Marengo

A film fragment about Marengo

Napoleon at Toulon

In 1793 Napoleon made name for himself for the first time.

Hornblower in 1795

This is just a small part of Hornblower, the series. The landing at Quiberon and the attack of the "frogs"

Arcole 1796

After the 15mm figures, a movie fragment again; this time a part of the Napoleon TV serie presenting the storming of the Arcole Bridge in 1796. Not historically correct maybe (look at eg the Austrian artillery uniforms), but nice

The French revolution (2)

While on the subject of Youtube (what would we be without it??), another filmfragment about the revolution.

Although maybe not all the uniform information is correct (eg the French regular army still existed at the 1792 Battle of Valmy and was clothed in their Bourbon white uniforms), it gives a great picture of the revolutionary period. Oh, and it is proven to all wargamers now that overhead artillery fire is possible.

As the revolution gained momentum, the heads of the Royal family were chopped off.
Here, the execution of Marie Antoinette.

The French revolution

As said, I like the French revolution as a wargames period.
The be precise, I like the earlier years (1792-1795) of this period the most, but the later period (1796-1801) has also its attractions.

So this blog will be a long and maybe advanturous journey to accomplish the task of building up the armies of the revolution. And a difficult one it will be because on this moment I even don't know which figure scale I will chose, only that it will be 15mm or 25/28mm.

I admire people who game in smaller scales (6 and 10mm) and I have seen beautiful games in these scales but one way or the other they don't have the same attractions to me as the above mentioned scales. 20mm would suit me, but there are no metal figures for it and plastics......., well, are plastic.


Trying to find a good name for this blog, I came accross some French Revolutionary songs. Le Marseillaise every body knows (and is still the French national anthem). But a more agressive song of those earlies years is Ca ira. From an old French movie, this is Edith Piaf while storming the kings palace. A Youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9VoRmjxvPs

But of course, the Marseillaise (or in fact more correctly "Le chant de guerre de l'Armee du Rhin" or marching song of the Rhine army)  has to be included when blogging about the French Revolution.

The above is from a 1938 french film via Youtube.

And then of course we have Marianne, which for me always symbolised the revolutionary period. But: the painting is from the 1830 revolution, not the 1789 one.