FOR SALE: Battle of Waterloo, Revell 1/72 200th Anniversary Set

Well, this a first for me... I'm attempting to sell something via my blog, in addition to other more normal channels.

What I'm selling is a Revell Battle of Waterloo, 1/72 200th Anniversary Set.

Contents: Soft plastics - British Dragoons (complete), Prussian Infantry (Complete), French Guard Grenadiers (several missing). 

Condition: All miniatures are partially under-coated, and the paint is flaking off. 

I was given these in exactly the condition they are in now, by a model making pal. He gave up on them due to failing eyesight. I, on the other hand, have large Nap' white-metal armies in 6mm and 10mm that need painting and basing, so I don't want the distraction of dealing with these. 

I'm hoping any collectors of 20mm Nap' plastics, who might stumble across this post, may perhaps want them? £5 plus postage, or buyer collects.

My apologies for the crappy pics. I had to harvest them from my Gumtree listing for the set, under limited time constraints. I can be reached via this blog. I'd prefer that the buyer collected. But I will post within the UK, if the buyer pays postage.

Book Review: Iron Kingdom, Chris Clark

Beyond the Pickelhaube?

Prussia is perhaps best known to readers of military history, who will be familiar with her as a nation thanks to Frederick The Great, the Napoleonic wars, Bismarck and the Franco-Prussian war, and, of course, the two World Wars. This in itself says a lot about how we've thought of Prussia.

Before I get to Clark's book, I hope you'll allow me a brief digression on a very British view of Prussian culture: one of my first encounters with the classic cliché of the militaristic Prussian type came in the form of the comic film Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines. The German officer in that movie, played by Gert 'Goldfinger' Frobe, was a fairly benign rendering of the stereotype, sending himself up by parping tuba type bass-lines from pompous martial music, whilst simultaneously exemplifying the vaunted 'military efficiency' of the German officer class by teaching himself to fly from a manual. 

In the end his literal downfall is bought about, on one occasion at any rate, by that quintessential image of Prussian militarism, his pickelhaube helmet, the point of which bursts his balloon (during an aerial duel with a Frenchman). Behind this relatively recent iteration of the Junkers type as a harmless comical buffoon, there has long lain a much darker vision of aristocratic German elitism, whose paradoxical combination of rigid servility ('I voz only obeyink orderz' was still a comedic playground catchphrase in my childhood) and belligerent arrogance are still popularly seen as amongst the root causes of two world wars.

Gert Frobe as Col. Manfred Von Holstein.

Has a pickelhaube puncture, and winds up...

... in the drink.*

Whilst Clark makes no reference to the above-mentioned film, the character of the pickelhaube wearing 'kraut' is nevertheless much in evidence, from the amazing zeppelin-with-uhlans image on the cover, to cartoons from Simplissimus, or the image of a square-headed walrus-mustachioed Hindenberg, and throughout much of the text. But Clark's book, which at just short of 700 pages is not for those with only a passing interest, is about so much more; from Pietism and the Prussian enlightenment (Prussia was home to Hegel, and later Marx and Engels, as well as Frederick the Great, Bismarck and Hindenberg) to Prussia's dynastic dramas and personalities, and the conflicting driving forces of provincial particularism versus the desire to unify the crazy patchwork of atomised sociopolitical entities into a 'Greater Germany'.

And the book is, on the whole, all the better for this richer synthesis. Having said this, as with so many modern history books, I did find myself occasionally struggling with Clark's laudable but exhausting need to try and cover as much as possible. Adam Zamoyski addresses this issue admirably in excusing his brisk and generalising or simplifying treatment of the Congress of Vienna. Getting such a balance right must be a very difficult thing, and doubtless few authors can hope to please all their varied readers. Still, on the whole Clark does a very good job, peppering his narrative with interesting little details, as well as covering the grander arcs of events. Sometimes's the details, particularly regarding diplomacy or administration, can get a bit dry, and I did drift away from the book about midway through, ironically during the Napoleonic years (This is particularly ironic for me as it's my wide reading in Napoleonic history that lead me to buy this book).

Right, said Fred.

But after a brief respite I came back to it and got stuck in again. In the interlude I'd read Kershaw's single volume Hitler biog., in which he says, in the intro, that Clark suggested Hubris and Nemesis to him as titles for his full two-volume version. Clark does in fact use these titles himself, for two of his Napoleonic-era chapters. And, as with any good book, this has prompted the desire for further reading. 

Amongst the many intriguing threads Frederick the Great appeals to me, both for the excitement of 'great captain' style military history, but also because he's also just generally very interesting. Amongst other things I'm very attracted to his blunt irreligiosity: Clark quotes him as saying of Christianity that it's an 'old metaphysical fiction, stuffed with ... absurdities... fanatics espoused it, intriguers pretended to be convinced by it and some imbeciles actually believed it.' Brilliant!

