Broken Eagles

Scott has an impressive Napoleonic history library, and he's always happy to loan me his latest titles. This winter I read John Gill's substantial 2 volume history of the Confederation of the Rhine armies during the 1813 campaigns, Broken Eagles. This work is an excellent addition to his book covering the same armies during the 1809 Danube campaign, With Eagles to Glory.

Volume 1 gives a brief overview of how the Rhinebund came into being, their contingents were organized, and the invasion of Russia in 1812 to set the stage. He follows with an overview of the Spring and Autumn campaigns of 1813 before diving into the individual stories of each contingent. 

Volume 1 also covers the armies of Saxony and Bavaria, delving into organization, uniforms, and the challenges each kingdom faced in trying to rebuild their shattered armies and meet the Emperor's demands for more troops. The efforts of each kingdom to steer a middle course between the two powers is also detailed. This is followed by operational histories, following the specified contingent through the campaigns until the end. He gives detailed analysis of morale and motivation, digging into desertion statistics and how the troops responded to different leaders. Ney blaming his defeat at Dennewitz on his German troops had a significant impact on their willingness to continue dying for the Empire. Naturally a lot of time is spent on the Saxon defections at Leipzig and the causes and effects.

Volume 2 is much the same, dealing with each German state in decreasing size. There is an entire chapter on the several fortresses that contained significant German contingents in the garrisons, and used up almost 150,000 troops, without tying down significant Coalition forces. Some of these forces held out valiantly into 1814, waiting for official dispatches informing them of the change in alliance. Some Westphalian units holding on until long after their kingdom had ceased to exist.

Most of the Confederation officers, although annoyed by French demands, weren't infused with any sense of pan-Germanic loyalty. Their attachments were usually to their country and their oaths to their kings. The idea of a Germany under Prussian domination was abhorrent to them. Neutrality was never an option for the war ravaged German states, and they found the demands for troops placed upon them by the Coalition heavier than those from Napoleon. Saxon and Bavarian officers did not view 1813 as a War of Liberation, despite 19th century Prussian historians.

In many instances, at least with the larger contingents, Napoleon's German allies fought quite well. Certainly as well as the equally hastily raised and trained French regiments. Several regiments earning the esteem of their French colleagues. Saxon, Baden, and Wurttemburg cavalry were well appreciated by French commanders. The Bavarian division faithfully guarding the French baggage park for several days after Leipzig until they were officially released. 

Reading Gill's books on the Confederation of the Rhine armies always makes me annoyed at army lists that downgrade German troops. Granted the Saxon line infantry weren't up to scratch in 1809, but by 1812 they were fine. The Westphalian troops in 1813 suffered from shocking leadership,  and if your king is going to abscond to the Rhine, it's only natural for the conscripts to return home at the earliest opportunity. Especially when Westphalia was a artificial kingdom that had only been in existence for 7 years. They didn't have the regional allegiance like the other armies. A lot of wargames seem to rely too heavily on self-serving statements by Napoleon and his Marshals. Gill digs into primary sources to give us a more accurate and detailed analysis of the Confederation of the Rhine troops, who for the most part fought well and honourably.

Grouchy's Waterloo: a review

 

Grouchy's Waterloo: the Battles of Ligny and Wavre by Andrew W. Field, Pen & Sword Books Ltd. 2019.

This was a fascinating read. Most accounts that I've found of the Hundred Days focus on the politics, Napoleon and the march to Waterloo. Or they're anglocentric and focus on Wellington. I've read so much about Waterloo itself as a youngster that I started avoiding the subject. But this book, detailing the right wing of Napoleon's campaign is quite fascinating. 

This is part of a trilogy examining the campaign. A companion volume explores Ney and the Battle of Quatre Bras. This book is also unique to me in that it examines events from the French perspective. In depth analysis of the battles of Ligny and the pursuit to Wavre and the battle of Wavre itself are a big part of the book.

He concludes with an analysis of the facts as they were known to the participants at the time. A lot of ink has been spilled saying what Grouchy or Napoleon or Ney ought to have done, but those are all talking with the benefit of hindsight and arrive at very unjust criticisms. The composition of Grouchy's force is also looked at to give insight into its mission. 

