffy (Helion Press, 2022), and I've seen Todd Braisted talk on Loyalists on another YouTube channel - Redcoat History.

Amongst the surprises to me was the extent of conscription in the US forces during the war, and how little the French fought in open battle (their main, and decisive, action being the siege of Yorktown). So I won't be recruiting any of Rochambeau's army any time soon! Oh, and one more, was how the Brunswickers adopted the British two-rank, loose files doctrine unlike the Hessians. So some re-basing is due, I think! 

I nearly titled this post War in America, but thought it might attract more hits than I would want. At least from quarters I don't want hits from, given the somewhat febrile nature of politics currently.

It’s that time of the year again

Time to get those rugs out and washed. If you have this equipment handy:

https://youtube.com/shorts/c2uWRuUnVaw?si=6qbE_dSiLq9Y39Oj

Ancient and Modern

Came across this article today. Evidently the device has been used for some time in recent conflicts. Not being a modernist, or really an ancientist * (to coin a term), I wasn’t aware of their use in WWII.

https://www.forces.net/ukraine/how-roman-empire-technique-inspired-ukraines-caltrops-being-used-against-russia

I know the polis here in the UK use something similar: a roll out ‘mat’ of spines to puncture baddies’ tyres without the car running out of control.

* side note: my bases should arrive tomorrow so I could have the first legion based by the weekend. 

Potpourri

Bit of a mixed bag this post. Not much wargaming activity at the Schloß recently. I have however taken part in two remote games chez Freitag of the Battle of Fornovo, 1495. These were my first forays ever into the Italian Wars. 

The first was as part of the Italian league fighting the French, where my command (the left wing) got badly beaten up by a resurgent Napoleon Dave. For the 4th game in a row, my table top character was killed. The Italians came out ahead in a close fought game. If you haven't already pop over to Jon's blog for AARs and pictures of his wonderful Renaissance figures, here and here.

The second was in sole command of the French versus Ray, Surjit and Lee of Posties Reject renown. This game was decidedly not a close run thing. The Rejects played a canny game and I don't think the overall result would have changed even if I had better luck. And I took my personal record up to 5 games with my character being killed! Here's one of the previous occasions: https://mudbloodandsteel.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-king-is-dead-long-live-err.html Second time in a row my character has been killed in a campaign run by JBM. 

In terms of army and terrain preparation myself, not much has happened. (Notice the use of the passive voice, like a politician apologising, to disguise the fact it's me who hasn't done much). I sprayed one side of my 'battle cloth' to make it a bit lighter. Cans of spray paint don't go very far, especially when you're spraying outside. I bought a second can in Lidl at the weekend to do the other side.

Punic Wars. A couple of weeks ago I placed an order with Heroics & Ros for Romans and Carthaginians. I was beginning to wonder when they would arrive, and today I got confirmation that they have been posted. So they could be here by Saturday. 

I have a bit of 1:1 terrain making to complete first, however. I am helping the Margravina prepare a vegetable plot. She seems to have decided it would be wise to prepare for the collapse of commerce by turning over a large part of the Schloß' grounds to agriculture. The ground has been prepared and we are giving the wooden frames that will surround the veg patches a protective coat of paint, before laying weed control, filling the frames with earth and compost, and finally surrounding them with pathways of gravel.

On Saturday I will be going up to Salute for the first time in several years. I should be meeting up with David-in-Suffolk, the Ragged Soldier himself. That's not casting any nastursiums on his appearance by the way, it's his blog. Hopefully I'll be able to meet other bloggers in person too, particularly Posties Rejects.

A lot of my attention, and some of my time has been occupied with Grimsby Town's plight at the wrong end of the Football League. With 4 games to play, they could still be relegated (for the 3rd time in 14 years!). So if anyone was wondering how I could keep smiling through lots of poor dice rolls, I've had plenty of practice dealing with bad luck! Last month I had attended 3 games in close succession. This month I have tickets for 2 of the 4 games, Colchester on Tuesday night and Crawley on 27th. One of the benefits of reaching a certain age, is that ticket prices start to come down. Not everywhere, but Crawley is one such place where over 60s get in for £10.

Favourites to go down are Forest Green and Sutton. Selfishly, I would rather Colchester go down as the ground is awkward to get to, being out of town, and Sutton is a bus journey away for me.

Last night I managed to watch the 2017 version of Tuntematon Sotilas again. It really is one of the best war films out there. The storyline is believeable (the novel is largely based on the author's own experiences and other real events), the acting is superb, and not too many liberties are taken with the plot. Special effects and cinematography are also excellent. Highly recommended.

