"playing with History..." Topic

200 years on and Napoleon somehow seems to create controversy. Apparently IT is OK to have a religious ceremony to mark the battle of Leipzig, but somehow 6000 silly men dressed up in Napoleonic garb somehow demeans the whole remembrance process.
Even though "Many of the thousands taking part have grown period-style moustaches to match their 19th Century replica uniforms" – well whoop de doo. Historical moustaches, just think.
Playing with toy soldiers is one thing, but pretending you are one – don't Psychiatrists have a treatment for that?
I don't like historical dressing up, I give no credit for the ability to grow historical facial hair, and a dozen hefty fellas just look daft pretending to be a regiment. In one picture we have Frenchies with a Bavarian flag. Odd really.
And, deep joy, we have 'Waterloo' to look forward to.
I hope these clowns don't get involved in the commemorations of the Great War.
Just like wargaming, this is NOT history.

link

Guy with the Bavarian flag in first photo looks like he is wearing a raupenhelm (sp).

Good luck to them if they are enjoying it. Not my thang, but each to their own.

And 6,000 – roughly 1:100 – not bad ratio – a lot of figure games struggle to get close to that

" In one picture we have Frenchies with a Bavarian flag. Odd really."

I attended the "200th anniversary" reenactment for Blücher's crossing of the Rhine at Kaub, a few years ago. It hadn't been 200 years, it wasn't actually the anniversary (July, instead of New Years' Eve), several of the French soldiers were female, and there was a suspiciously large contingent of British troops. (And a couple of Austrian grenadiers, played by actual Austrians, whom everybody seemed glad to see.) The Prussian 6-pdr cannon was actually an old Soviet 85mm tank cannon, sawed off at a length somewhere between a cannon and a howitzer, and it was either kind of gun, depending upon whom you asked.

Still, everybody seemed to have fun. A horrendous rainstorm broke that evening; actually quite beautiful with the lightning zinging around the clifftops and the thunder echoing down the Rhine valley. We all stayed under shelter, ate Flammkuchen, and got drunk.

I think old Blücher would have been Okay with it.

PS – I just noticed that you cross-posted this to the Zombies board. Heh.

"This enthusiast was dressed as a Scottish northern Highlander"

Well, you don't get too many southern Highlanders.

The cavalry looked great.

wyeayeman

6000 is quite good actually. I wish I had been there. But yes, this is NOT history, as you point out – it is re-enacting history without the death and suffering.

You obviously do not like re-enacting. So what? A lot of people don't like re-enacting. But a lot of people do. I was an active re-enactor a few years ago and I really enjoyed it, which is what it is all about, in my opinion – enjoying history. Hold on, in case you get upset, I should have said – enjoying RE-ENACTING history.

But come on, you can't knock something JUST because YOU don't like it. Are you SILLY to play wargames? A lot of non-wargamers will certainly think so. But those that do wargame, enjoy wargaming, in the same way that those who re-enact enjoy re-enacting, and some do both.

And apart from that, anything that brings our wonderful period into the public eye, gets my vote any day. So chill out, stick with your wargaming. No one will force you dress up or grow a moustache – honest.

a dozen hefty fellas just look daft pretending to be a regiment

Oi… plenty of people like those chunky miniatures from Front Rank and Foundry and big battalions are expensive!

It all looks like good clean (not much dirt on those uniforms) fun to me.

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My biggest problem with those pictures are the fact that french soldiers drink beer!!!

Whats they point of spending a billion dollars on uniforms if you break charcter. French should be drinking wine or brandy!!

I have no problem with reenactment, if i could aford it i would get a hussar uniforms, but i don't have a bazlillion bucks to pay for it.
Good for reeanctors to have found a hobby even more expencive then wargaming.

I have long since resolved not to throw stones when it comes to anyone else's hobbies.

(Okay, maybe My Little Pony enthusiasts, I'd probably throw a stone or two there, I'm not made of iron).

Good post Gazzola.

