45eme Autumn newsletter!
Bonjour und Willkommen to another newsletter at the close of season for 2016, from the stoney ramparts of Whittington castle to the rolling fields of Jena the 45eme have been all over the country from Spetchley to Bovington and further a field to Belgium, France and Germany.
The annual AGM looks set to be held on Saturday 14th January at the usual venue of Chequers hotel, Newbury. The afternoon will see a discussion of planned or possible events, unit finances, and other business.. then the evening will be food, drink and merriment. The morning may be subdued with coffee and baked beans.
Over the last year chat around the camp fire has often revealed a number of wargamers amongst the ranks and plans are afoot for a few meet ups out of season to (re)fight battles in miniature. Anyone interested should look up 45eme wargamers on facebook. If you have never played any wargames and are interested don't be put off, as a student of the Napoleonic age you probably know a fair bit about tactics, the rules are just there to work out how well your choices turn out.. and if you fail miserably you can always blame the dice.
Wedding belles! Congratulations to Alex and Sarah who tied the knot recently in Leicester and had members of the regiment on hand to cheer and form a guard of honour, the battle of Jena was also their honeymoon, how romantic! Hurrah!
Promotions! This season has also seen the promotion of Lawrence Short to Sergeant and soldat Tobin to Corporal, not only showing the growth of themselves as individuals but also that with a steady rise in members we need more NCOs to aid in keeping us all in good order. Congratulations to you both!
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Tim England.
The sad and unexpected news came to the regiment recently of the passing away of Tim sometime on the 24/25th of October. The cause of death is unknown at this time but it seems to have been a quick and unexpected occurrence with no underlying illness known to his friends.
Tim had just returned with many of us from the trip to Jena where he enjoyed himself and had been speaking of his plans for events next year and also for traveling in the van he had spent much time working on recently.
I will always recall Tim sitting in the morning mist and smoking his pipe, he was always good for a conversation, very animated, yet also a restful soul, content with living in the moment. I am sure some of us will take to the field in future and think 'Where's Tim?' only to remember anew that he is no longer with us, so suddenly was he taken from his family and friends. A great comrade.
We will remember him.
Tim England
(1961-2016)
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B o v i n g t o n
August saw the return of the 45eme to Bovington tank museum for warfare through the ages.
Besides our Napoleonic brethren there were camps and displays featuring medieval, English civil war and American civil war groups as well as some of the museums armoured vehicles tearing it up around the arena.
The battleground itself featured a hillock big enough to haul two cannons up on to, including gun-captain Garth's own piece, and act as our redoubt behind a series of earthworks and barricades which made for an interesting change to the usual open field.
Victory was ours on the first day as we engaged the forward skirmishers and drove them out from within the lines, leaping over, or into, a trench to expel the enemy. The regiment worked particularly well with a contingent of cavalry, forcing the enemy together from where we could lay down fire upon their huddled ranks.
The event will also go down in history as baring witness to Ian Groves becoming entirely possessed by the disincarnate spirit of morris dancers down the ages and everyone once again being beaten at gambling by Tash.
Next time we will have out own tank!
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Louis Lepic and the battle of Eylau.
Some figures will always be associated with a particular event or action, and such can be said for General Louis Lepic, of Napoleon's heavy cavalry. From a poor background He joined the Dragoons at age sixteen and fought in numerous battles but will always be best known for his actions at the battle of Eylau in 1807.
Leading the Grenadiers a cheval of the Imperial guard on the freezing, windswept day he had almost been unable to command due to an attack of rheumatism but after some treatment from Larrey took to the sadle. Awaiting orders his regiment were coming under heavy fire making some men duck uneasily, that is when he uttered his immortal words;
"Heads up by God, those are bullets not turds!"
When Murat was ordered to charge with some eighty squadrons of cavalry Lepic lead a desperate charge into the Russian ranks with his grenadiers, disappearing into the blizzard, the charge was highly successful and perhaps saved the day but having smashed through it was found that many of the Russian units had merely reformed and the cavalry were now behind the enemy lines. It was thought that the regiment had been cut off and captured.
