Dad's Army TV Series

It’s a shame that we learned yesterday that then actor Clive Dunn has died at the age of 92. He lived in Portugal and died after complications following an operation. He played Corporal Jones in the much loved TV show Dad’s Army.

 

The TV Series Dad’s Army ran from 1968 to 1977 by the BBC and ran for a total of twelve seasons watched by an audiences excess of 13 million each week. They also made a film in 1971.

The first series was in Black and white before going colour. Dad’s Army was a fictional south coast seaside town of Walmington-on-sea during WWII about a platoon of the Home Guard.

Each week the platoon, commanded by Captain Mainwaring, would attempt to protect England against a German invasion. The platoon consisted of Mainwaring, Wilson and Pike, they all worked at the bank, while Jones was the Butcher. Hodges, the Air raid warden, was the Greengrocer, Fraser was a Undertaker and Walker the local spiv and black marketer. Most of the outside shots were filmed in Norfolk and Suffolk. 

I loved watching the show and loved the characters being played in them. It had great humour and catchphrases like Corporal Jones “Don’t panic” and “They don’t like it up ‘em” and Mainwaring’s “Stupid boy”. I still watch the repeats and I think it’s a show that I will always watch again and again.

Farm Complete

At last I have been able to go and visit my brother’s house in Ramsgate, Kent and to pick up my last Hornby building, the Derelict Farm House.

You might have seen a couple of entries ago, that my kind brother went to the Hornby shop and picked up the building for me. 

This now completes my farm buildings in this set and I cannot wait to get all of the set out to have a really good look. Time to think about the walls which will go around it.

Marshals and Generals

FRENCH MARSHAL 

Edouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier  

Born: 1768 LeCateau-Cambresis, France 

Died: 1835 Paris, France  

Rank: Marshal of France

Edouard Mortier was born at the Le Cateau-Cambresis on 13^thFebruary 1768, son of Charles Mortier and mother Marie Anne Joseph Bonnaire and at the age of 23 Mortier entered the army as a sub-lieutenant in 1791 after his job as a clerk to a merchant at Dunkirk. There he learned the Spanish language, and behaved remarkably well.

He served in the French Revolutionary Wars in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793 on the north-eastern frontier and in the Netherlands and on the Meuse and the Rhine. 

In the war against the Second Coalition in 1799, he was promoted successively general of brigade to general of division. During the Second Battle of Zurich, Mortier led a force of 8000 troops in the attack from Dieticon on Zurich. His conduct of the French occupation of Hanover, bringing about the Convention of Artlenburg, led Napoleon to include Mortier in the first list of marshals created in 1804.

Mortier commanded a corps of the Grande Armee in the Ulm campaign in which he distinguished himself. In the campaign of the middle Danube in the battle of Austerliz, Napoleon placed him in command of a newly-formed VIII Corps. He over-extended his line of march on the north shore of the Danube and failed to take napoleon’s advice to protect his north flank. A combined force of Russian and Austrians, under over-all command of Mikhail Kutuzov enticed Mortier to send his 2^nd Division into a trap where the French troops were caught in a valley between two Russian columns. They were rescued by the timely arrival of a second division, under commend of Pierre Dupont de L’Etang’s 1^st Division, which covered a day’s march in half a day.

On November 11^th in 1805 the Battle of Durrenstein fought well into the night. Both sides claimed a victory, the French lost more than a third of the participants, while Gazan’s division had over 40% losses. The Austrians and Russians also had heavy losses, close to 16%. After Austerliz, Napoleon dispersed the Corps and Gazan received the Legion of Honor, but Mortier was simply reassigned to a new position.

In 1806 Mortier was serving in Hanover and north-western Germany. In 1807 he then again served with the Grande Armee in the Friedland campaign, in the siege of both Stralsund and Kolberg.

In 1808, Napoleon created him Duke of Trevise in his own Kingdom of Italy, and shortly after he commended and army corps in Napoleon’s campaign for the recapture of Madrid.

Mortier remained in Spain for two campaigns, winning the victory of Ocana in November 1809. In 1812 and 1813 he commanded the Imperial Guard, and in the defensive campaigns of 1814 he rendered brilliant services in command of rearguards and covering detachments.

In 1815, after the flight of the Bourbon King Louis XVIII of France, he rejoined Napoleon during the 100 days and was given commend of the Imperial Guard once more. But at the opening of the Battle of Waterloo he was unable to continue his duties due to severe sciatica. 

