Book Review: 1812, Napoleon's Invasion of Russia, Paul Britten Austen

This single volume publication, on Bible-thin paper, is actually a three volume work. The product of 25 years of study, it collects and weaves together myriad short extracts from around 160 firsthand accounts, written by participants in these momentous events. The result is something really quite unique and very special.

Even in this single volume format it’s a weighty tome, and no mistaking! The one-thousand or so pages adding up to, as the author himself points out, something 'fairly vast.' He describes his book as a ‘word film’, and it really does have something of that quality. Certainly the drama of the events is heightened, coming as it were from the horses' mouths. 

And what horses! His sources range from the highest echelons (Caulaincourt, at Napoleon’s side), to the rank and file (the author’s own choice of lowlier men being ‘obscure little Swiss voltigeur Jean-Marc Bussy’). My only quibble on this score is that it's not always completely clear who's being quoted.

Caulaincourt and Bonaparte leaving Russia. [2]

Despite being ‘fairly vast’, the narrative sticks pretty resolutely to the central column of Napoleon’s Grande Armée. Amazingly, there's not sufficient space for much, if anything, about the flanking Corps. [1] I happened to have superb visual accounts of the 1812 campaign to hand, by Faber du Faur and Albrecht Adam, when I read this, which helped me visualise things. I just wish I had also had a really good book of maps; so much of the narrative info concerns movements, and particular locations, all of which would have been more easily followed if only one could glance back and forth between the text and some decent maps!

Pretty much all the books that I've been reading on this subject, at least amongst the more contemporary ones, make some use of firsthand accounts. But this particular telling of the story takes that modus operandi to new heights. In describing how he wrote the book Britten Austen said, I ‘invent nothing, hardly even a phrase, and certainly neither events nor persons. But resurrect them - in their own words.’ The book is remarkably vivid as a result, which is fantastic.

Swiss Infantry of the 4th Regt, Carle Vernet. [3]

For example, the adventures and sufferings of a certain Heinemann, survivor of a virtual massacre, as he escorts a wounded sergeant to the rear, before becoming a prisoner himself, are just one among many of the episodes that vividly convey the exciting, moving and gripping dramas this book is packed with. In this instance there's actually a happy end to the story - in fact two happy endings (but I'll let you read the book and find out what they are!) - a rare and pleasant thing, given the huge loss of life in this campaign.

Allowing his sources to speak for themselves is certainly not the author simply being lazy. Again in his own words*: ‘Naturally … [I] had to take my thousands of vivid fragments, longer or shorter, snip them and put them together in what I came to think of as a 'marching order', and generally help the reader not to go astray.’ But, rather endearingly, where his own voice is audible, I love it: I Iike a writer who says 'i'sooth'! Indeed, his writing style is quite different in tone to all the other authors I've read so far on this subject, which is refreshing. He's also the only author, besides Burns, that I've encountered using the term 'agley', as in 'aft gang agley', as in when things go 'wrong'!

Paul Britten Austen

In conclusion, this is a pretty unique account of the Russia 1812 campaign. Vivid, gripping, and, for my money, totally essential reading. Can't recommend it highly enough!

* In deference to the author's own style!

————

NOTES:

[1] In a more academic book that sought to cover the whole campaign this might be a problem. But in this instance, the author is pursuing a different set of goals, chiefly to transport the reader to the time and place he’s writing about. And in this respect this book is a signal triumph.

[2] Given how much time Caulaincourt spent in close proximity to Napoleon, it's amazing how hard it is to find any contemporary images of them together!

[3] If pictures of Caulaincourt with the Emperor made me think of him as the invisible man, then what should I call poor old Jean-Marc Bussy? I could find no images of him at all. So instead I found some pictures by Carle Vernet, illustrating uniforms of the 1812 regulations (which Vernet also had a hand in designing). These guys playing footsie with each other look to be having an easier time of it than Bussy had! I did, however, find out that Bussy later became a police-man, and lived to the ripe old age of 88!