I've been quite happy to dress up in uniform professionally – in fact I sported a fine set of medals in Ian McKellen's Richard III. Although I'd rather act a soldier than re-enact one, I applaud the time and money re-enactors invest in their hobby. When I've had the chance to chat, they've always been very knowledgeable, articulate and interested in learning and sharing. Talking with a female 'camp follower' about available clothes dyes, springs to mind. It seems to me that re-enactors try to learn more about history by trying to involve themselves in history. Just like wargamers putting together an army, the research and putting together of the costume and kit must be half the fun. It has never struck me that they pretend to be soldiers – just as wargamers don't pretend to be generals when they command their armies. Unlike actors, of course, who really do pretend.

For Napoleonic Wars and re-enacting fans

YouTube link

YouTube link

Good post Gazzola (although I've never re-enacted personally). Even if there was lots of SHOUTING.

Gazzola and friends.
Wargaming/playing with toy soldiers IS essentially rather silly though isn't it. And hey, if dressing up and pretending, floats their boat, then I am not going to spoil their fun.
But most of them don't look anything like what they are supposed to look like, close sometimes, but no historically accurate cancer stick.
Some of them do take themselves rather too seriously – and I have met many ditto wargamers.
A couple of those dudes looked as though they could barely walk to the corner shop, let alone retreat from Moscow Sheesh. reminds me of that fat bloke who was in the film Gettysburg which didn't do him, the film, or history any favours.
(gun freak, they are pretending to be Frenchmen in Germany, drinking beer seems quite accurate…)

And besides, if I can't knock something just because I don't like it (for a whole host of reasons) to whom do I apply to for permission to knock it???
It's my opinion, nobody else should care that much.

Last time I was in Paris, there was a lot of beer drinking going on.

Why the remarks about fat guys? I guess you think it's cool.

You are such a superior example of manhood, that the retreat from Moscow would be like a walk to the corner store.

Just simply do not see the controversy in re-enactment. People are strangely judgmental.

I'm always amused by the disproportionate number of sappers in spectacles. Overweight "real ale" types who want to dress up but can't bear to shave the beard off.

Come on folks. Kids of the age of Napoleonic recruits are not going to dress up in fancy rig, camp in a field and blaze away with smoky noisy weapons. They can do all that these days on a PC (and far more realistically). The lads anyway (I have three) have greater priorities, as did we at that age.

So it is their dads (maybe their Moms too) who have the time and money for the kit to turn up to such events. They do no harm. They do remind me just how dark uniform colours should be, if we ignore scale considerations. 6,000 is a dream! I watched Waterloo this Sunday pm for the first time in months, as I have been giving Sergei B such a hard time, in this forum, for his awful direction. It is better than I thought……

Pure Modellers think we are highbrow artists and scoff at the wargamers and their rulers and dice. Everyone mocks the re-enactors, especially when they struggle to waddle their way up Cemetery Ridge in a movie. None of us have the waists we had 30 or 40 years ago (mind you wargamers do seem to universally be so badly turned out, is there a new thread in that?)

Gazzola, good post.

Wyeayeman, an opinion like yours coming out in a miniature wargaming page is the silliest thing one could expect to read about reenacting in a miniature wargaming page (a common reference to reenactors here is to counsel somebody to look at them when asking for painting a given unit, for example, because it is widely known that reenactors take their matters seriously). BTW-If you want to be taken seriously, you'd better play wargames with full and correctly painted 1:1 scale miniatures in at least 600 miniature battalions on a real battle field. And of course you'd better have the darn exact unit, clad in their darn exact uniforms, to wargame any battle.

Maybe then you'd learn to appreciate the work of such half dozens of volunteers who spend money and time to reenact in the most appropiate way possible a particular unit. Or maybe then you'd expect to be mocked because you play with little toy soldiers while they endure long trips and less than perfect (at least) conditions to reenact a given battle, giving their time to share the knowledge they have worked hard to get, spending lots of money and time too, with passers by and casual observers who gain access to such knowledge without having to endure said conditions.

