Supplying War

 It's time for another book review, and this time we have left the 15th century behind. Which is kind of apt because, if Dr van Creveld is to be believed, leaving things behind has been the defining feature of armies on the march from the Thirty Years War onwards.

The author makes the seemingly inevitable claim that he is going to debunk long established myths. I came to this knowing nothing in particular about military logistics and so can't really comment on whether he does so (*). He also claims that he will be carrying out thorough analyses from a new perspective. These mainly seem to consist of the sort of arithmetic problem that Mr Wilkins used to set us in the first year at Boreham Wood Grammar School: if one man with one lorry can move 10 tons for 100 miles in a day, then how far can 5 men with 2 lorries move 15 tons in a week? So not that new a perspective then. In fact it reminds me of the course I got sent on at a time that I was building airports for a living. It was run by a chap from NASA and was billed as 'Advanced Estimating Techniques'. These basically consisted of forecasting how many man hours something would take, how much each hour would cost and then multiplying the two together. Still, they put a man on the moon, so who am I to quibble?

"That's one small sum for man"

I assume that Dr van Creveld is American; the book is in American English anyway. Presumably therefore Patton's name is included in the subtitle to attract US readers. In fact George doesn't feature very much at all, the focus in the section on North Western Europe in 1944 is mainly on Montgomery. The American Civil War isn't covered either. Those that are featured include Marlborough, Napoleon, both the von Moltkes and Rommel, the last of whom doesn't come out of it well.

I found it interesting - admittedly from a low knowledge base - and took one point away in particular. The author asserts that in the Horse and Musket era (which for this purpose includes the Franco-Prussian War) the percentage by weight of an army's supply requirements represented by ammunition and powder was circa 1%, hugely overshadowed by food and, especially, fodder. Given the size of the forces involved they could easily live off the land, as long as they kept moving. It was when they stopped - e.g. to undertake a siege - that they had a problem. In the Vauban's Wars set of rules which I have been playing recently the besieger is constrained by his powder supply , but not by food/fodder. Perhaps it should be the other way round.

Having mentioned the FPW, can I draw your attention to a week by week history of the conflict being run on the realtimehistory (all one word) YouTube channel to commemorate the, er, 151st anniversary; as you do. Probably not for those who are experts, but informative for anyone who doesn't already know the difference between a Dreyse and a Chassepot.

* It's worth mentioning that the book was first published in 1977, so they may well be yesterday's myths anyway.

PotCVIIpouri

I had intended to post yesterday about the conclusion to last week's game, to clear the decks ready for this week's return to siege works in the annexe. However, in the circumstances I inevitably spent the day in a self-indulgent Rolling Stones marathon. I'm a big fan, originally I think because the elder brother of the chap who lived next door to one of my best friends at school had all the early albums; and if that's not a good enough reason then I don't know what is. The death of an eighty year old shouldn't come as a shock, but it did because they had always been there and I implicitly assumed that they always would be. RIP Charlie.

In any event, there wasn't much to write about the game because it swiftly ended in defeat when the British Light Division ran away. I had posed the question as to what to do with one unit which was toe to toe with the French, but it was moot because they were destroyed before I had a chance to do anything. I remain a bit sceptical about the rules as they stand, but - and I urge you to suspend disbelief - it is quite possible that I'm wrong. We need to play them some more.

Rules that do seem to (mostly) work are 'Vauban's Wars', which we have now had a chance to try properly. I had set up the game a couple of months ago now, but never played it solo it because it was too hot, then it wasn't hot enough, then it rained, and then I couldn't be arsed. But last night we assembled Peter as the garrison, the Chuckle Brothers as the besiegers, and me in charge of frantically flicking through the rulebook. It all went fairly well and is, as I had thought it might be, a different and better game when not played solo.

The besiegers have thrown up some gun emplacements close enough from which to attack the ravelin in the photo. The first siege guns moved forwards were driven back by counterbattery fire, but were quickly replaced. The numbers are the strengths of the defences, which were established by astute use of the French master spy, who has so far been successful in every mission on which he - or perhaps she - has been sent. The ravelin had an initial strength of 5, but the guns have quickly reduced that. In fact, the attack dice rolled higher than the defence dice throughout the evening, on both sides. The game will hopefully be completed next week. 

PotCVIpouri

 “I have not the least sympathy for these useless and destructive pastimes, football and politics.” 

- César Aira

I shall temporarily make an exception for the first of those.

Premier League table 2021/22

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GD	Pts
1	Brentford	1	1	0	0	2	3
2	Aston Villa	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	Brighton	0	0	0	0	0	0
4	Burnley	0	0	0	0	0	0
5	Chelsea	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	Crystal Palace	0	0	0	0	0	0
7	Everton	0	0	0	0	0	0
8	Leeds United	0	0	0	0	0	0
9	Leicester City	0	0	0	0	0	0
10	Liverpool	0	0	0	0	0	0
11	Man City	0	0	0	0	0	0
12	Manchester United	0	0	0	0	0	0
13	Newcastle	0	0	0	0	0	0
14	Norwich City	0	0	0	0	0	0
15	Southampton	0	0	0	0	0	0
16	Tottenham	0	0	0	0	0	0
17	Watford	0	0	0	0	0	0
18	West Ham	0	0	0	0	0	0
19	Wolves	0	0	0	0	0	0
20	Arsenal	1	0	0	1	-2	0

Gaming resumed this week with added Mark. He not only took some photos, but he has also posted them here. Very cleverly he has set it out as quiz, in which you have to guess the order in which they were taken. As a help, let me tell you that the second photo shows the final position on the first evening around the farm in the centre, which has turned out to be the focus of the action, and was taken from more or less where I was standing. The main question in my mind at the moment is how to resolve the standoff between the two units facing each other across the road on the right. Winning some initiative would be a good start.