... then, a bit later, I found the picture below, by Knötel. This one has a Swiss Voltigeur, on the right. I guess Bussy must've looked something like this fellow?

Book Review - Napoleon in Egypt: Paul Strathern

A gripping and exciting read.

In a rare instance of books living up to dust-jacket hype, Paul Strathern's book is indeed 'remarkably rich and eminently readable.' (This is from my edition, which is a Bantam hardback, as pictured above.) Several other reviewers have already covered a number of key points of interest in this excellent book, so I'll just mention a few things that struck me as particularly intriguing. For one thing, considered in conjunction with his Italian exploits, undertaken just prior to this Egyptian adventure, these episodes of Napoleon's early life might be taken as a premonitory microcosm of his larger career, a fact Strathern himself reflects upon near the books close.

Having taken on the Mamelukes and put them to flight, bringing Egypt more or less to heel, Napoleon had to deal with the aggravated landlords; Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire at this point. The 'Turks', as they were then known, had been French allies, but they now joined with England, and even their own traditional enemy Russia, to oust the Republican infidels. The consequent French expedition to Syria, to meet this threat, has interesting parallels with that to Russia, inasmuch as Napoleon's and Berthier's much vaunted organisational skills don't seem at their peak. Just as Napoleon's normal modus operandi unravelled in Russia, so in Syria he failed to see every eventuality. This last fact stands in contrast with the myth of Napoleon's omniscience [1], a facet of Napoleon's genius much trumpeted by many writers, including Strathern himself (as on p 19: 'he learned to consider all the options ...', etc.).

Another image from the Fitzwilliam Museum Napoleonic prints

exhibition, currently on display in Cambridge. This one showing

Bonaparte in Egypt. Apologies for the poor quality of my photo!

However, with an ominous foreboding of what would later happen in Russia, Napoleons's troops, and even more so his horses, were not adequately prepared for conditions in Syria. In what Strathern calls 'a classic military mix up' French forces were finally issued with lightweight clothing, suitable to their initial theatre of operations, just as they embarked on a new campaign, during a change of season and under very different conditions: having sweated it out in the Egyptian delta wearing heavy European cloth, they were destined to endure the cold and wet conditions of winter along the eastern Mediterranean seaboard clad in lightweight summer fabrics!

The parallels with Russia extend beyond mere lack of preparedness in the clothing department, in that the crossing of the Sinai desert, closely followed by the siege of El Arish, found the French running out of supplies. As in Russia, living off the land frequently simply wasn't viable. One anecdote which illustrates this in a way both amusing and horrifying, whilst sounding uncannily like countless 1812 stories, is the mention of a major who, on awaking, discovers his troops have eaten his horse during the night! Everyone was suffering, again just as in Russia, but particularly the luckless equine contingent, whose reward for being long-suffering undernourished beasts of burden would often be to end up as dinner themselves.

The current UK edition looks like this.

Having noted all this, overall the expedition had been going reasonably well, the one major exception being Nelson's resounding defeat of the French fleet at the Battle Of The Nile (the one aspect of the campaign English readers are likely to be most familiar with). Despite this, Egypt had been successfully occupied and largely pacified, with Desaix's campaign into Upper Egypt, a model of success, forming the fascinating core of several chapters mid-way though this superb book. Napoleon's foes were regularly and soundly beaten, a serious rebellion in Cairo was successfully contained and put down. Certainly the clash of two very different cultures, namely Enlightenment-influenced post-revolutionary France, and the Mameluke ruled primitive conservatism of Islamic Egypt, looked very tricky to resolve. This mismatch remained at all times, barely below the surface, threatening to undo anything the French might achieve very rapidly, as ultimately proved to be the case. Had the French held on to this part of their empire longer, who knows what the global geopolitical outcomes might have been?