You wanna voice your opinion? Right! But do not offend or just get ready to be chastened yourself.

P.S.: no surprise that wyeayeman gets more stifles than posts he's made…

haha
Good post dogged

I really don't care if it's a hippie-meeting in the woods or some folks with fancy dress playing war. Pretty much everything that makes the people happy and that doesn't hurt anybody is alright to me.

I neither mind Wyeyes initial rant. Reenactment gone wrong can be one of the most bizarre experiences.

why the venom on re-enactors? I was one for 20 years (ACW federal army) and I am a combat veteran. I dont re=enact anymore, I has no thrill for me, and there is NO way an event can capture the blood y smell of getting shot up in an alley way in derka derka stan. I do however play with toy soldiers and always wil, I dont do moderns (for reasons of my own). but if someone wants to do WW1 for an impression, then so be it, more power to them. but its not for me, and I can think of no really good reason to be a part of it. so bring on the great war centennial, rememberances are fuelled by anniversaries, so are historical re-creations. and yesd I know I cant spell, 2 degrees and I cant spell, whatever

Three years as a reenactor aged 15-18.
Great times being quite shy as a teenager it helped find a lot of confidence especially hanging out with largely older blokes.
I think we often looked the part.. Not to men tubby lard arses to be seen. The French did have a huge monster Sapper though who took up the space of at least two normal soldiers. I remember at a "battle" in England.. Maybe at Richmond or Belvoir castle.. 45th and 33rd were together at least. We'd all be shout "shoot at the pioneer!" wouldn't go down.
Probably wouldn't have got back up again.

ECW guys… they were all kind of round, John Bull, types.

At its heart its that great oxymoron…living history!

wyeayeman

Some of them do live history as near as possible – just without the suffering and getting killed part, which is a bit of a negative side to our much-loved period.

Give it a go man. I reckon you'll enjoy it. What have you to lose?

Playing with toy soldiers is one thing, but pretending you are one – don't Psychiatrists have a treatment for that?

Really? Bald men fighting over a comb if you ask me.

There is a really good bit in the excellent 'Achtung Schweinhund …' by Harry Pearson about wargamers looking down on re-enactors. Well worth a read.

"Last time I was in Paris, there was a lot of beer drinking going on."

NONONONONONONNONONO!

Don't destroy my world view, frenchmen don't know what beer is, they drink wine, and brandy, NOTHING ELS!, not water, not beer, not coke, not juice(unless you concider wine a juice)

The beer drinkers stop in belgum, no beer has ever crosed the border over to france!! it's iligal to import under punishment og gilotine.

erm, sorry Gunfreak… link

Ok No1. I'm not a re-enactor. I have enough expensive hobbies to support. I don't need another one. But I do have several friends who are.

Why are these all old guys in the hobby and many of them are overweight (simple- Only old guys who have made the crawl up the ladder have the jobs to give them the disposable income to be able to afford the expensive hobby.
Most young guys are too involved in surviving the Employment and Job and Home and economic battlefield. Now, I can order $1,000 USD of minis without a thought. When I was 22 and fresh out of college I considered myself lucky if I could scrape together enough cash to buy 20 Scruby's for a total of $25.00 USD including postage.

When you're young the only subject you're really interested in is bluejean biology and being cool. Only later when you look back on your life, and the struggles, do you read about what people lived through in former ages and had to do and does it have value. Then you look at the dolorous roll of history, and the way people lived and you start to get involved. Only with time comes that maturity. I had my own experience with this. I'm overweight but not fat, and I'm out of shape, but not that bad. One day I had bought some Christmass trees and was going to plant them in the yard.

There were six of them.

They almost killed me.

I live in Northwest NJ on top of a mountain. The soil is mostly yellow clay with small stones in it. By small stones I mean stuff from pebbles to the size of your hand and bigger. It took me ALL DAY to excevate the 12 holes needed to plant those damn trees! Why twelve holes when I only had six trees? Simple. After I dug the whole and took out the rocks I found I had only about half as much dirt as I needed and I had to dig a second hole to get more dirt! Even when I spaced it out with fertilizer.

