Frontier Soldiers of New France - a brief review

 

The late Rene Chartrand’s legacy continues with this volume covering the French army in North America. It’s full title is ‘Frontier Soldiers of New France, volume 1; Regulation, clothing arms and equipment of the colonial troops in New France 1683-1760’. This book was co-authored with fellow Canadian scholar Kevin Gelinas.

Beautifully illustrated with a huge number of contemporary and specially commissioned colour and black and white images, uniform details, and photographs of surviving arms and equipment, this volume provides a comprehensive, probably the most comprehensive to date, examination of a fascinating and colourful period of French colonial history, one so closely linked to our own. 

Every aspect of the officers and men in the colony and their uniforms, be they serving in the Compagnies tranches de La Marine, Metropolitan companies, Artillerymen and even armed constabulary units and Swiss. Indeed, I had been unaware that detached companies of Swiss infantry served in New France and Louisiana during this period. I actually found the chapter on military hairstyles particularly interesting, as it sheds some light on the prevailing customs and mentality found in the colonies, and the thought of some bewigged and powdered French officer plunging through the forests of North America while trying to maintain an appropriate hairdo and appearance is an amusing one.

The second part of the book investigates regulation weapons and equipment of officers, non-commissioned officers, infantrymen and artillerymen, and each aspect is discussed in some detail and accompanied by a significant number of photographs of surviving equipment and numerous sketches and drawings. 

Finally, the appendices cover the Irish Company, the Corps of Cavalry and the troops stationed on the islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. The Irish appear to have been recruited from British prisoners of war, while the cavalry were a regular company of 200 men raised specifically to counter British incursions and landings and to generally make a nuisance of themselves wherever they could, which earned them the respect of their enemies and might make for an interesting skirmish game.

This is a well researched and presented book, and the authors have had access to previously unpublished material and resources.  For those interested in colonial warfare in North America this is an invaluable reference. 

ISBN 978-1-804515-46-4. Soft covers, 269 pages.

New additions - a little bit of joy

 

Picking up the brush again….

I thought I’d try and make sense of all my 1940 Fall of France stuff, starting with the French. As ever I have far more stuff than I would ever need unless I was doing something really BIG. 

So while deciding which soft skin vehicles I actually need I was inspired by a photo I came across of an interesting camouflage scheme on a French truck.

My attempt at recreating this image is pretty average but it’ll do for now as it’s been several weeks since I had the motivation to paint anything at all. It needs tidying up a fair bit but there is a war on! My only defence is that I’ve been married for so long I’ve forgotten what a naked woman looks like.

Goodbye Seven Years War

Six big boxes containing 26 really useful boxes of figures and weighing in at 129kilos. 97,329 polystyrene blobby things to cushion the several thousand figures. 

Picked up today and on their way to my mate in Switzerland.

Battleground 2024

Yesterday we braved the elements to attend the Battleground show which is even closer to home in its new venue than in previous years. Heavy snow elsewhere in the region stopped a couple of demo games from materialising but those that were on show were, by and large, pretty good, if not especially inspiring. There was a good range of subject matter and scales, but visually my favourite was the Napoleonic naval shown immediately below.

The best bit of the day was the warm welcome and words of support Katherine (especially) and I received from the friends we encountered. It made a great deal to us both, given the horrible time we’ve been having recently. Thanks fellas.

I didn’t buy anything and came away with a £10 profit.

Never Mind the Matchlocks

The Durham club put on the battle the Sesia in the Italian Wars. This is a pretty obscure battle but oddly one that has been showcased twice in a matter of weeks by clubs at opposite ends of the country.

French and Indian Wars

Malplaquet

Rapid Fire 1940

Germany 1980 under Soviet attack.

Zulus!

 It is always a show worth a visit and hopefully the new venue will work out well.

The Winter War 1939 - exciting new movie

This looks like it’ll be an excellent piece of source material for when I get my Winter War Finns and Soviets on the table next.

https://youtu.be/bbmpWfr2uZQ?si=VGsFj6UZWIu4SBgh

Royalist Newark 1642–1646

Royalist Newark, 1642-1646. Sieges and Siege Works by Stuart B. Jennings is another one of those books that covers specific aspects of the British Civil Wars so well. Following the old adage of eating the elephant in lots of small mouthfuls, Helion’s objective is, it seems to me at any rate, to feed us manageable chunks of information about discrete elements of the wars. This makes it possible to focus on much more detail than might be found in a sweeping general history, of which we have many. I think it works really well and has done much to draw me back towards the period.

So, this is the first comprehensive study of Newark in the civil war, from the outbreak of hostilities when the town was turned into a Royalist garrison, through three sieges until its final capitulation in May 1646. Wider operations in the region are also covered where their outcomes had an impact on the town. Extracts from personal and official correspondence are used effectively to support the narrative. Of particular interest is John Twentyman’s account which forms Appendix I which is reproduced faithfully. One little anecdote refers to the unfortunate fate of the writer’s uncle who died of gangrene after stubbing his toe! Ouch.

The narrative is well supported with a large number of black and white images. Many are contemporary, others are of paintings created a century or so later, and there are lots of photos of surviving arms and armour as well as of the castle and the remarkably preserved Queen’s Sconce. There are also a number of rather nice, informative and well-drawn colour maps of the surrounding area and of the sieges and siege lines.

This is another well researched and presented title to add to the growing number of British Civil Wars titles in the Century of the Soldier series.





ISBN 978-1-804515-49-8. Soft back 173 pages.