One of the many areas Strathern does an admirable job of covering, an area one might expect the more military buff type writer to perhaps gloss over, was the role of the 'savants'. Napoleon was inordinately proud to have been elected a member of the Institute of France. So much so that this part of his official title preceded his military rank during this period. Not only is this interesting in itself but, via a passing reference to how Napoleon was modelling his exploits on those of one of his heroes, Alexander The Great, we also learn that Ancient Greek 'natural philosophy' was closer to modern science in some respects than is often made out. A fascinating example is the savants collecting flora and fauna as they move through territories that are being occupied, sending samples back (to Cairo in this instance), much as Alexander had done in sending back specimens to Aristotle. Fascinating!

Gillray mocks the French savants in Egypt.

Strathern occasionally speculates on aspects of Napoleon's character, sometimes in what sounds like semi-Freudian pop-psychology terms, but fortunately he doesn't go in for too much of this, and what little there is is couched in purely speculative and gently understated terms. Of all such instances, the most striking is when he refers to Boney's annoyance and frustration during the slow-moving attrition of the Syrian campaign, noting that the setbacks he faced didn't undermine his sense of destiny, which, in Strathern's words, 'was his substitute for self knowledge.' 

The massacres perpetrated at Jaffa are horrifying to read about, and went on for about a week, starting with the drunken bloodbath after the initial breach and only ending with three days of systematic butchery, as the remnants of the garrison (who'd holed up in the citadel, and then surrendered to Napoleon's aides, Beauharnais and Crosier) were put to death. In typical dictator fashion Napoleon manages to justify his actions to himself, but many of his compatriots are all too aware that this could not be whitewashed. At the same time the bubonic plague was striking and, in marked contrast to his actions in ordering the massacre, Boney visited his sick troops: 'Is it mere accident that this hazardous and selfless act should have come just a day after he had been responsible for the most cold-blooded atrocity he would ever commit?' [2]

This was a gripping, exciting read. Now that I'm finished I've got a need for more!

Gillray received detailed instructions from his Tory paymasters

as to the composition and content of this incredible image.

----------

Notes:

[1] I don't mean to say in using the term myth that these ideas are totally unfounded, merely that in celebrating heroic charisma they are sometimes overstated.

[2] Strathern comments on what he regards as Napoleon's 'erroneous belief in willpower and ... overweening self-belief', hinting that Napoleon felt himself, as a man of destiny, safe from the contagion of plague. True or not, Bonaparte was both brave and foolhardy to take such a risk.

Book Review: Bonaparte and the British - Clayton & O'Connell

'Museums have exploited Napoleon's fame from 1815 to the present...'

Not only does the British Museum continue the above-mentioned tradition, it also owes its very existence, in its current form, to emulation of Napoleon's cultural legacy. [1] 

Bonaparte and the British is a sumptuously illustrated compendium of Napoleonic-themed visual delights, produced to accompany the show of the same name at the British Museum (the show runs from 5th Feb to 16th Aug, 2015). The vast majority of the exhibits, splendidly reproduced in this very handsome volume, are prints, a medium that was then enjoying a golden age in Britain.

In the background of Gillray's Slippery Weather we see Hannah Humphrey's

print-shop window. As ever an appreciative crowd is assembled to admire the

many topical caricatures, a good deal of which are Gillray's own designs.

The book begins, after a brief scene-setting introduction, with two short chapters about the British and French uses of prints at the time. Their titles, 'The London Print Trade: Commerce, Patriotism and Propaganda', and 'Napoleon and the Print as Propaganda' give you an idea of their general content, as well as signalling an intent to give an even-handed treatment to a traditionally partisan subject. After that the prints and other exhibits, 165 in total - beginning with a print of Napoleon as First Consul, and ending with a plaster cast of his death mask - are grouped into 10 sections, following the chronology of Napoleon's life during the tumultuous period of history which has subsequently borne his name:

The young general

Egypt

Consul and peacemaker

Little Boney and the invasion threat

Emperor

Trafalgar and Austerlitz: triumph and disaster

Spain and Russia

Leipzig and the collapse of empire

Peace of Paris, Elba and Waterloo

After Waterloo 

Canova's neo-classical portrait bust of Napoleon.