But the clear analysis of Napoleon's orders and appreciation for the fact that Napoleon did not approve of initiative or independent action by his Marshalls are the most convincing. Grouchy did what he was told to do. The fault is entirely Napoleon's. 

Field is a very good historian and more importantly a very good writer. 

Highly recommended. 

Rings of... *shrug*

Spoiler Alert: Unless you've already read The Silmarillion (and honestly, why haven't you?) then I might spoil a few things for you. Read on at your peril!

I was anticipating The Rings of Power with a mix of trepidation and cautious hope. A "Let's wait and see" approach.

I mean, it couldn't be anywhere near as bad as that pile of flaming poo that was The Hobbit movies, right? 

Right?

Parts are really quite good, and yet other parts are really quite bad. Grand CGI visual landscapes and a very fine soundtrack are nice, but only good writing can make a good story. 

The Professor once described his mythical world as a vast tapestry and he had made the main branches of the story, but around the edges where things were vague, he felt there were places for other creative people (painters, musicians) to participate in the work of sub-creation. He distrusted drama for odd reasons, even though he was an enthusiastic participant in student amateur dramatics.

Recently acquired after much searching. Highly enjoyable and provided many insights.

Read Leaf by Niggle to get an idea of Tolkien's view of the artist, the artistic vision and process, and it's spiritual merits.  Tldr: Art, as an act of sub-creation, participates in, and with, the Divine Creation.

The origins of the Hobbits, as portrayed by the Harfoots, is quite canonical, but was only vaguely described by Tolkien, so there's lots of room to play about in. I'd like more time with them. Lenny Henry as the leader of the Travelleresque Harfoots is quite brilliant. But no, we go straight to a very headstrong Galadriel jumping off a ship on it's way to Valinor and trying to swim back to Middle Earth! Then a whole episode wasted with her on a raft in the middle of the ocean. And there's only going to be what? 6 or 8 episodes? Looks like we're plunging towards the Numenoreans capturing Sauron and bringing him back pretty quickly. Sauron corrupting Ar-Pharazon and bringing about Numenor's fall will be the plot arc for Season 2 I'm guessing.

It seemed a cheap way to get Galadriel to Numenor, and thereby getting the Numenoreans into the story. Numenor is quite well portrayed, just the way I imagined it really. But it is the center of a vast globe spanning seafaring empire, so Numenoreans showing up in Middle Earth to trade with the elves and dwarves isn't a stretch is it?

The dwarves are OK. But when did dwarves become comic-opera Scotsmen? It's a cliché really. Even though Amazon seems to have set up race-baiting to shut down any criticism of the show, I really think they missed a diversity point by not giving Disa (Durin's wife) a very canonical beard. Doesn't have to be a great big bushy beard, but a short, soft, feminine beard would do, maybe with some gems braided into it. The character is still quite good though. Although we already know that they're going to release a Balrog, probably in the season finale. Although maybe they'll save that for Season 2, but I've seen a Balrog in clips for the show. Thus is a perennial problem with prequels anyway.

Elrond's hair bugs me too. I guess the Second Age is the Age of the Mullet. The elves in general bug me. As usual they've gotten the whole motivations of the elves and their relationships with men, Middle Earth, and the Valar rather out of tune. Galadriel is portrayed as way too immature and headstrong to have been around since the first rising of the moon.

Some people who are also Tolkien fans, love the parts I hate, and I hate the parts they love. I remember when Ralph Bashki's Fellowship of the Ring came out a reviewer observing that you can't make every Tolkien fan happy with your portrayal of the imagined.  Rings of Power, I think, is having the same problems.

I don't know. I'll keep watching, I guess. I don't hate it, but it doesn't excite me like The Expanse did.

Or perhaps eventually the irritating niggling details will bug me enough that I'll take Gandalf's advice and ignore it.

Wargaming Campaigns

This arrived in the mail from Pen & Sword.

I ordered it almost two years on a preorder deal.

It's a hefty tome, weighing in at 4.25 pounds, or 2 kgs. It is densely packed with text. There is not the usual excess of eye-candy and wargamer porn featuring gorgeously painted armies and sumptuous terrain, which, to be honest, I was expecting. 

