Charting the past

When reboxing some modelling supplies recently I discovered a folded paper map I've had for 39 years. It dates from an inter-railing* trip my ex and I did in the Autumn after graduating. On the Italian leg of the trip we made our way to Florence where a uni mate was living in his year abroad on his language course. I persuaded the other half that there was a really attractive city day-tripable from Florence.

So we arrived at the city where I picked up this map and, after an obligatory (and unsuccessful 😊) attempt to find a gallery open, I led the ex on a walk around the city walls. You see I'd read a library copy of Siege Warfare: the Fortress in the Early Modern World, 1494-1660 by Christopher Duffy, and remembered that the city of Lucca had an intact bastioned enceinte dating back to that period. Marvellous!

You might be able to make out the scale. If not, it is 1:6500 with the grid squares being 3cm a side, making them 195 metres a side. The bastion faces are therefore about 120 metres long. From east to west (9 squares) works out roughly 1.1 miles in old money. North to south (allowing for the slight angle) is c.0.6 miles (5 squares). 

Several years later, the other half (the ex) was having a very protracted labour with our firstborn. During the long lulls in action I turned to a copy of the same book by Duffy, and actually completed it by the time of the final breach! A most appropriate read. The whole experience felt very much like a siege - being stuck in one place, periods of pain and noise, several appearances by the professionals to assess progress of the attacker, bad food, brief periods of walking along the ramparts hospital grounds during quiet spells, and a final climactic outcome (capitulating on terms was not an option). Fortunately the city wasn't sacked, but contributions were extracted from the beaten citizens for many years to come.

Further Sardinian and Spanish Update

This weekend I reckon I put in about 7 hours painting the recent arrivals. This is not counting the prep time earlier in the week and black undercoating spraying on Friday morning. 2 hours alone on clipping and filing the bases and getting the little chaps organised in units. All told about 10 hours. Quite a lot but I've completed 4 brigades of infantry and got another 4 brigades 50% done. A surprising amount of the time was taken on deciding which units to paint.

The original plan when I put in the order to Heroics and Ros was to do 6 brigades of Spanish infantry and 2 of Sardinian. Even with my plan to double up using Austrians as proxies, on further reading, this was not going to be enough Sardinian. So I decided to do 4 Sardinian brigades (I keep wanting to write Piedmontese*) and obviously only 4 Spanish brigades.

*the state led by the Dukes of Savoy included the Italian province of Piedmont, as well as Savoy, gained the Kingdom of Sardinia in the period after the WSS. So it was a bit like the Electors of Brandenburg gaining their royal title from a remote territory (i.e. Prussia). The French speaking region of Savoy (on the 'French' side of the Alpine watershed) ended up as part of France as a result of the wars of the 19th century. The French speaking Aosta valley and what I guess were also French speaking areas (Sestrierre, Oulx), on the Italian side of the divide, are part of the modern state of Italy. Whilst Italian seems to be the main spoken language in the other areas, locals in Aosta still mainly speak a French patois which has a protected status. Sorry, disappeared down a rabbit hole there.

First up are the following regiments: Guardie (blue coats), Roy (Swiss also in blue), Marina (red with green) and Reydt (Swiss in red with blue). Flags are attempts at replicating the real unit colours - very tricky with the Swiss particularly!

Next are 2 regiments of the National Ordinance - Savoia (white with blue) & Piemonte (white with red); and 2 of Provincial regiments - Aosta (white with red) and Torino (white with blue)**. The Provincials were like part-time units, trained but only called up fully during war. A bit like the contemporary Prussian cartoonists, but not integrated into full-time regiments. Again, flags are based on the real ones - these pretty much simple affairs of white crosses on red backgrounds - they are meant to be more square, but these are folded on flags that I didn't feel confident in cutting down. As a result they have a Danish look to them. The Provincial flags are the simplest of all.

** I picked Aosta and Savoia because one of the appealing things to me of this period is the dearth of linguistic nationalism. Piemonte are in, because the French also have an old regiment named for that region. And Torino for no better reason than the most skilful player I've ever seen turn out for Grimsby used to play for Torino.

At this stage they all look rather dull because of the black paint on the bases, a result of the undercoating spray. The figures are also more spread out than they will be when properly based - each regiment will be on a separate 60x30mm base, with 2 regiments making a brigade.

Just for balance, so the Bourbonistas out there don't feel put out, here is the Spanish. All that's remaining are the regimentals (turn backs, cuffs, hat lace etc). Units have been selected - predominantly white-coated non-foreign regiments. I'm keeping the flags simple this time by doing the Ordinance colours - the red Burgundian cross.

Once that lot is done, I'll do the Sardinian cavalry, and a base each of Spanish and Sardinian grenadiers. I also have 2 bases worth of horse grenadiers which I'm considering converting to dragoons by chopping their bearskins down. Hmmm!

Oh, and a final word on source for the Sardinian uniforms and colours: Jonathan Freitag sent me the following, which also includes information on the earlier 18th century too:

http://www.bandieresabaude.it/Bandiere031.html

Spanish/Sardinians update

Supplies rolled in over the past few days. First the MDF bases from Pendraken, then the figures themselves from Heroics and Ros, and on Wednesday the additional magnetic paper and magnets I needed.

Here are the figures: 8 brigades’ worth of line infantry, 1 of grenadiers, 3 of artillery and 1 of cavalrym. Plus a few spares. As these will be matched with equivalent numbers of French (the Spanish) and Austrians (the Sardinians), this will give me a total of 18 infantry and 2 cavalry brigades. Not including the 2 Spanish cavalry brigades ready to use.