I don't know whether it's a change in me, a change in the institution of the BM itself, or something else entirely, but ever since hearing the museum's director, Neil MacGregor, present the absolutely wonderful series A History of the World in 100 Objects [2], I've found myself able to become interested in, even sometimes fascinated by, a far wider range of exhibits than I was before.

In the exhibition and this catalogue there are, as well as the very numerous prints, a number of ancillary objects, such as coins, medals, pottery and suchlike - even some genuine Napoleonic 'relics' - as well as a few examples of the more ordinary categories like drawings and sculpture, which, if you take the trouble to read about them, offer up all kinds of fascinating insights.

But the stars of the show are undoubtedly the beautifully reproduced prints. These range from earnestly pro-Napoleonic images, mostly but not exclusively French, via examples of straightforward classical allegory and beautifully depicted battle scenes, to the satirical prints of numerous nations, chiefly - and unsurprisingly given the title of the book and exhibition - British. The works of these British artists, and James Gillray's most of all, show very clearly why this is regarded as a golden age of English satirical printmaking.

The whole of The Plumb Pudding In Danger,

a cropped version of which appears of the

cover of this excellent book.

Gillray is undoubtedly the star of the earlier part of this period, with Cruikshank (son George, as opposed to father Isaac) perhaps taking over this position in the later stages. Gillray in particular, whose life story would make an interesting subject in itself, is confirmed as the master of the satirical print. His memorable images - 'The Plum Pudding In Danger' (above), for example, which features on the cover - are biting and exuberant: masterpieces of invention, design and execution, as well as fascinating studies in the attitudes of the day, they crown both book and show.

The modern notion, an idea that's only really held sway for a tiny proportion of the history of art, in which an artist is not only the maker of their art but the originator of the ideas, is dangerous when applied here. Gillray's first images show sympathy for the Enlightenment ideals of Revolutionary France, but the vast bulk of British satirical prints, including his, are very much the propaganda of the establishment Tory right. 

Whatever artists like Gillray felt personally, they were, for the most part, acting on the instructions and in the pay of the British establishment. Gillray himself, for example, being the recipient of a government 'pension'. This was actually a wage, and not what we think of as a pension: he was abandoned to poverty and insanity in the end! The text of Bonaparte and the British illuminates the close relationships between artists and politicians, with much of Gillray's most political work being very minutely directed by the high ranking Tory George Canning.

Maniac ravings: alas poor Gillray, twas he who

actually went insane, and not 'Little Boney'!

Some of the satirical printmakers lend their talents to polemicists on either side of the political divide, and there certainly were also dissenting voices. It's fascinating to view and read this material and contemplate the interplay between the apparent freedom of the prints to say many diverse and sometimes shocking things, and the reality of control and repression, a story played out in Britain and elsewhere (e.g. Czarist Russia) as well as Napoleonic Europe. [3] 

In some ways the Napoleonic wars are far from over: Andrew Roberts' recent Napoleon The Great seeks to rehabilitate Bonaparte for an English readership that can't quite shake off images - the 'Corsican Upstart' or 'Little Boney' - so assiduously fostered by much of the printed propaganda shown here. Confronted with page after page of the extravagantly exaggerated vitriol known as the 'Black Legend' it's hard not to conclude that Napoleon had become the repository for all the bilious outpourings of anti-enlightenment conservatism. 

Bonaparte's alleged atrocities are rehearsed and recited ad nauseum in many of the prints shown here, alongside frequent evocations of Napoleon as in league with Satan. It's hard not to feel that there was something rotten at the heart of establishment British attitudes towards Napoleon. It was this sort of material that helped turn William Cobbet from a royalist to a reformer: having been appalled at the way Napoleon was being caricatured, he would soon see himself mercilessly lampooned in the works of Gillray and others. 

George Cruikshank: Murat reviewing the Grand Army.

The powers on British right were merciless to their own perceived 'enemies within', such as Cobbett, or the Whig Charles James Fox (see Gillray's Tree of Liberty print, not in this book or show, but reproduced near the end of this post). Napoleon had hoped that he could win over the Ancien Regime powers, and be accepted into their circle, hence his marriage to Marie Louise. 

