Saturday 24 July 2010
Floating Batteries
Wiki here
Image: French Navy ironclad floating battery Lave, 1854. This ironclad, together with the similar Tonnante and Dévastation, vanquished Russian land batteries at the Battle of Kinburn (1855).
Strelets-R Crimean War
Oolannin sota
This is a Finnish song written about their experiences of the Crimean War - read more about it here.
Cetate 1854
The Baltic - the forgotten theatre
I thought as a few of the units recreating the Crimean war are from St Petersburg it might be worth thinking a little about the Baltic theatre. Bomarsund, now in Finland is the place with the most having taken place with an Anglo-French force landing and taking the fortress. Apparently 300 Finnish grenadiers were taken prisoner and brought back to prison in Lewes. Some 2000 prisoners were brought back. (See piece on visiting the Russian prisoners at Lewes here)
The Crimean War in Finland.
The Battle of Chickamauga Reenactment - 145th anniversary
Friday 23 July 2010
The Sham Fight - England's first Crimean reenactment
THE DANGERS OF PLAYING AT WAR, (From Punch vols 28-9)
War is not a thing to be trifled with, and its horrors are much too real to be the legitimate subjects of burlesque, or any other kind of mockery. The nearer the imitation approaches to the real thing, where an imitation of war is concerned, the more distasteful it must be to all persons of common sense, and common humanity. The mania for converting Ithe horrors of war into a subject of amusement for the million, has received a somewhat sad lesson in the accident that has lately happened at Cremorne Gardens; where, for the benefit of some charity, there was to be a mock representation of the Battle of Inkermann. There was all the usual pride, pomp, and circumstance of in-glorious (theatrical) war; and, to give reality " to the business, a dreadful reality it turned out, some of the Guards were " allowed by the authorities" to take part in the spectacle. Of coarse, the only real element in the business was incompatible with all the shams of which it was made up; and, amidst the sham fortifications, the sham defences, the sham barricades, and all the other gim-crack appurtenances of a sham-fight, the real soldiers tumbled to the ground from a height of some twenty feet with terrible reality.
Of course, when it is too late, everybody is exclaiming against the impropriety of allowing the Guards to take a part in these caricature copies of the horrors of war; in which everything is purposely made to yield, from the pasteboard ramparts, to theshilling-a-night supernumerary Russians. The sort of enthusiasm that is excited among the soldiers, by an imitation attack on an imitation enemy, in the teeth of imitation fire from imitation batteries, is not likely to be of much service in the hour of real battle, when there is no stage-director ordering the enemy where to fall back, and leading on the British troops to the point where, by previous arrangement, they are destined to be victorious. A panorama of Sevastopol is all well enough, and a pictorial representation of the siege may be made a matter of interest; but an attempt to show the actual storming of a place with real troops, must always be • melancholy, and, indeed, a feeble spectacle. Nothing can be better than the picture now being exhibited at the Surrey Zoological Gardens; but the moment the action begins, and the firing of the gunssets the ducks quacking in the lake, while the playing of the band drowns, on the whole, the occasionally heard cries of—" Now Dick, set fire to that tow," " Ready there with them red- lights P " " Off with them fireworks," and other stage-directions of a kindred character, the whole affair becomes ridiculous.
From the Carlyle letters online
I asked a working man what had happened— “It was a great night at Cremorne—storming of Sebastopol—30 or forty soldiers were storming, when the scafolding broke, and they all fell in on their own bayonets! The two who had passed were killed they said and all the others hurt”— But a sergeant, whom I accosted after, told me there were none killed and only three hurt badly.9
More stuff on the Calamita Bay Blog
Siege of Bomarsund, 1854: Journal of operations of the artillery and engineers By Adolphe Niel
Russian submarine of the Crimean War?
State mobile home guard
Online exhibition of Russian images
Crimean wargames rules
This Yahoo Group looks worth investigating with downloadable rules.
Thursday 22 July 2010
'Two Years in the Pontifical Zouaves'.
Image; Papal Zouave c1865
List of books online about Papal Zouaves
Even more Szathmari
http://www.biblacad.ro/catonline.html - mainly portraits
http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/detail.php/32/Szathmari/0/4872/1
http://punctum.ro/expozitii/carol-szathmari
two last links have 1877-78 shots
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Book on the Mexican-American War
In case I am driving you mad with all this Chasseur stuff, as a break how about this book from 1860?
The Mexican War, by an English Soldier: Comprising Incidents and Adventures in the United States and Mexico with the American Army.
By George Ballentine (pictured)
Daguerreotypes of the Mexican-American War
Before Szathmari and before Fenton there was someone taking war photos in the 1840s America. See some here there are some more here
'This one is a copy of a daguerreotype from around 1846 of Bezaleel W. Armstrong. Second Lieutenant Armstrong, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, served in the Mexican War at Vera Cruz and Mexico City. Armstrong died in 1849 at the age of 26.' From here
Chasseur à pied 1860
He says:
I have another chasseur uniform, model of 1860 of the battalions of the line (1st battalion). Very similar to the one worn by Montellier; in fact it was based on the uniform of the chasseurs à pied de la garde adopted in 1854, which in 1860 got yellow “ brandenbourgs” added to differentiate it. Yellow can barely be seen on these old pictures, however.
André
Les Bachi-Bazouks et les Chasseurs d'Afrique
Chasseur d’Orléans
Images of this experimental unit here.
OK just found out this isn't a Chasseur d'Orleans - see the comment for the true identity.
Chasseurs de Vincennes
Tuesday 20 July 2010
More Chasseurs of the early years
He says:
More chasseurs, but this time paper ones: a few chasseurs d’Orléans (name of the chasseurs à pied from 1842 to 1848), soldiers, trumpeters and officers.
These are not from Epinal but from Strasbourg (made by an artist called Silbermann). These soldiers were made to be cut up, glued to wooden bases and displayed erect, so they are in fact toy soldiers. Enjoy!