Lepic and a small group of his men had been called upon to surrender but instead hoisted their heavy sabres and fought there way back to the French lines.
On seeing Lepic after the battle Napoleon commented that he was filled with sorrow when he thought he had been captured, Louis responded 'You may hear of my death Sire, but never my capture!'
Promoted and awarded 50 000 francs for his part in the battle he immediately saw to it that the cash was shared out equally amongst his men.
Louis was always at the head of his grenadiers a cheval and was credited with possibly saving Napoleon from capture by cossacks in 1812. He survived the wars and rallied to the Emperor on his return from Elbe, fighting at Waterloo, after which he was then retired and died in 1827.
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OHHHH VIENNA!
We were going to be in Vienna for four days as a spring holiday and asides from the various galleries, palaces, cafes etc to see I was determined to visit a few places of Napoleonic interest. As well as being Austria's capital city, twice occupied by the French, the battle of Aspern-Essling happened immediately outside the city (as it was) and the battle of Wagram was just a few miles further out.
One attraction not to be missed by an enthusiast is the Heeresgeschlictliches museum, which spans military history from just before the Thirty years war up to the recent past, one of the halls is the salon of revolutions and covers the revolutionary and Napoleonic period as well as the later half of the nineteenth century.
The architecture is almost worth going for alone, great gilded domes in the ceiling are surrounded by wall paintings of various events in Austro-Hungarian history.
There are many portraits and statues, many of the archduke Charles, as well as uniforms and weapons, and also the first military aircraft in the form of the French observation balloon that was captured by Austria.
Schonnbrun palace was briefly occupied by Napoleon and was originally a sprawling estate outside the main city. Other than imagining the old guard on parade in the main courtyard there is not much directly Napoleonic bar some portraits relevant to the time and period furnishings.
Vienna has great public transport and a Wiencarte will give you unlimited travel and discounts on many attractions, definitely worth getting, partly because of this I ventured out into the suburbs to find any traces of the battlefields of Aspern-Essling, now largely covered by urban growth, a subway and a bus got me to the church at Aspern, one of the few surviving structures, with its wounded lion monument and original obelisk raised to mark the French dead.
I saw lobau island from the train on the way back, it didn't seem a great place for trying to stage an army but maybe the waters of the Danube have risen since then, just east of lobau is a national park which was also part of the battlefield.
I did not have time to wander through the park or go out to Wagram which by all accounts has it's own museum or try any local delicacies from 'Napoleon's schnitzelhaus'. Maybe next time!
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The 45eme go to Jena!
For all involved it started off in the early hours heading for one of the rendezvous spots with the coach, which then rolled steadily downhill to Dover.
All together the Sappeurs and 45eme were off over the sea and then the joy of ten more hours on the coach, some drinks, some service stations, 'Pride and prejudice and zombies' and some sort of sleep. About five o'clock on Friday morning we pulled into a field with a few meague tents here and there.
Dawn revealed a rolling landscape with the sun over the low hill of the Dornburg and the Trafenberg beyond, creating a fantastic battlefield view where you could imagine the French columns advancing over the crest to the south and rolling up to the Prussian held ridge just behind the camp and the windmill not half a mile away.
Everyone pitched in to get the camp set up and then the day was our own to explore the district or seek out provisions. More units arrived all day, Some traders were also on site, a serving of goulash was given out in the evening and there was live music in the big beer tent.
It was up moderately early after a nippy evening but not as bad as some feared given the freezing temperatures on Friday morning, and time for a parade after breakfast although this seemed to get later and later, with the 45eme being present and correct, and on time, as usual.
Form up and off to battle! The scene for the battle itself was as Cospeda a couple of villages down the road, although for us the road was just a farm track for the most part, still it made a fine sight to see French troops disappearing over the crest in a long marching column.