After the second Bourbon Restoration he was for the first time in disgrace, but then in 1819 he was readmitted to the Chamber of Peers and in 1825 received the Order of the Holy Spirit, the Kingdom’s highest.

In 1830-31 he was Ambassador of France to Russia at St Petersburg, and in 1834-35 minster of war and president of the council of ministers.

It was on the 28th July 1835 in Paris while accompanying Louis-Philippe and his three sons to a review of the National Guard, a machine consisted of twenty-five barrels, charged with various species of missiles, which were fired simultaneously by a train of gunpowder with intent to destroy the French king. The king and his sons escaped but Marshal Mortier, was shot dead, and many more were dangerously wounded. Such were the circumstances under which one of after escaping the perils of the battle-field, perished in a time of peace, in the streets of the capital. It is said that the king bitterly mourned him, and wept openly at the marshal’s funeral. 

Mortier was Married to Eve Anne Hymmes on 26 January 1799 and is said that they had seven children.



Birthday Boy

It was my Birthday a few days ago and yet another year has flown by and getting nearer to that BIG 60th. The good news is that I did get a nice piece of Terrain from my partner and it’s was from Conflix the 28mm model of the Money Lenders House.

Now I do have a few of Conflix buildings and although they should be for 28mm scale and for fantasy wargaming, I think that they will slot in very well with my Napoleonic figures. The village is now growing and I do love the new buildings that they have brought out and I hope that they will add to the collection.

Not wargame related but I also received the Walking Dead DVD Season One. I do love the series and looking forward to Season Three next year as I do not have Sky.

The French Charleville Musket

 

 

A French man named Marin le Bourgeoys made the first ever flintlock weapons for the King Louis XIII shortly after his accession to the throne in 1610. Throughout the 17^th century, the flintlock muskets were produced in a wide range of models.

In the year 1717, a flintlock musket for the French infantry was standardized. This became the very first standard flintlock to be issued to all infantry regiments.

Although it was more correctly called a French infantry musket or French pattern musket, these flintlock muskets later became known as “Charleville muskets”, named after the armoury Charleville-Mezieres in the Ardennes, France. The musket was also in production at Tulle, St Etienne, Maubeuge Arsenal and many other sites.

The Charleville musket’s design was changed several times during its service in the army from 1717-1839 some 150,000 muskets were made until the percussion lock system made the flintlock obsolete.

The Charleville muskets had a smooth bore barrel some 60 inches in length. Rifles were more accurate than the smooth bore muskets, but the Military commanders favoured the smooth bores on the battlefield, since the round from a rifle had to fit tightly into the barrel, and became very difficult to load after a few shots had been fired because the black powder used at the time quickly blocked the barrel.

The longer range and better accuracy of the rifle was also considered to be of little use on the battlefield that was quickly obscured by the black powder smoke. Like all smooth bore muskets, the Charleville was only accurate to about 50 to 100 meters.

The Charleville’s .69 caliber barrel was a little smaller than its main competitor, the .75 caliber Brown Bess produced by the British. The smaller round as intentionally chosen to reduce weight in the field, but still had enough mass to be effective as a military round. The French muskets were not used in battle like the modern rifle. Instead, the Charleville muskets were fired in mass formations.

The muskets barrel was held together by three barrel bands made of iron. This made the Charleville sturdier than the British Brown Bess musket, which used pins to hold the barrel in place. It also had a single barrel band at the bottom of the barrel which held the wooden ramrod. The butt of the musket was sometimes referred to as the “Patte de vache” (French for “cow’s foot”), as its shape was designed to be used as a club in hand to hand combat. The Stock was usually made out of Walnut. The musket was 60 inches in length and weighed about nine to ten pounds.

 

Charleville muskets were muzzle loaded, and used a flintlock firing mechanism. They fired a round lead ball, but could also fire other ammunition such as buck and ball or shot. The rate of fire would depend on the skill of the soldier this was about 3 shots per minute.

Changes to the musket in the 1740’s included the standardized use of a steel ramrod in 1743 and, after 1746, newly manufactured muskets had the pan/frizzen bridle removed.

In 1777 the musket went through another modification, with a cheek rest cut into the inboard side of the butt. The Model 1777 also featured a slanted brass flash pan and bridle, and a modified trigger guard with two rear finger ridges.