People who have seen All the Sins (Kaikki Synnit, a Nordic Noir TV series) might recognise Johannes Holopainen. He played the posh lieutenant Kariluoto in the war film and the detective in All the Sins.

Finally, here are a few pics from a trip with the Margravina to the south coast.

On the cliffs at Southbourne

Avon Beach, near Christchurch (Dorset)

Wonder what these could be? (cliffs above Avon Beach)

One of 3 explanatory panels. Seem to have lost the photos of the other two.

Outside the entrance to the former research establishment above. This fossil is about 1/2 metre across.

Isle of Wight can be just about seen at top left

Sentry post at ADRE

The grounds are now a nature reserve

Looking back down to the beach

Highcliffe Castle, a 19th century stately pile.

Looking back west towards Medford Spit and Hengistbury Head. By the time we got back to the carpark, that part of the beach was rammed - people are lazy. They won't walk far to get a nice spot on the beach. Lots of open water swimmers around - mostly women of a certain age and build. Suggesting that the Margravina would soon be old enough to join them was not the wisest thing I'd ever said.

Entrance to Christchurch Harbour

Aha!

View through the MG port

Vent in the roof of the pillbox

The Best Regiment in the British Army

If you're at all interested in the AWI, this video is well worth spending an hour and a half on. The first third to a half is talk about Robbie MacNiven's book, The Pattern: The 33rd Regiment of Foot in the American Revolution 1770-1783. The rest covers the research undertaken, characters in the regiment (and other units that crop up) that the team find interesting, how they became involved in re-enacting and favourite items of kit. A real geekfest - and that's a positive thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnWcFCeXQCY&t=29s

I bought and read the book last year and found it excellent and full of inspiring actions. Also it strengthened the impression I was getting from a few recentish books on the professionalism of the British Army of the 18th century. 

Another book named-checked in the video is Don Hagist's volume on the flank companies of the AWI, These Distinguished Corps. Also very worth reading.

Languages spoken at Waterloo

In case you haven’t seen this clip before https://youtu.be/0GQ036V5lyA?si=A7TZ84JarP4OTxa9

This is a fun little exercise. A clip of the climax of the battle from Bondarchuk’s Waterloo, with characters speaking their own languages. It doesn’t have English subtitles, but most of us have probably seen the film so many times that we know much of the dialogue off by heart not to need it. Apart from which, I’d bet our hobby interest has given us a reasonable smattering of French and German, and especially military vocabulary.

Cheeky way that Boney’s internal dialogue is portrayed 😄

We regret to announce...

....a delay in the war in Italy. This weekend was looking clear. No commitments. No football to watch. But before my morning swim yesterday I felt a bit of the fatigue I've been suffering from lately. I went ahead with the swim, taking it fairly easily, but the rest of the day I basically couldn't be bothered to do anything for the rest of the day*. Sunday started with very bright weather. The sort of weather that just cried out for a walk. So after a slow morning, the Margravina and I walked in to Richmond and headed for the Curzon Cinema to watch One Life, which was as good as I expected. Back at home energy levels were low and I ended up having a two hour kip.

* I did finish off the Leven buildings later in the evening though - I thought I'd taken a photo but it seems to have disappeared.

So instead I'll offer up some snaps from our mini-break in Lincoln between Christmas and New Year. Most of them are self-explanatory I hope.

View from the temporary Margravian residence

The local burg looks impressive, but unfinished. I shall have to send the margravate's engineer to study it.

A cold and wet day, but it was warm in 'the big church on the hill'. Glad to see the CofE has joined the 21st century and has contactless donation terminals.

Closer examination of this carving reveals people near the hand 

Apologies, I don't know the terminology for church architecture, but this is spectacular!

Various regimental colours in the Armed Forces Chapel. These all look post-1801 Act of Union as they have St.Patrick's Cross. 

More colours starting with the Grenadier Guards, a unit with close ties to Lincolnshire along with the 10th Foot/Royal Lincs Regt (obviously), and a number of the SAS 'Originals'. One of the lancer regiments too, but I can't remember if it was the 17th or 21st.

One for our Antipodean brethren. Links with Lincs presumably as it was such an important area for Bomber Command.

Big Sis explained that this gargoyle is very modern, dating to the period after the financial crash of 2008/Credit Crunch

Remains of one of the towers from a Roman gateway

Another Roman gateway

Random shot of a wonky building. Lots of these in different sizes and shapes. One of them on Steep Hill, houses a model shop - could find nothing that I needed though.