Right next door to Prussia, Poland is another country with a famously unstable and chequered history. During the Napoleonic era Poland ceased to exist, her neighbours, Prussia, Austria and Russia, carving her up, whilst Napoleon exploited Polish nationalism without rewarding her people with the return to nationhood they thought he might help bring about (indeed,the War of 1812 was originally talked about in the circles of France and her allies as the Polish war!). 

Thanks to Prussia's role in two world wars it is the largest of the modern European powers currently erased from the map. Will she, like Poland, make an eventual return? It doesn't look very likely at present. But who really knows, perhaps at some future point the Prussian national identity will return? Based on our most recent previous historical experiences, this could potentially be a very scary development!

Prussia reborn? Nein!

Clark avoids such speculations, contenting himself with the rich historical story. Prussia's role in unifying Germany, including her relationship with her chief rival Austria, as well as the many smaller states (such as Saxony, Bavaria and a myriad of others) during a period of escalating nationalism, is just one of the many fascinating themes he expertly explores in this book. 

Whilst Clark is in many respects thoroughly academic, there are flashes of wit and style which make works such as this a little more palatable to the lay reader, such as when he observes that 'William I was ... widely revered... a figure with the gravitas and whiskers of a biblical patriarch.' But all told I found this a somewhat uneven read, compelling and even exciting in places, but sometimes a little too drily or academically thorough.

Overall, however, Iron Kingdom was rewarding and informative enough that I enjoyed and would recommend it.

* Twice, once in the ballon, and once in his plane.

Book Review: Armies of 1812, Digby Smith

NB: The pictures I've illustrated this piece with are not from the book under review.

If you're really interested in Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and I mean really interested, then this book certainly has a lot of detail about the armies involved in that monumental conflict. Well, some of the armies; the vast bulk of the weight of information is very heavily biased towards Napoleon's Grande Armée. Compared with the French army, even their main adversaries in this conflict, the Russians, aren't dealt with in such a thorough way. 

This is a shame, but there are two factors relevant to this, most people (at least in Western Europe and the U.S.) are probably - or traditionally have been - more interested in the French contingent, and the French records have survived in better condition, and were probably always better maintained in the first place (it appears the cannon fodder of post-revolutionary France at least merited better record keeping than the expendable hordes of Russian serfdom!). And the Turkish section really is wafer thin, dealing with the subject in just two pages of text, and a mere two plates!

Wafer thin Turkey...

Despite the almost scarily obsessive level of interest in minutiae, there are areas where the book falls down, at least in terms of what I wanted from it: sometimes Smith gives the composition of units in preface to uniform detail, and sometimes he doesn't (consistency on this front would've been desirable), and the 'Orders of Battle' are too generalised. Given the level of detail in some areas, it seems odd and a shame that each individual battle doesn't list the exact breakdown of forces involved, where known. One could perhaps reconstruct the composition of forces at particular battles from the info contained in the book, but I think it'd be a lot of hard work. 

Cruikshank's depiction of Boney, watching Moscow burn.

The book is full of maps, including interesting ones that show the progress (and degeneration) of each of the French Corps, and there's a copiously richly illustrated middle section, with loads of wonderful uniform plates, reproduced in very decent quality, albeit much smaller than the originals. This latter point leads to another oddity re the proofing of the book: Smith frequently asks that you 'note such-and-such', regarding unifrom details in a given illustration, although evidently these authorial admonitions weren't proofed against the actual book, in which most of the details he's referring to are invisible due to the prints being much reduced from the originals. Still, they're beautiful and useful to those who need to know this sort of thing. But, if it's Napoleonic uniforms you're into, there are other better primarily visual sources, like, for the French (albeit not specifically in reference to the 1812 campaign alone), the jaw-droppingly rich and comprehensive book of Rousselot plates Napoleon's Army 1790-1815.

A more sober view of events.

This one's even good for uniform ref.

I'd imagine this book is way too narrow in it's focus for the general reader tho', and an example of this is the way the index is organised: lists of units and military personnel are the only things listed! I have to say I thought this was a serious shortcoming - What about being able to look up particular battles for example? If you want to do this, you'll have to spend ages scanning the pages - but then it does fit into the scheme suggested by the book title. So, the focus really is on the armies, not the battles, campaigns, locations, politics, tactics or anything else. 

There is a synopsis of the campaign, which is useful to have within the book, but it doesn't add much to the scholarship on this exhaustively treated subject (even within Smith/von Pivka's own writings*). There are also more than the normal share of editorial gaffes, such as illustrations wrongly labelled, grammar and other literary mistakes, some of which are just technical typos, others seemingly words wrongly typeset, or misunderstood: the book would have benefited from better editorial handling.

Cruikshank's view of the retreat.