But it is chock full of ideas which will take me a while to get through. Hopefully I'll be able to link more games together and perhaps run a solo campaign. 

Hanau 1813, Napoleon's Retreat from Leipzig

 

I treated myself with some of my Christmas bonus and bought this book from Ken Trotman Books. At £35 plus £10 postage and packing (Cdn$75), it seems a bit expensive. I reasoned a low print run book on an obscure battle would be on the expensive end, and this is an important battle for my Bavarian army, plus I figured I was worth it. 

A very securely wrapped parcel arrived within two weeks via airmail. 

The book is a large hard cover the same size as my copy of Black Powder and 140 pages with colour print through out. It is easily equal to two Osprey campaign books, so amply justifies the higher price tag.

Some sample pages:

The book is densely packed with tables of data and primary source material covering the retreat from Leipzig and the condition of each army leading up to the battle, plus the battle itself. Some of the personal accounts have not been previously translated into English before either. My only complaint is that the personal accounts are all printed in italics and in lines spanning the width of the page. Long passages of italic print are hard to read. Two column layout would have also been easier on the eyes as well. 

The main section of the book is Major Becke's analysis of the battle. Becke was a Royal Artillery officer in the Boer War, so he has some solid first hand experience with horse drawn artillery, and was fascinated by the development of artillery tactics during the Napoleonic Wars. The same publisher also has a book featuring his study of Friedland in 1807. Becke suffers from Napoleonic hero worship and is rather harsh on Wrede. Drouot's handling of the Guard Artillery and finding a solution to the tactical problem is worthy of praise, even if Becke does indulge in quite a bit of over flown prose when discussing his heros.

maps of the battle

The section of primary source accounts of the battle and Dr. Summerfield's conclusions give more balance. Wrede is criticized by Becke, among others, for deploying where he did with his back to the Kinzig river. But deploying anywhere else would have allowed the French to emerge from the woods, set up a strong flank guard and then march on to Frankfurt unmolested, which would have left the Bavarians open to criticism for not really being committed to the new alliance. Wrede, operating under misleading intelligence and disingenuous orders from Schwarzenburg did the best he could really. By trying to pin the French in the Lamboy Woods with a strong gun line, he was making the best use of the terrain and resources at his disposal to achieve his objective of slowing the French retreat.

the battle was noted for both the artillery and the cavalry playing the most signifcant roles

Far from being a walk over, the Bavarians put up a strong fight against 3:1 odds and managed to hold out until their artillery ran out of ammunition. If Blücher had still been pursuing the French, instead of being sent in the wrong direction by Schwarzenburg, then Wrede's delaying action would have successfully held the French long enough for Blücher to fall upon their rear and destroy them.

The retreat from Leipzig and the battle of Hanau are usually treated as a footnote in histories of the 1813 campaign, so anyone seriously interested in this campaign really should get this book.

Orctoberfest!

Due to rain and illness I've had a couple of days mostly to myself to spend painting. What with the excitement of getting my 3D printed orcs with polearms from Knucklebones Miniatures (on Patreon and Facebook), these lads jumped to the front of the line. 

They painted up very quickly too, despite all of the details!

To be fair, they were a nice palette cleanser after months of Napoleonics.

The detail as you can see is really quite wonderful.

After gluing to washers and priming I gave them a liberal coating of runny burnt umber. Then I dry brushed the armour before blocking in skin, leather straps and tunics (if they had one). The tunics and shields were black with grey dry brushing. There's lots of lovely sword cuts to the shields to show these are hard boys.

The skin is cashmere tan blocked in over the burnt umber base coat, then given a sepia ink wash. The armour is bolt gun metal with a sepia wash and then chainmail highlights.

The boots are honey brown with chocolate brown straps, and sometimes metal plates, all given a sepia wash.

The studded leather hanging from this fellow's helmet was quite a challenge, especially in the recess between shoulder and halberd shaft.

These are all one piece prints. You couldn't get poses like this with one piece castings in metal, let alone plastic,

The second unit is undercoated, but I'll finish the last of my Bavarians (I'm in the home stretch with them) for Oktoberfest, before doing the second dozen Orcs for Orctoberfest!

I will try to get them on the table for a game of Dragon Rampant this weekend if time allows.