Now.. I live in the woods on top of a mountain. But in the colonial days, all of this was farmland, you can go wandering through the woods and find these long piles of stones running for miles through the woods. They're the old field fences that were formed each year when the earth threw up new stones into the fields and the farmers with their oxen dragged them on sleds to the edge of the field and dumped them there. They generally are about 6' high! Actually if you excavate down, they're about 3' below the surface!

The labor that those people did in clearing the land, scratching for their crops, living their lives, and eking out an existance guaranteed that if we had lived back then, most of us would have been dead and in the ground for twenty years.

A lot of my friends in re-enacting also do living history. Here persons today see the labor and hardship that persons lived with to just survive. If you want to read an Excellent book on this, readl Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's "The Midwife's Tale: The diary of Martha Ballard." It's the tale of a midwife on the "frontier" (upsatate New York) in the early republic.

Living History people, and re-enactors today are mostly the only people actually doing history, and presenting it for young people to see and observe, and touch and perhaps participate in. They are the only people trying to keep the past alive and not, as they are in schools and universities grooming yuppie puppies in an advanced sense of entitlement and how everything is "Bush's fault."

So yeah--- they got a bit more lard than Hood's scarecrows, and their uniforms are a bit more farby, and they're all a bit long in the tooth and wear glasses, and their wives are pudgy little dumplings too, but they know and love history and the past and try and carry it on for the sake of itself.

So howz bout you pull out your collection and let a few "Osprey Nazi's" pick apart your paint jobs and modelling skills.

A great post by OSchmidt.

Let me add that there are a good lot of reenactors (like me) that although enduring these hard times (unemployment, frozen wages, etc) still keep the thing going on. Usually reenactors are helpful people; they would gladly help with any doubt about paint jobs…

I've been to several re-enactments, for various periods, from the Colonial Era, to WW II. I learned a very great deal, each and every time, about their technology of each period, what they did, and why they did it that way, the culture, and the economy of those times (except, of course, for the WW II stuff). It is a chance to touch some history, to feel what their wool clothes were like, and why they were the way they were. I learned about the Fur Trade business, about animal furs, and why they created an industry (Beaver hats -- what the bid deal was with them, and even a bit about how they were made).

In the WW II re-enactment, a battle was portrayed. Germans held a hilltop, and they were dug in, and camouflaged rather well. The American GI's were marching up the hill, apparently clueless about the ambush they were walking into. It was quite chilling to watch it unfold. There were explosive charges planted prior to the event, and they were detonated to represent artillery, grenades, and tank guns -- the concussion force was quite strong on my chest, and though I was 20 feet from the nearest soldier, it felt like I was in the middle of the battle. Overall, the experience was quite scary. Dirt clods landed near me, and even some dirt spray fell on me, from the explosions. Seeing American Soldiers getting mowed down by the German MG's was chilling. The horrific noise from the gunfire, explosions, and men yelling, was as close I ever want to get to combat.

All of my re-enactment spectator visits educated me, and showed me a very great many things. I was able to reach out, and touch history, as the outfits were made by hand, and according to the period, for the earlier subjects. In a museum, everything is behind glass; you read signs posted, or you listen to an audio tape about what you are looking at. In a re-enactment, you get to talk with people who are extremely knowledable, and you get to reach out and touch historically accurate examples, no glass, no security guards standing between you, and the 'display', no audio tapes, no signs -- you can even ask questions, and get answers directly, from multiple experts. There is no comparison between a museum, and a re-enactment, as far as what you can do, and learn.

Try before you condemn. It may look 'odd' from a distance, but you may find it quite enjoyable, if you step beyond your pre-conceived ideas, and give it a chance. Cheers!