Gillray's even more scathing depiction.

So, unless you're either a turbo-charged military buff, or a wargamer (which can often be the same thing), this isn't likely to be for you. Despite all the critical comments I've made, all of which are a fair cop if you ask me, this is a very handy book if you're someone who feels they need to know, for argument's sake, the exact composition of Ney's III Corps, and how it fared throughout the disastrous 1812 campaign.

It is in fact actually quite difficult to rate this book, because, if this is the kind of detail you're after, then this is certainly a handy resource. But it is quite uneven, and there are even some annoying shortcomings and oversights, to my mind, not to mention plain simple editorial (i.e. proof-reading, rather than authorial) mistakes. But despite all these issues, if you're borderline obsessed with things Napoleonic, as I am, you'll probably still enjoy this.

* Digby Smith used to write under the nom de guerre Otto von Pivka!

Digby Smith, as pictured at the Pen & Sword website.

Book Review: Napoleon's Campaign in Prussia, 1806 - F. Loraine Petre

Murat leads the cavalry at Jena, 1806. A cropped version of which adorns my edition.

One thing after another has kept me from blogging regularly for what feels like aeons now. A couple of examples: my father's major heart surgery (he finally got home from hospital yesterday, bless him), and my wife and I moving home, after nigh on a decade in our previous domicile.

So, finally... setting aside such small matters... let's get back to the really important stuff... little soldiers, military history, and all that jazz!

I actually made a model today, the first in ages. I'll try and post about that tomorrow. Posting is tricky. We don't have internet as such. I'm just doing this on my iPhone, and having investigated tethering my iPad via my iPhone, in Chrome on the iPad. 

I typed this entire article out once already, only to have the 'blogger' app on my iPad apparently void it. Grrrr...!!!

Anyroad, to business: whilst minor occurrences such as brushes with death and relocation of habitation have intruded, I've managed to keep an occasional hand in, or rather eye on, the reading front. A recent whimsical purchase of Andrew Roberts' concise and highly enjoyable Waterloo, Napoleon's Final Gamble (must finish my post on that to!) was a welcome way to return to Napoleonic pastures.

Not just any old iron: Marshal Davout's victory at Auerstadt was arguably even  more impressive than Napoleeon's at Jena.

Such was the pleasure that reading that little book afforded, that I climbed our Eiger of boxed up books, and delved into cardboard caverns, until I successfully excavated a small treasure trove of as yet unread Napoleonic books. 

I was sorely tempted to travel to Shedfiled, er... Sheffield (predictive text!), to splash yet more cash on expanding my Napoleonic library, at the recent Triples weekender. But, as I contemplated the dearth of ready funds, and the lengthy journey - and after several weeks of moving tons of crap in vans and cars, plus hospital visits - I opted instead to unearth and read stuff from the 'pending' pile. 

I really wanted to resume reading David Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon, but feeling rather daunted by the Tolkienian dimensions of that particular literary Oddysey, I plumped instead for one of F. Loraine Petre's Napoleonic titles. [1]

The best pic I could find online of the edition I have.

Francis Loraine Petre hardly sounds English, but he was. His professional life was chiefly occupied by a long stint in the civil service in India. But he's best remembered now for his Napoleonic works, written after his return to Blighty. This is the first of his five books that I've read. But it moist curtainly won't be the last!

Written and published around a century after the events described, I read it in an Arms & Armour Press edition, of 1972 (as pictured above). Although there is something quaintly antiquated about some of his prose, the book as a whole is admirably clear and concise, perhaps benefitting from the tidy-mindedness of an efficient administrator? Certainly it's very well laid out, structurally.

One of the smaller maps in the book, this one depicting Prenzlau.

The text in this edition is enriched by two sections of illustrative plates, including panoramic battlefield photos, taken in situ by the author, and several maps. Some of these latter are ordinary illustrative maps, such as those of Prenzlau (above) and Stettin. But others - three in total - are larger fold-out affairs.

As beautiful and evocative as these larger maps are, they aren't easy to use in conjunction with the text, chiefly by dint of being hard to read. This is most especially the case with the otherwise gorgeous map of the two main battlefields, of Jena and Auerstadt.

Petre starts the book by setting out the causes of the conflict, chiefly citing duplicitous vacillation on the part of King Frederick William III of Prussia, and offended pride and vaulting ambition on the part of Napoleon.

Rather as with Austria in 1809, the Prussians, under their rather weak-willed ruler, are moved towards war by a hawkish faction, headed in part by the king's beautiful but ill-informed wife,  when neither the country nor the army are ready. France on the other hand is riding high, very much in the ascendant as the victors of Austerlitz, with Napoleon at the peak of his not inconsiderable powers.

Vernet's famous painting of Napoleon at Jena, glaring at an enthusiasticly vocal member of his Imperial Guard.