Taking a Me Day: Warlord Russian Infantry Completed!

Took a Me Day today to decompress, unwind and hobby like a crazed hobbyist.

Essentials for a complete Me Day

My goals for today were to finish my Napoleonic Russians and start my Bavarians, with an intermediate objective of building a small force so I can start actually playing Sharp Practice.

I got this box of Warlord Russian infantry almost 10 years ago, when Warlord sent me stuff to review. Of course they were never sending me stuff I was excited about so it's taken me this long to get them painted up. Obviously they've stopped sending me things to review since I wasn't a terribly fast painter. Unlike now with a Covid empty schedule and multiple nights a week to paint to my heart's content. 

Oh well.

But here they are finally. The box has seven four-figure frames of plastic infantry with a choice of grenadier or musketeer heads. The packs and cartridge boxes are separate and you have to glue those on, giving better details, fixing a problem they had with the earlier Landwehr. But if you're going to assemble them as musketeers then you have to trim off two of the flames from the cartridge box plate which is molded with the three pointed grenadier badge. I couldn't be arsed to do that, and I like plumes, so I did them all as grenadiers. The figures themselves are nicely done with four variations to the march attack pose. The faces were particularly nice, although details at the sides of the head were a bit soft.

The metal command group comes with a few of options. You could assemble the drummer carrying his shako under arm for example. But I found some of the details on them rather rough and the drummer has incredibly long fingers on the hand steadying his drum! But you won't notice from 3 feet away.

Officer  out front, pointing his sword energetically, is from the Warlord set.

In this batch I added three more officers from the Big Bag of Second Hand Russians. I put one of them in the command stand, and then based the Warlord officer as a Big Man, since he's different and gives a bit of welcome variety to my Russian Big Men. I also think his charging forward pose is rather at odds with the rest of the box in an upright march attack position.

The flags are from the insert that came with the box, and they are actually for a Grenadier regiment! But don't ask me if the shoulder strap or facing colours are right for the Kiev Grenadiers, because again, I couldn't be arsed. 

So 9 1/2 years to get them out of the box. 11 days from brown undercoat to flocked. Not bad. If I could've painted things that fast 10 years ago they might have kept bunging me freebies. 

Oh well.

In between waiting for brown paint and flocking glue to dry on these fellows I got my Perry Miniatures 10 pounder unicorn and limber painted and ready to flock, and a nice starter force of Bavarians assembled and primed. But I'll post about those later.

When taking breaks from the painting bench I drank lots of tea and read Napoleon's Last Campaign in Germany 1813 by F. Loraine Petre.

A pretty good day.

A Hobbit Returns From War

 A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War by Joseph Loconte 2015.

I was delighted to receive this book for Christmas. My other hobby is, I suppose, studying the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. So this discussion of the moral dimensions of Middle Earth was welcome. Theologically I'm a self-confessed Tolkienist, and Middle Earth is my emotional comfort blanket. 

This book looks at how the two friends,  C.S. Lewis and Tolkien wrote their great works as a response to their experiences in the Great War. Instead of turning to cynicism,  atheism and rejecting the old values like other writers of their time, Lewis embraced Anglican Christianity and Tolkien set about reasserting outmoded concepts of Goodness and heroism. But the Goodness and Heroism is still human and  flawed and doomed to failure.

Of course this is why Tolkien's writings are in my mind superior to all the fantasy writers who have come before or after with their Nietschean übermensch and moral relativism depicting mighty thewed heroes winning through strength of Will. Any other writer would have Gandalf, Aragorn or Galadriel use the Ring to defeat Sauron. Or Frodo would have resisted the Ring's power to the end and flipped the bird at Sauron while glibly dropping it into the fire, probably saying something clever while he did it too.

Loconte spends time explaining the intellectual and spiritual landscape of the Belle Epoque, when even church leaders were seduced by scientific and technological advances into thinking that Progress would lead humanity to a shining city on a hill. 1914-18 blew that all up and buried the Myth of Progress in a corpse filled trench. Really a bit of cynicism and turning away from old ideals is understandable. I'm surprised more just didn't go insane.