This roof appealed to me. Something of the Old School 18th century Wargame about it, though I guess it would be difficult to model the curves, if you're not rich enough for those German model railway buildings.

The old Liberal Club building. It must have been grand in its day.

Lincolnshire red wine?! Wasn't bad, but the winery has closed now apparently. Good with that Lincolnshire delicacy Haslet. I meant to get some to bring back to the benighted lands of the South, but forgot. Growing up I didn't realise haslet was an especially Yellowbelly thing. It was just something my dad had in his 'packing up'.

I didn't make it to the Bomber Command Memorial as it was closed. But definitely next time. Also didn't get to see the Magna Carta as it wasn't on display. Hopefully I'll get to see it another time. All in all a lovely city to visit, and only 2 hours by train from Kings Cross. Even better was getting to see my biggest sister and brother, their spouses and 2 out of 3 of brother's children and his grandchildren. Brother's offspring have all migrated to the Lincoln area.

Wargaming spooks in '70s TV fiction

No, surprisingly not Callan this time. Freeview channel 'London Live' (channel 8) has been showing another old, downbeat British 'spy' series from the 70s. Sandbaggers. I don't recall seeing this at the time, probably because it aired between 1978 and 1980 - when I was busy being a teenager. Here's the Wiki page on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandbaggers

Whenever I've remembered it's on, I've enjoyed watching it. In Monday's episode (series 1, episode 4) one of the aspirant recruits to the 'Sandbaggers' team turns out to be a wargamer, as are several other possibly compromised security-related public employees. So be careful down at your local club!

PS, the reason for the cancellation of the programme is worth a series in its own right (see the Wiki article).

I missed Benidorm for this!

Yep. I've been to see Napoleon. I had reservations having seen the trailer (with the 'Battle of Austerlitz' scene). I seriously tried to leave those reservations at home. I read a positive review on a wargaming blog earlier, and I spoke to a movie maker at the weekend who had been to the premiere and liked it. With the possible exception of the storming of the fort at Toulon, the fight between Kenneth Du Beke and Joyce Temple-Savage in Benidorm* was as convincing a portrayal of Napoleonic warfare as the battle scenes in Napoleon. It was as if Donald Trump had scripted the battle scenes.

* naturally the redcoated Joyce won.

Battle of Waterloo

In the interests of balance, there were some good bits. I thought the theme of Boney's relationship with Josephine worked well as a unifying thread, artistically if not historically. Phoenix is a good actor and adds a certain Latin quality to the 'Frenchman' Buonaparte. And his accent worked well in contrast to the British actors in most of the French roles. I liked Miles Jupp as Emperor Francis (with an understated Mitteleuropa accent) and Paul Rhys as Talleyrand. Raspberry for Rupert Everett as Wellington though.

Sergei Bondarchuk's position is safe.

One door closes……

….another opens.

A suitable subtitle for this post might be “the importance of checking the calendar”. Another would be “Serendipity”.

A correspondent of this bloggist asked whether I would be attending SELWG on 15th October. Sunday just gone. “No”, said this bloggist. “I’m taking the oldest of the 17 year olds to a Uni open day.” Despite said open day being on SATURDAY 14th and not Saturday 15th. Other plans were made for Sunday 15th, thinking it was going to be the 16th. Confused? Welcome to my mind.

When I figured out (thanks to various other bloggers) that SELWG was on Sunday it was too late. Getting this wrong was obviously the ‘door closing’. The ‘door opening’ was spending the time in the company of the Margravina. My regular reader will have noted how uxorious I can be. The plan was to park up in or near a place called Petersham (a picturesque’village’ between the Upon-Thameses of Kingston and Richmond) then walk into Richmond to purchase one pair boots, walking, Margravina, for the use of.

Superfluous, gratuitous shot of a boat that almost looks like one of the bateaux of North America.

We walked along the river until we got to Water Lane and headed towards the main shopping street where the aforementioned footwear could be purchased. 100 paces up Water Lane stands a branch of the Curzon cinema chain. For non-UK readers, Curzon is a chain of picture houses that tends to show films on the slightly more ‘art house’ side of the range. The programme for Sunday included The Great Escaper, 45 minutes after we passed the cinema. As this was a film I’d planned to look out for we bought tickets, nipped up the road to complete the planned purchase, drink a coffee and return to watch the film.