But ultimately, far from securing a place at the top table, Napoleon evolved into the official and remarkably singular focal point, at first metaphorically and finally, at the Congress of Vienna, literally, for the reactionary backlash of the Ancien Regime against Enlightenment ideas. [4] By making Bonaparte the fall guy, they were able to distract their own peoples from the backward looking autocratic natures of the regimes and social orders those same people were fighting and dying to uphold.

Rowlandson casts Bonaparte as the

spawn of Satan, in The Devils Darling.

A young civic Napoleon, in a watercolour

by Edouard Detaille, wearing the outfit of an

Academcian (This doesn't appear in the book). 

Napoleon's rise to prominence was achieved on the back of his successful defence of post-revolutionary France, so it could be argued that the Ancien Regime powers created him as much as Revolutionary France herself ever did. Who knows if Volney's description of the young Napoleon as 'member of the National Institute, peacemaker of Europe' might not have been a true and accurate description, had post-revolutionary France been left alone? 

Once the brief peace of Amiens ended, when England declared war on France, the perpetual assault on the country viewed as the hotbed of revolution by those Ancien Regime powers was resumed. They never let up until after Waterloo. Apart from a few debacles (in South America and Holland), Britain's active role was limited. Thanks to the audacity of Nelson, which cost him his life, we scored two notable naval successes. But on land our only sizeable contribution, until Waterloo (and even there we were only a small part of a mixed allied force) was the Iberian or Peninsular campaign, which didn't get off to the best of starts.

Gillray's amazing Grand Coronation Procession of Napoleone. Using the Italianate forms of Buonaparte's name was a favourite ruse of Boney-baiting Brit hacks. 

As Napoleon's French media liked to point out, England's chiefly role was as agitator and financial backer (see two prints down). It was the wars France's enemies continually made upon her, funded by British money (the need to fund these wars saw the introduction of income tax here in Britain) that raised Napoleon, and as long as Britain bankrolled successive coalitions - seven formed against France in this period - his gift for swift and decisive warmaking would help him become ever more powerful. So it could be argued that they effectively forced him into becoming the caricature warmonger they had always made him out to be.

On the other hand it has to be borne in mind that he himself said 'Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest alone can maintain me'. But this was, I believe, something he said in his memoirs, when a lifetime of near continual conflict lay behind him. Napoleon also said that 'History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon'. It's interesting that, in relation to the history of his times, the argument rumbles on.

John Bull's Luncheon, another Gillray gem.

I've always felt mystified, even somewhat ashamed, at the way Britain has viewed it's roles in relation to both revolutionary America and revolutionary France: we lost our war with the U.S, and don't talk much about it. But we were instrumental in helping defeat a similar move towards more democratic society in France, and have crowed about it ever since. Of course there were those, from Fox and the Hollands to Byron and Cobbett, who felt at the time that there was something amiss in the caricatured vilification of Napoleon.

Fortunately the book and the show include both the official and the dissenting British views, as well as those of our allies and adversaries. And just as there was here, there was a diversity of opinion amongst the French, from royalists to Bonapartists, and beyond. The image of the British as a 'nation of slaves' fighting and financing wars to prevent the spread of liberty was a central plank in Napoleon's propaganda. This was a view rarely aired this side of The Channel, the or since. It's good that this show doesn't gloss over these other views.

Francois II Partant Pour La Guerre: an anonymous French

engraving shows a fat red-coated personification of Britain

handing Francis II of Austria a bag of money. The figure behind

the curtain talks of conserving British lives at the exepnse of

their allies' populations.

Tim Clayton and Sheila O'Connell have written a clear, informative, and fairly well balanced text. They go further than most British writers in pointing out the multiple readings of these histories that are possible. But it's still, as the exhibition's title says, a resolutely British story. More than the still-vexed politics, which continue to present a conundrum Britain and Europe struggle to solve, it's the pictures of prints and other objects that are the main attraction in this book: there are lots of fantastic memorable images here, as well as some that are less delightful but still very interesting. Gillray's work is what I enjoy looking at the most, even if I don't always like the propaganda he's peddling.