Instead, Tolkien gives us heroes who fail and are flawed,  but they struggle anyway because struggling against darkness, even without final hope, is what we have to do. The elves fight the "long defeat" and have seen many fruitless victories. The striving of the great only serve to create space and time for the hands of the small to turn the wheel. But even then Frodo and Sam fail at the end and the world is only saved by Grace unlooked for. Bilbo's small unplanned act of mercy, to not kill Gollum in the cave, is the tiny event, without witnesses or fanfare, that saves Middle Earth. 

Loconte is a religious philosopher, so he's not as concerned about a literary analysis as I am. He also gives a bit more space to C.S. Lewis and his Christian allegory The Chronicles of Narnia than I would have liked. But Lewis is, perhaps, more readily accessible to his themes. Still,  I found this a thought provoking read about J.R.R Tolkien, my favourite author. 

1066 and All Those Dice

I spotted this while I was on the Pen & Sword website, preordering Henry Hyde's forthcoming Wargames Campaigns book. Since I was painting an awful lot of Norman cavalry at the time, I thought Why not? and got myself a little treat.

At 119 pages, this is a quite useful guide to a very popular period. Daniel Mersey surveys the history, what the armies looked like, and how they fought. The major battles, campaign ideas, scenarios for fights before and after the major battles, figure ranges and rule sets available. I even learned a thing or two. The Conquest didn't end on Senlac Hill but it took a few years of brutal low level fighting to finally subdue Saxon resistance. Plus there were the Scots and Welsh. So loads of scope for small scale games using Mersey's own very popular Lion Rampant rules. I'll definitely play some of his scenario ideas.

This book is great for a novice to the era and even worth a read for gamers who have already  researched the Conquest period.

 

September SitRep

Been plugging away at a few things in my off time. Work has picked up and all the fall chores like cleaning up the garage naturally press upon me.

Also Cadets has started up, but Covid and Social Distancing has complicated that, so there's Zoom meetings and virtual lessons on Google Classroom and training schedules put in disarray to take me away from painting.

But I have been bashing away at the Norman cavalry renovation and am within a pip of finishing them! At least the painting. Then all 72 need to be based or rebased. Plus the infantry. Then they can go loot the village and set fire to the church, or something. 

Off with the old shields! 

On with the new!

So many bases!

I have also been cleaning up and priming my 1/600 scale aircraft and trying to research IJN aviation  colour schemes. It seems the Japanese weren't very precise in their colour regulations. Of course very few examples survived the war so it's hard to tell. Plus sitting on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier exposed to sun and salt water weathers the paint considerably.

L-R Me110, He111, Me109

Mosquito, Spitfire, Hurricane 

Taking advantage of the last good evenings. RAF and Luftwaffe getting primed

Avenger, Dauntless, Wildcat, Hellcat 

Teensy weensy landing gear to glue on teenie tiny Vals. So glad I didn't get any Stukas! 

Betty, Kate, Val and Zero 

And just to keep another plate spinning I've read two books on Afghanistan:

Operation Medusa was a good strategic overview. Fraser was certainly highly complimenatry of everyone he worked with during the lead up to and execution of the battle, from allied commanders down to the squaddies in his Close Protection Detail. The chapter headings featured a lot of quotes from "Mother" his Brigade HQ Sergeant who was in Tactical command of his Tac HQ when it rolled out several times a week. More detail about the tactical aspects of C Company's ambush or B Company's push in from the north would have been welcome, but I suppose that is out of the scope of the book. General Fraser's worry about losing access to all the allied air assets before he could conclude the battle and destroy the Taliban shaped some key decisions. He does also point out that TF31s actions on the southern flank as detailed in Lions of Kandahar were pretty key in winning the battle. Still an interesting read. 

Combat Mission Kandahar was also interesting for the soldier's eye view gritty detail. There is information on a few engagements. The chapter covering the Recce Squadron for instance told me that minimum patrol size was 3 vehicles and the sensor operators provided the dismounts as required. I had a third Coyote in the lead pile. A metal and resin kit from S&S Models which I had vague plans to add a sensor mast to, but I decided to just paint it up. A couple of large scale ambushes were also detailed, including one on a large vehicle convoy, and another featuring Canadian advisors and an ANA company. Both  could make for an interesting solo game at least.

Another piece off the lead pile!