At the village we stopped for provisions, beer and bread and sausages, which was something of a theme throughout the weekend.
Then there was a small amount of marching and maneuvering the reason for which was beyond the ken of us simple soldats but we were confident it was very important in the big picture.
Then we rolled into battle and traded vollies with some white coated troops and further beyond suffered from some light cannons playing upon us, fireworks rocketed off into the air, some fiendish Prussian secret weapon no doubt, but it did not save the day for them. A great cheer went up and we saw the right wing of Prince Hohenlohe's army crumble and give way, pursued up the slope by triumphant Frenchmen.
And so a march back to Vierzehnheiligen where arms could not be stacked fast enough for most of the regiment to reform in the beer tent. Twenty bottles of beer please!
Sunday saw a ceremony of remembrance held at the local church, which also features a memorial to the fallen of 1806, due to the small size of the location only a few regiments were officially in attendance although a few of the 45e were on hand to pay respects and watch a French and Prussian standard be flown over the memorial and hear words spoken by some local dignitaries and those representing the two armies for our marking of the occasion.
It had the feeling of friendship and respect between the two sides, and the people today, and indeed the whole weekend had been very welcoming.
Hopefully we can all be back in Germany for 2023!
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The Swedish-Norwegian war of 1814.
In the wake of 1814 much of Europe was patting itself on the back, or trying to stab someone elses in the wrangle to re-establish borders and nick land off those smaller powers that had backed 'The ogre'.
Sweden under Bernadotte had of course backed the winner and that dodgy Denmark next door had not. The Swedes could take Norway from Denmark. Simples.
Except no one had asked the Norwegians what they thought.
In a sudden flux of political reshuffling they declared independence and wrote a constitution. "Look England, we are nothing to do with that Denmark!" England didn't care.
The Swedish army were going in. Sweden had a bigger army, a better equipped army supported by a respectable navy, an army that had more experienced troops, having fought against France, most of Norway's troops had been on home defense and were generally disorganized, poorly equipped and of low morale. It wouldn't take long.
(You've probably guessed where this is going and whose side I am on) Sweden started well, driving Norwegian gunboats and troops out of their major port but the Norwegians had retreated from the borders after some minor defeats so as not to get cut off.
The Norwegians then had two victories, at Lier where it started well for the Swedes until they met dug in troops supported by artillery and at Matrand, three days later, where Norwegian farmers had gained information about Swedish plans to fall back, Norway tried to halt them in a hard fought battle but the Swedes seemed to have decided it was not their day and hastened a retreat. Some of the Swedes, short of ammunition, had to escape at the point of the bayonet, but escape most of them did, lessening the victory.
One more major battle was fought at Langnes, it was particularly bad weather and the Norwegian leader, Colonel Hegerman, planned to use this for an early morning surprise attack. (the night before the colonel had almost been shot by a sentry but was saved by wet powder, and killed the sentry with his broken sword, taking his musket which is still in the Norwegian museum of defense).
Again Swedish counter attacks failed against artillery positions although sharpshooters took out many of the gunners. Again the Swedes retreated.
It is said that at this point the young Norwegian King arrived and met a soldier carrying a mortally wounded lieutenant 'This is too much blood for my sake!' he said. 'No sire, it is too little!' responded the soldier. The Norwegians were ordered to withdraw.
Despite these victories it was clear that Norway would eventually lose due to lack of men and logistics against the Swedish might, however Bernadotte also wanted the fighting over and a peace was announced in the Swedish favour. But not by much, although the Norwegian king had to abdicate Norway kept its constitution and was more of a partner to Sweden than a conquered nation and the Norwegians kept many of their institutions, and their pride, intact.
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Rogues gallery
A frosty James Tobin walking the dog at Ickworth.
Tim and an artillery supply wagon at Ligny.
Wes and a 45e hat on the march back from the field of Liepzig.
Alex and Sarah's wedding!
The start of the year, Captain Miles & co. at Whittington!
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Vive L'Empereur! Vive L'45e!