When Petre turns his attention to the contending armies the story is much the same. France has a vigorous modern army, with high morale, led by younger men, whilst Prussia, still looking back to the former glories of Frederick the Great, fields an army of brutalised peasants, lorded over by aristocratic officers, and lead by a geriatric staff. 

In stark contrast to the concentration of power, command and skill in the person of Napoleon, the Prussian command structure is, like their parade-ground movements in the field, ponderous and indecisive. We also given descriptions if the difference in arms and organisation, and only in their cavalry did the Prussians give Napoleon cause for concern.

Having  looked at the background to the campaign, and the forces with which it will be fought, Petre turns next to the plans of the two contending parties. 

Once again Prussia fares ill in the comparison. Whilst Napoleon singlemindedly pursues broad goals with a flexible approach, the Austrians constantly dither and argue, often in committee, dropping one plan in favour of another, and losing sight of the bigger picture by getting bogged down in trivial details. All of this hardly bodes well!

Bernadotte, whose hissy fit [2] could've cost Davout his victory at Auerstadt.

So, it's not too surprising, when Petre's narrative moves on to the campaign itself, to find the French moving quickly and decisively, and consistently out-thinking and out-marching the Prussians. 

Petre is no uncritical Boneyphile, however, and he notes the many instances when Napoleon is far from omniscient. But the key thing is that Bonaparte's consistently quick witted, flexible, and, for all his energy and optimism, also both cautious and thorough.

The first half of the book climaxes in the twin engagements of Jena and Auerstadt. At the former Napoleon succeeds - despite fighting what would turn out to be the decisive battles two days earlier than planned - in concentrating a superior force against the Prussian right wing, under Hohenlohe and von Ruchel. Although the battle has several swings of fortune, ultimately Bonaparte inflicts a resounding defeat on his adversaries, leaving the shattered Prussian army fleeing the field in tatters. 

Napoleon thought he was facing the forward elements of the main Prussian army. But it was actually Davout, the 'Iron Marshal', who in fact encountered the main Prussian body, off to Napoleon's right around Hassenhausen, at the battle remembered as Auerstadt. With great tenacity and presence of mind, and despite the non-appearance of Bernadotte, Davout defeated a force far larger than his own.

Knötel's depiction of the death of Prussia's Prince Louis Ferdinand, at Saalfeld. [3]

Petre, whose narrative is very much an upper echelon view, from 'the Gods', so to speak next discusses the strategies and tactics in this opening 'blitzkrieg' phase of the war. Napoleon's [name?] strategy is noted as far more effective than the Prussian dispersal of forces. 

The next phase of the war has an entirely different character, which finds Napoleon's forces spreading out in pursuit of the beleaguered Prussians. Petre teases out the various strands of this potentially confusing follow up to the double-whammy of Jena-Auerstadt with great aplomb, providing a clear picture, which (unlike some of the maps) is pretty easy to follow. Although it must be admitted that following the endless troop movements is quite tricky, unless you have your Esposito and Elting close at hand (I didn't!).

Napoleon in Berlin (Knötel).

Unlike some modern writers, who feel that mind-numbing thoroughness is mandatory, where there's little of much interest to be said, Petre, very commendably, says little. This is especially true in the latter stages of this conflict. He does, however, cover all the interesting stuff with proper thoroughness, and the book remains engaging and enjoyable from start to finish. That Prussia survived this debacle is quite something!

I loved this book. It's not perfect - the hyper-detailed troop movement info, combined with difficult to read (if admittedly very beautiful) maps, is sometimes hard to follow, and the absence of front line or ground level sources makes for a notable contrast with the best of modern writing - but it's still a gripping and informative read.

-----------
NOTES:

[1] Petre's Napoleonic  works are:
Napoleon's Campaign in Poland, 1806–1807
Napoleon's Conquest of Prussia 1806–1807
Napoleon & the Archduke Charles 1809
Napoleon's Last Campaign in Germany 1813
Napoleon at Bay 1814

[2] Bernadotte was picqued at his Corps not taking precedence over Davout's, and hung back pointedly at the outset of the campaign. Later on he made up for this lacklustre performance  with a more vigorous prosecution of the pursuit of the defeated Prussians. It was his diplomatic handling of Swedsh prisoners in this campaign that would reap sch long-term dividends for the clan Benadotte, who rule Sweden to this day! 

[3] Prince Louis Ferdinand was one of the foremost Prussian hawks. His death in the first engagement of the war was a heavy blow to Prussian morale. Apparently he was a gifted pianist and composer; his sad fate suggests he should've stuck to the latter, and avoided the military!

[4] David Chandler notes in his more contemporary forward that most modern historians would add the piquant details of memoirs from a broader range of participants, inc. the rank and file 'groundlings'