Francois Aubertin, Passage du Grand St. Bernard.

There are also some terrifically beautiful 'straight' prints, such as Francois Aubertin's Passage du Grand St. Bernard, a French print celebrating an early and audacious move by the young Napoleon, or Matthew DuBourg's Field of Waterloo, an incredible work that beautifully depicts a truly appalling scene, the bloody aftermath of the battle that ended Napoleon's career. Dubourg was of French extraction, but worked in England. It's interesting that his mixed cultural heritage resonates with the scene he depicts, in which the various nationalities are reduced to a common suffering. The Field of Waterloo is hardly the sort of triumphalist image that many in Britain favoured. 

Matthew Dubourg, The Field of Waterloo.

Of particular interest to wargamers, perhaps, in addition to the magnificent images by Aubertin and Dubourg (see above), is a series of panoramic Watercolours, painted only days after the battles at Waterloo and Quatre Bras. Rather ghoulishly corpses can be spotted here or there in the fields, and troops and civilians are also evident sparsely populating what had been only days before close-packed scenes of carnage. These watercolours show the battlefields as they were at the time, and would presumably be useful to gamers seeking to recreate the battle and the terrain, as no doubt many will attempt to do this year. [5]

This is a gem of a book, produced to accompany a fascinating show. I already had Mark Bryant's The Napoleonic Wars in Cartoon, which is a fun but comparatively superficial look at much of the same material. This gorgeous volume allows one to explore similar territory in much greater breadth and depth. I love it, and think it's an essential purchase for the Napoleonic history nut.

----------

Notes:

[1] P. 197:  'Earlier museums had been based on the personal collections of monarchs and aristocrats... Napoleon introduced the notion of a collection of treasures as a public asset that conferred prestige on the nation. The desire to emulate Napoleon's Louvre was at least part of the motive for parliament's support of the development of the British Museum...'

This particular image is not in the show or the book, but it

depicts a view of the British. popular in Napoleonic France,

as badly dressed and unable to relate properly to their

harridan womenfolk.

[2] This utterly brilliant series is available in several formats. Here are a few useful links:

--- The book (paperback from Amazon) - paperback

--- BBC podcasts (my favourite format!) - podcasts

--- And finally, here's a link to the BM page for AHOW - british museum

[3] France and the other European nations had their own traditions of printmaking and satire, and the balance between freedom and censorship outside the British Isles shows, in both similar and different ways, how Napoleonic France, its empire, and these other nations dealt with similar issues. But obviously the focus here is mostly on Britain and France, with other nations, Russia and Spain for example, being treated in a subsidiary manner.

Gillray's The Tree of Liberty: Whig politician Charles James Fox

earned the undying emnity of the Tory right for his liberal views.

Here he's taken on the guise of the Satanic serpent, tempting

John Bull. This is another image not actually in the book or show.

[4] There were those, from Lord and Lady Holland, to the poet Byron, who loved Napoleon. And even those critical of 'Jacobinism', like William Cobbett, found the excessivly propagandist vilification of an obviously enlightened man distasteful and dishonest. The book illustrates some Napoleonic 'relics' that once belonged to Byron, and quotes his anti-Wellingtonian views as expressed in Canto IX of Don Juan:

'The World, not the World's masters, will decide,

And I shall be delighted to learn who,

Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo?'

[5] Does anyone know if the observation derrick (behind the French lines) pictured in one of these images was erected before of after the battle?

Figure World 2014 & More work on Perry Boney

Ol' Boney his-self.

Last Saturday, 19th July, Teresa and I visited Figure World for the first time. In the beautiful setting of Oundle School, itself set in the very picturesque village of Oundle, enthusiasts for figure modelling put on a show that's still quite new, and is, apparently, the only UK show solely dedicated to figure modelling.

This is actually the view looking out from the venue, but it's still part of the school, and gives the flavour of the setting.