And what a cracking film it was. Based on a true story of a 90 year old veteran of Overlord who, in 2014 having missed the chance to go on an organised trip, made his own way to Normandy for the 70th anniversary commemorations. In the course of this he had “15 minutes of fame”. The script, the acting (Michael Caine and the late Glenda Jackson in their last film, and the supporting actors*), the cinematography were all great. Flashbacks sensitively handled. Those of you into WWII, and in particular the work of James Holland, will be pleased by the appearance of the Sherwood Rangers in the D-Day flashbacks. It was at that intersection of the Venn Diagram of this bloggist’s interests and those of his spouse. Perfect. I don’t normally do this, but I will in this case……go to see it. And if you do, take someone whose hand you can hold.

* including John Stride

Despite all that, walking back along the river I couldn’t resist pointing out that ‘the bus to Dover was heading the wrong way along Hove seafront’. Not a single button was counted in that moment of pedantry.

Postscript:

Look it's not just me saying this. James Holland and Al Murray raved about this film in a recent episode of We Have Ways of Making You Talk. They also had an interesting talk with the director and writer, which gives you more of a clue as to what was real and what was imagined in the plot. https://wehavewayspod.com/episodes/

Le Tour de 1813

Sat down for a rest and switched the telly on. Noticed that  Stage Two of the Tour de France today covers some of Arthur Wellesley’s old stomping ground.

Very pleasant scenery.

https://www.letour.fr/en/stage-2

My Grandad's War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP7o2JoPjLY

More ECW archaeology on the telly

I came across this article in the Guardian online (yes I’m a tofu knitter). There’s a programme which covers it on BBC2 on Sunday 22nd (today) at 8PM GMT.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/21/coleshill-towers-remains-history-english-civil-war?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=discover&utm_campaign=CCwQ6oK1wrOip4kqGM-RgsLGlP3WswEqJwgwEMeB3Z3ftYXAHBj__6mv7dXGq5QBKg4IACoGCAowl6p7MN-zCQ&utm_content=bullets

Post Script

Whilst the Guardian article manages to avoid that inaccurate trope of the Civil War (“between Charles I and Cromwell”) it adds a new one. Between “forces loyal to Charles I and Parliamentarians trying to topple him”. Agh!!

"Who's that talking gibberish?"

A good pal gave me a DVD of the original (1955) version of Tuntematon Sotilas (Unknown Soldier), and I watched it through on Wednesday. With English subtitles on naturally - I'd be lost with normal conversational speed of dialogue especially as this has a range of different regional dialects. 

And what a great film it is. Very different in some ways to the 2017 version that I watched three years ago. I won't say it's any better or worse. Just different. 

Both capture the sarcasm and the moaning of the soldiers, and the divide between officers and ORs. Both also capture the humour. Some of it was laugh out loud funny. Another aspect that comes across well is the challenge of maintaining discipline in a democracy's citizen army. In essence "I'll fight but don't expect me to put up with bull."

There's more blood and gore on show in the later film. But unlike British war films of the 50s, this one doesn't entirely hold back on the 'claret'. In a way it is more shocking than the later version because it is used more sparingly. In one scene a character is shown coughing up copious amounts of black blood. In another, an NCO who'd rescued a young recruit, fell on top of him dribbling blood on the lad's horrified face when he too got injured. Another difference with British films of the same vintage is the "soldiers' language. Fewer euphemisms equivalent to "flaming 'eck" or "blighter".

One such was the morning after our heroes get blind drunk on hooch. In the morning one of them wakes up and utters the immortal phrase "Mun suullan on vissi joku syöny kissanpaska". I'll spare you the translation, but be warned if you pop it into a translation tool 😆.

I couldn't help but feel the film was partly a religious experience. The Via Dolorosa of the Finnish nation if you will. There was a lot more incidental music (as old films do). Often quite dramatic and portentous. It closed with a burial scene, the background music to which was an excerpt from Sibelius' Finlandia. Moving. But not in the jingoistic earlier nationalistic way. It seemed to have a bitterness to it. Traditionally shown on TV on Independence Day (6 December), the film is one of those common national experiences as far as I can make out. Everyone's seen it, has a view on it, and can quote chunks of dialogue.

There's some clever shots to portray the passing of the seasons or as a way to link episodes. Soldiers marching through sodden ground etc. Lots of shots of troops riding or pushing bikes, horse drawn carts and artillery, men yomping with heavy loads. Some scenes seemed to have wartime newsreel spliced in, in a way where it was difficult to see the joins. Very well done.

If you can get hold of a copy, I'd highly recommend it. Not because it's on a subject close to my heart. In its own right as a work of art.

Here's my previous post on the 2017 version https://horseandmusketgaming.blogspot.com/2019/09/tuntematon-sotilas-unknown-soldier-and.html

The answer to the question in the title (from the hooch drinking scene) was, "Koskela the Finn! Eats iron and shits chains."