Facing The Horse's Tail

 The book which I reviewed yesterday outlines several ways in which those who broke the laws of war might be punished. Some of these aimed to humiliate those who had brought disgrace to chivalry: they might be stripped of their spurs, their shield could be hung upside down or they could be paraded through the streets on horseback while facing the horses tail. Now I know that a lot of regular readers have an encyclopaedic knowledge of this blog, so no doubt there are many of you out there saying to yourselves: "Hang a trout, what about that thing you posted on 25th March 2014 about Sir Giles Mompesson? Are you now telling us that never happened?". Well, indeed I am.

Personally I put the blame squarely on those dilettante, liberal, London-based journalists at the Guardian, who one must assume saw the words 'facing the horse's tail' and let their fevered imaginations do the rest. Having now done my own fact-checking I can confirm that Mompesson was almost certainly merely riding backwards. It is hard to be entirely sure though; according to the Dictionary of National Biography the corrupt MP was sentenced both to life imprisonment and to permanent exile, which seems an unlikely combination. He clearly never served either punishment anyway.

In any event that posting from all those years ago isn't a complete write off. I still think a picture of a dog that looks like Hitler has comic validity.

The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages

 Fate decreed that there would not after all be a game last week. But the upside is that I am free to bring you another review of a book which you will never read. Today we feature 'The Laws of War in the Middle Ages' by Maurice Keen, first published in 1965.

The first thing to point out is that this is a rigorously academic book, whose footnotes are both copious and also often in either Latin or medieval French. I've pulled that trick myself on this blog from time to time, but it must be noted that while it's funny when I do it, it isn't funny at all when others do. Notwithstanding that, it's a very interesting read. Keen describes a world (OK, half a continent - this is entirely about Western Europe) in which there can be overarching 'laws' without any supranational organisation to draw them up, let alone police and enforce them; indeed for much of the time there aren't any nations either in the sense that we would understand them. The context is that all the relevant people (i.e. the warrior caste) consider themselves bound by the rules of chivalry, and it is their sense of honour alone that ensures that fair play is observed even if it is only amongst themselves for some of the time. Because Keen also demonstrates fairly effectively that everyone else - with the possible exception of the church - are protected by no laws at all, and that even those supposedly bound by their code quite often ignore it when it suits them.

I don't think there is much direct read across to the wargaming table, although chapter VIII on sieges is required reading for anyone interested in that aspect of medieval warfare. There is a quite a lot on the role of heralds, and it filled in some of the gaps that I felt were missing from the book I recently read on that subject. There was also an unexpected overlap with another book I have been reading: 'Debt: The First 5000 Years' by anthropologist David Graeber. One small part of that book considers the differences and similarities between 'a debt of honour' and 'honouring a debt', a nuance which turns out to be very pertinent to the medieval practice of ransoming noble prisoners captured in battle.

A Little Afternoon Music

 Not only have postings been sparse recently, but they have all been about wargaming; and how dull is that? Cultural opportunities at this time of year are always a bit thin on the ground, and this is not, needless to say, the best of times. I have however been to a couple of pieces of musical theatre. 

Or have I? Not long ago I saw a conversation with Stephen Sondheim's biographer in which he said that the composer's view was that if productions were put on by an opera company then his output were operas, but if they were done on Broadway or the West End then they were musical theatre. 'A Little Night Music' was put on by Opera North so, ergo, it's an opera. Either way both I and my companion for the the afternoon thoroughly enjoyed it. I wouldn't be the first reviewer to point out the irony of songs - 'Send in the Clowns' being probably the best known example - which had been specifically written for actors who couldn't sing a note, being sung beautifully by opera singers who could probably have done them without drawing breathe if they had felt like it. The one in the photo above is the illustrious Dame Josephine Barstow.

Equally tuneful were the cast of 'Piaf', an excellent play with songs about the Little Sparrow from Belleville, and that's despite the fact that one of the actors has represented the UK twice in the Eurovision Song Contest. Rather effectively Edith (*) and her associate Toin were portrayed as Cockneys rather than having cod French accents of the 'Allo 'Allo variety. The rest of the actors spoke in what I assume were their natural accents (apart from briefly when the Bosche occupied Paris) and that also mostly worked. The exception was when Charles Aznavour was revealed as being Welsh. Even worse he was facially the spitting image of the chap who used to advertise Curly Wurly.

'Sheeeee may be the beauty, or the beeeeeast'

For the record, Aznavour in real life actually looked a bit like Roberto Mancini. And as even more of a digression, Terry Scott of course played Cardinal Wolsey in the previously-covered-in-this-blog 'Carry on Henry'. Back to la Piaf: she lived a life, as they say, but she regretted nothing. Rien de rien.

* Named after Edith Cavell - today's pub quiz fact.