I was there to further work on my Perry 'Bonaparte Crossing The Alps' figure. I wanted a wooden base, and some matt enamel. A pretty short shopping list for me! I was tmpeted by some nice but pricey 54mm metal Napoleonics, and also some superb books on modelling trees, by Gordon Gravett. But I managed a rare feat of self control, and only got what I'd originally intended to buy. Phew!

The wooden base I bought. Laburnum, apparently!

Today I boldly embarked upon the next, and to me the scariest step: modelling a scenic base. I've never done anything like this before. Even the bases for wargaming figures I made over two decades ago, when I originally built up armies as a youngster, were nothing like this is intended to be. I want to emulate the rocky ground in the David Painting. I'm also setting the miniature on a round wooden base, so I needed to somehow cut out a neat circular section of the rocky scene.

I wanted to use the modelling of the rocky setting as an opportunity to tilt the horse into a more reared-up pose, as per the painting. The figure as is, if based directly onto a flat surface, is in quite a different pose to the very alive and energised David renderings.

In the end I used some yellow/grey Milliput. This Milliput is as old as some of my older Humbrol enamel tinlets, i.e. over 20 years old, minimum! But, amazingly, it's still usable. Having mixed the epoxy materials together, I started modelling a sloping disc, using various knives and sundry other tools. I then used a plastic lid, from a cylindrical spice container, which I'd found was more or less the perfect diameter, and cut into the Milliput, cookie-cutter style.

I like this view, as it shows clearly the jagged rock edges that I've modelled in the style of David's Belvedere painting.

I superglued the Milliput to the wooden base, and went around the edges attempting to tidy them up. In the process my nice clean cut cookie-edging lost a bit of its sharpness. But I'm satisfied, especially as this is a first ever attempt. I then put a it of superglue on the base, and pressed the painted figure into the Milliput 'rocks', before going to work to try and achieve a satisfying balance between preserving aspects of the sculpted base, and integrating it into my David-style rock scene.

Where the integration of the figures' base and the Milliput rocks looked pretty clumsy when unpainted, I think this black undercoat draws it all together quite nicely.

Impatience then lead me to paint the Milliput, after it'd only sat and 'gone off' for around about one hour. So far it's just had one coat of 'Umbrol matt black. Tomorrow I'll work on painting the rocks. Then I need to varnish the whole thing - figure and rocks, but not the wooden base - which is another stage I'm a bit worried about: as the figure stands (I know, I know, he's actually sitting!) I've used a mix of matt, satin and gloss paints, not to mention several metallic colours.

A guy at Figure World sold me a spray can of Testors varnish. It doesn't actually say what finish it is anywhere I can see, rather alarmingly and annoyingly . I did specify matt... so I very much hope it is matt! I'm feeling very chary of spraying Boney and his horse, as I don't want to wreck all the paint work with a uniform lacquer. But I need to do domething, as the Army Painter Quickshade wash I used on the mane and tail is a bit glossy/shiny, and I don't like that!

Once the base is modelled and painted, I think I'll commission an engraved 'plaque'. I got the contact details for someone who can do that at Figure a World as well. So it was a useful trip! Below are a few examples of the kind of eye-candy that was abundant at this show. There was all sorts of stuff, but I continue to confine myself mostly to Napoleonics. 

I couldn't resist the WWI artillery diorama though. There was also a guy at the show trading as Tommy's War, and his WWI figures were both very impressive and highly tempting. And that's saying something for me, as it's a period I'm not much drawn to as a rule (mind you, I do like German lancers mit pickelhaube!). I also very much liked this WWII 'Landser' as well, modelled on a photo from the German Signal magazine.

The photo that inspired the model, from my copy of Swastika At War (Hunt/Hartman).

This post was originally done from my iPad, using the Blogger App. Looking at it in Safari it needed some serious editing. When I publish from my desktop at home I always Photsohop pics etc., to get stuff sensibly sized and reasonably consistent. Publishing via the Blogger App seems a bit less finessed! Still, it's another option, and trying to publish via Safari from the iPad has problems of its own! But I've been back over this to tidy it up.