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| Siege of Philippsburg - 1734 |
Much as I love the Prince August 40mm Karoliners, Holger Eriksson's passion seemed to be modeling the Swedes, with their Russian counterparts receiving scant attention. Oddly, Prince August has mostly perpetuated the imbalance with their new Karoliners. What we have in the main are uniquely Swedish troops that fall between two stools stylistically: coats with turnbacks & collars more typical of the WAS/7YW on the one hand and buckled shoes & stockings, officers wearing old-fashioned perukes on the other.
Many cheerfully take the mixed stylistic elements in stride and use the PA's for the 7YW era, as well as Imagi-nations with no reservations. That's a practical and perfectly acceptable approach. But I've often wondered if the PA's might not be well-suited to a time splitting the difference between the early 1700's GNW/WSS and the mid-century 7YW. Why not the War of the Polish Succession, with the fighting (what there was of it) taking place between 1733-1735 ?
There's no doubt that the War of the Polish Succession has held little appeal for military historians. The obvious reason is its legacy as kingly warfare taken to an extreme; lots of posturing and maneuvering with little actual fighting, quite lacking in decisive results. Then too, England stayed out of it, also contributing to the dearth of literature in English. About all we've got is the King of Siam's slim volume published in 1901 http://archive.org/details/warofpolishsucce00vajirich and Sutton's "The King's Honor & the King's Cardinal" (1980), some 206 pages in which the diplomatic preliminaries take up the first 1/3 of it. Readers of French and German are probably better served.
Yet this relatively unknown war presents some opportunities for gamers: not a lot happened but a lot could have happened. It has potential for Imagi-nations or what-if gaming involving real countries. And aside from England, all the key players were involved: France, Spain and the Kingdom of Sardinia vs. Austria augmented by small Imperial states, Russia, Prussia, Saxony, as well as contingents from Denmark, Hanover & etc. A virtual riot of uniform painting opportunities - if we can figure out what they looked like !
The next post will touch on some of those uniforms, ca. 1734-1735.
As to the Spanish troops it might interest you to look to the 1740 seige of St. Augustine, FL. The garrison here was a royal garrison and thus wore the king's colors of Blue great coat with red cuffs, brass buttons, red stockings and white gaiters with brass buttons. The waistcoat was the same color of blue as the great coat. The artillerist wore the same uniform but with the body of the uniform done in red with blue cuffs. The infantry here wore waist belt with a 8, 12, or 16 round cartridge box in brown leather with red embossed royal symbol on the front of the flap. they also carried an infantry hangar and a socket bayonet. Their tricorns were black with yellow trim and red cockade. The black shoes had brass buckles as well. From the research done at the Castillo de San Marcos national monument this appears to have been the standard uniform since 1730. Hopefully this can of some assistance.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your contribution about the Spanish, Stonegiant.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Steve
Hey Steve,
ReplyDeleteWhen you get a chance please send me a quick post to chorney.jeff@gmail.com I have a few questions for you and BTW we have a few things in common as well ... Jeff
I've had a look around for any information in Polish - it's mostly a couple of paragraphs in school text books or a reference to biographies of Poland's Saxon kings.
ReplyDeleteI'll keep looking but it's not a particularly patriotic war for Poles so not studied much.
It's also worth taking a look at Place Stanislas in Nancy in France for the memorial to Stanislaw Leszczynski.
Thanks, Sam. Yes, you're right about the Polish Succession being a matter of the European powers imposing their choice of candidate on the Poles, nothing too worthy of remembrance if you're Polish.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Steve
War of Polish Succession is described in detailes (campaigns in Germany & Italy) in XIX & XX volumes of Feldzuge des Prinzen Eugen von Savoeyn. I believe they both are available on archive.org or books.google.com. For campaigns in Poland & Lithuania you need Russian sources, because Feldzuge is very brief for them.
ReplyDeleteHope this helps
Thanks, Gromoboy. You are right about the Feldzuge des Prinz Eugen. For my own part, I've got a better shot at understanding "Les Guerres sous Louis XV" by Pajol.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent blog you have there, by the way.
Regards,
Steve