The picture shows the figures prior to preparation for undercoating. I.E. before the little tags were clipped off and the stands filed flat. They were undercoated on Wednesday morning before work. I need to decide which units I want to paint. Specifically, which ones will be ‘native’ regiments for the respective armies in white coats, and which ones will be foreign regiments (usually blue or red).

Also in the work queue are the supplies for making poplar trees. It can’t be Italy without lines of poplar trees right?* I know roughly how I will make them but there will be a few failed attempts before I hit the right method.

* incidentally if anyone knows whether or not Lombardy poplars were used in the 18th century in the same way we associate with northern Italy today, let me know. I know they were first introduced in Britain in 1752, so that’s a pretty good sign. I must look harder at contemporary artworks.

That just leaves me to make a decision on sourcing appropriate style buildings.

Until the next update, arrivederci!

Where is Grouchy?

The Google app on my phone occasionally gets it right. More often the algorithm makes unwarranted assumptions about what may tickle my fancy. This one (link below) hit the sweet spot.

It’s a video on YouTube by a group of American gamers who traveled to Belgium and re-run the Prussian-Grouchy side of the 18th June battles. The French decide to ignore their orders and march to the sound of the guns. A ‘what if’ on the actual ground……and a tabletop wargame to follow.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=12GsPI6LOWQ

PS I have just been reminded by James on the Chauvinistic Blog, and by the Librarian Gamer, that yesterday (Sat 2 December) was the anniversary of Austerlitz. I spent most of yesterday travelling to, and back from, the outskirts of Oxford to see a defeat in very similar weather conditions to the Battle of the Three Emperors. Fog and frost. Brr! At least the loss wasn’t Napoleonic in scale, and we lost no one in carp ponds. Spirits were raised by a daft yet deft re-working of Last Christmas.

First Spanish and Piedmontese units

So in typical despotic fashion, I combed the odds and sods for recruits and found enough for 4 bases of Spanish cavalry, 1 base of Spanish grenadiers, 2 command stands, 2 Piedmontese artillery pieces and.....1 unit of Imperial (Reichsarmee) combined grenadiers. Yes, I threw that last one in because I had enough chaps in mitres and bearskins to make half a base each. The Reichsarmee infantry tended to either follow the Prussian style or the Austrian style - so half a base of bluecoats in mitres and half a base of whitecoats in bearskins. These were mostly already painted so just a bit of touching up needed.

The Piedmontese artillery came from scouring an odds box where I found an unpainted Baccus Napoleonic field gun and a Baccus howitzer, plus assorted Irregular miniatures jägers, one gunner, plus chaps in Prussian fusilier mitres (good for bombardiers). Normally I wouldn't mix Baccus figures with H&R/Irregular, but the artillery pieces look OK.

Spanish cavalry are painted up as 2 bases of dragoons in yellow coats, and 2 bases of blue-coated horse of indeterminate regiments. The guidons were added by cutting up a paper clip and fixing square or swallow-tail shaped pieces of paper. The colours used on the guidons are completely made up in traditional Spanish colours of red and yellow.

¡A Italia!

And so the decision has been taken. 

His Most Catholic Majesty, King Felipe V, by the grace of God King of Castile, of León, of Aragon, of the Two Sicilies, of Jerusalem, of Navarre, of Granada, of Toledo, of Valencia, of Galicia, of Mallorca, of Seville, of Sardinia, of Cordóba, of Corsica, of Murcia, of Jaen, of the Algarves, of Algeciras, of Gibraltar, of the Canary Islands, of the East and West Indies, of the Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Anjou, of Burgundy, of Brabant and of Milan, Count of Habsburg, of Flanders, of Tyrol and of Barcelona, Lord of Biscay and of Molina, etc. has decreed that an army shall be formed for the protection of our lands in Italy.

I’m taking the plunge and ordering troops from H&R for a Spanish army for the Austrian War of Succession. Now I mentioned before that I have sizeable Austrian and French armies for the period, and was reluctant to start another white-coated force. Especially as they’re 6mm figures.

Neil came up with the good idea of just making substitute command stands with different colours for the respective Bourbon armies. Two things stopped me implementing this plan. (1) I’m reluctant to start prising individual figures off bases; (2) having separate command stands is fiddly and takes up room. But it did spark off a compromise approach. I could build up half the number of Spanish units needed, each base with their colours or guidons to be paired up with bases of ‘French’ without colours. You see all my units are 2 bases strong.

The sizes of the Bourbon armies in Italy (or ‘Gallispans’/Franco-Spanish) were generally smaller than 50,000. So let’s say I need 25,000 Spanish split between 20,000 foot and 5,000 horse. With the unit sizes I employ this would be 8 units (brigades) of infantry and 4 of cavalry. But with my cunning plan I only need 1/2 that. As I get a brigade’s worth of horse or foot from each H&R pack, I only need to order 4 packs of infantry, 2 of cavalry, 1 of artillery, plus a pack of grenadiers for good measure. Except under Cunning Plan Dos, I don’t need any cav because I have re-purposed enough spare mounted officers to make up 2 units!

These were previously painted up as Austrian and Prussian officers for use as sort ‘command points’ in an idea derived from Polemos rules. Spanish cavalry mainly wore dark blue or white coats, with some in red and dragoons in yellow. Apart from some touching up I hardly need paint them! However, I do rather like the idea of mixing it up a bit by having a splash of yellow! I will have to make some little guidons from wire and baking foil. Fiddly, but doable.

An order will wing its way to H&R in the morning, together with an order for more bases from Pendraken.

As ever with these projects, no sooner had a scaled back the volume of new toy soldiers required than I realised I need some buildings more appropriate for northern Italy. I should have a go at making some poplars too, to line the roads.

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.