Let's be kind to wyeayeman. Unless I am mistaken his nom de plume suggests he lives an hour's drive north of me. We are meeting our two lads on Saturday…they are re-enacting being first year university students in Newcastle, which seems to involve drinking large quantities of beer. Pistols, with seconds, under Grey's Monument?

Let's be kind to everybody…..except maybe for those who insist on wearing SS rig……..

Sigh. Wyeayeman's issues with living history/reenacting are his own opinion, which he is permitted to have. Everybody needs _somebody_ to look down upon, I suppose. So to give him another reason to live by having still another person to despise who will henceforth electronically ignore his posts…Number One, all Stifle banks, engage!

I said my say on re-enacting and living history and didn't cover half of what I wanted, but I said my say.

One point Capncarp brings up though. I would never stifle anyone Don't believe in it. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and a person must have his say or we make less than a person of him.

And thanks to the Leipzig remembrance and re-enactment, our wonderful period has been mentioned and put into the public eye world wide, via TV News channels and online.

However, it was a bit disappointing hearing on one News channel that Napoleon was captured after Leipzig but managed to escape! But I suppose we can't expect them to get everything right.

And when I was re-enacting there seemed more younger people than old, although perhaps that's a sign of me getting old and almost everyone else looked younger than me.

And I'm not a big drinker myself, but I'm pretty sure the mention of beer drinking will probably attract newcomers to re-enacting and possibly history in general, as will as the fact that women also re-enact. Oh to be young again!

When I started re-enactment in the mid 70s there was only a few re-enactment group around, and if you look at the old photos we all have, we all looked rubbish,by todays standards, just as bad as the wargames figures of that era.

Uniforms, weapons and amour made out of the wrong materials,
have over the decades of research,handling,using,wearing and drilling with better and better reproductions we hope we have come to some think more than just dressing up,giving us and them that talk to us a little window on history.

Remember that most of the best figure designers have come from a re-enactment background.

There is one thing I do have a personal problem with is re-enacting periods where the real combatants are still alive.
Do we have any rights to wear the uniform, the insignia, the rank and/or the medals?

When my wife ask me why I war game I always reply by asking her, "would you rather have me out at the bars late getting drunk or in the back room painting toy soldiers and gamming with them." She always reply, "You don't drink". Then I say "exactly my point." War gamming keeps me out of trouble. After 22 years of marriage that line might be working as well. :)

reeves! you havn't wargamed untill you've tried to paint hussars with 8 shots of whisky under the belt.

Love it OShmidt!
One thing I'd like to know. How do they pick who's going to be Napoleon?
Every year my wife and I and our pack of dogs go down to the Lincoln steam rally in the caravan for the weekend. It's not just traction engines, there are all sorts of classic vehicles including military. It's a great event to visit if you are anywhere near. There is one group who exhibit who are an SS re-enactment group and they are about the only group who are young(ish).
It really amuses me the way the one in the officer suit struts around like he thinks he really IS an SS commandant. Especially as he stands about five foot nothing!

The SS re-enactors with there short officer have probably got it about right,if you have ever seen the gangsters that ran the Nazi Party all prefect examples of the Aryan race!

Getting a bit off Napoleonics but it is fun to work out how many of the Nazi hierarchy would have met (Waffen) SS selection criteria. Fat guy with a drug habit running the airforce, congenital talipus equine varus (club foot) running propaganda, Gay and fat running SA, Jewish ancestry (suspicion) in Heinrich H, mad as a march hare and his own Me 110, little guy with atherosclerosis and dodgy facial hair plus awful barnet………..(London phrase……means hair)

Wyeayeman has chickened out of the challenge. Just driven to Newcastle and back but still, there I'll be on Saturday! Loaded pistols under Grey's Monument……(maybe not)

deadhead,

The suspicion of Jewish ancestry related to Reinhard Heydrich, not Himmler.

Jurgen

Now then, cards on table – I used to do dressing up (37th Foot 1775) and used to do guard mounts at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. However, my TA Regiment recently reburied two Great War veterans in Flanders and our sombre military ceremony, with relatives of the fallen, was gatecrashed by an uninvited overfed chump in a shoddy replica World War One uniform getting in the way and trying, badly, to do foot drill for the assembled press. He should have been taken around the corner and shot.

Deadhead, I might have come after you if it had been sabres!

I can understand Napoleonic re-enactment, ECW, Roman etc because they are to do with our (British) history, but I don't really understand how you can re-enact the ACW here or Why anyone would want to re-enact the SS or WHATt they would re-enact. the weird thing was, they actually seemed proud of the wide berth the public were giving them.

Another time we were on our way up to Scarborough and got lost so we pulled into a lay-by beside the river just outside York. Whilst we were sat there, a Vauxhall Corsa pulled up and these five enormous vikings squeezed themselves out of it, straightened up their outfits, put on their helmets and made their way down to a boat -presumably their "longship" on the river.
It was all quite surreal and we just sat there, mouths open until they rowed off. At the finish, I looked at my wife and said "Well that was strange."
"How do you mean?" she asked me.
"Well<" I said, "I'd have thought they' have been in a Volvo."

And still nobody has explained how they decide who gets to be Napoleon.

Having spent my entire adult life so far in the army, I can never quite understand why anyone would:

1. Want to do it for fun

2. Think that what they do is actually anything like the real thing.

Actually, my point 1 is somewhat in fun itself as, since I have been in the UK, I have discoved airsoft, which is great fun.

However, I do quite enjoy seeing the reenactors, even if I find some of them rather too intense.

The SS reenactors, though, are a very different story; I really cannot understand either their motivation or their values. Maybe I am biased, but I cannot understand why anyone would want to dress up as a member of the SS unless they shared some of the philosophy and values of that organisation.

Who gets to be Napoleon? The one who is a Napoleonic wargamer!

Jurgen

Flecktarn, what can I say? Apologies…….How did I type that? Reinhard and Heinrich might seem too similar, but that was careless……apologies. I have just finished reading HH and watched my video of Operation Daybreak (sic, that was what they called the film…was it not Anthropoid?).

The chicken farmer and the disgraced naval officer are not easily confused. I did it!

It must seem odd to many of us with what was clearly, man for man, the best ground army of WWII, worshipped a bunch that clearly were not models of Aryan fitness. OK I suppose Churchill or Stalin did not work out too much. Let's face it Boney's lads were maybe not too impressed when he failed to seek a glorious death by turning back at the bottom of the ridge in 1815………we all age.

As for SS, this might seem odd (very) but there are Neo Nazi Groups now in both Russia and Israel…I do not mean ultra nationalist…I mean Neo Nazi. I am deadly serious……they dress up, they salute etc…..in Israel and Russia……..

Our Grandson has just finished training Jurgen. He is now a member of the Grenadier Guards and will be taking part in the trooping of the colours next year. We have been invited down as his guests and will have posh seats in the stands. We are so proud of him!
As for playing with history, I don't suppose anyone does THAT quite as much as the spin doctors of its' winners.

Mal,

I can fully understand your pride; the Grenadier Guards are a regiment known around the world and have a history that is envious. I hope that you have a great day there; I was fortunate to be able to attend this year and will do so again next year unless I have managed my escape back to the Fatherland. Nobody does that sort of event better than the British!

Jurgen

deadhead,

I have seen reports about the Neo-Nazis in Russia and Israel. Russia I can understand to an extent because they have a history of anti-semitism and xenophobia, but Israel is totally baffling.

The nature of German support for the Nazis is a fascinating study and one that deeply interests me for family reasons. Hitler seems to have had a profound ability to influence people and the German people were in an ideal situation to be influenced; hurting from defeat in the EWK, suffering from rampant inflation and unemployment, in the grip of a simmering low level civil war and, being German, desperate for anyone who could bring order from the chaos. Unfortunately, the only person who seemed to be able to do that was Hitler.

Jurgen