This year it has been yet
another very difficult one for me, as I once again have lost my painting mojo.
With the war still going on in the Ukraine and now it seems that HaT in America have given up producing any new figures, my armies and my hobby seems to be dead at this point, as there is nothing to look forward too. I should consider on go to a wargame show next year as I have not been to one since 2019. I would love to start doing a campaign at home, but my house is too small to do so.
After doing so well in 2020 with my painting it all came to a halt in August of that year. I did start painting my British 2nd Dragoons (Scots Greys) and I am near finishing nine horses with twelve troopers. But they have remained on my painting table for such a long time now I wonder if I will ever finish them. I have also failed to do anything on my blog this year but hope to do somethings for next year once again. So many thanks for those who take a look at my blog now and again. I have had a total of 91842 page views to date which is fantastic, well for me anyway.
I would like to thank you all for looking at the Generals blog and so I do hope that you all have a lovely time over the Christmas period and I would like to wish you and your family
A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS
At last I have brought my set of The Battle of Waterloo 2015 commemorative set of stamps via ebay which only took two days to deliver them to me. The British Post Office made a set of stamps to mark the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, I had completely forgotten about these at the time. But now they are in my stamp collection.
The landscape stamps are:
The defence of Hougoumont
The Scots Greys during the
charge of the Union Brigade
The French cavalry’s assault
on allied defensive squares
The defence of La Haye Sainte
by the King’s German Legion
The capture of Plancenoit by
the Prussians
The French Imperial Guard’s
final assault
The horizontal stamps are:
92nd Gordon
Highlanders
Light Infantry King’s German
Legion
Prussian Infantryman
French Imperial Guard Grenadier
These stamps look great but I
wonder how many people collect stamps these days?
Now as you know I am not much of a reader but I have brought another
book this time by Christopher Hibbert “Waterloo”. At
the moment it is being sold in The Works (UK) for £3 but I found this book
unread and for only £1 in a book shop while I was on holiday in Norfolk last
month.
This paperback has
324 pages which includes an introduction, with chapters on Napoleon, Wellington
and the allied armies and Blucher and his army and then the battles of Ligny,
Quatre Bras and then Waterloo.
I can add this book
to two others that need reading. When this will happen I have no Idea but they
are ready and waiting.
.jpg) |
| Copenhagen as painted in his retirement by Samuel Spode. |
Wellington’s chestnut stallion
Copenhagen was the Duke's war horse, which he most famously rode at the Battle
of Waterloo. Copenhagen was born in 1808 and was named in honour of the British
victory at the Second Battle of Copenhagen. Copenhagen was of mixed Thoroughbred
and Arabian parentage.
He stood 15 hands high and had a muscular physique on a small compact frame in fact he was a racing horse. He was bread by the Derby winner John Bull and his sire Meteor having finished second in the Derby in 1786. Copenhagen did race in England for a short period, winning just two races and finishing at least third in nine races out of his 12 career starts.
The then General Grosvenor sold Copenhagen to Sir Charles Vane in 1812 and was sent to Lisbon in 1813 with a contingent of other horses due to Vane's service as an adjutant-general in the Peninsular War. When Sir Charles left Spain to join the Allied armies in Germany, Copenhagen was sold to Colonel Charles Wood (Colonel Gordon, who died at Waterloo) for 200 or 250 guineas, The Colonel bought the five year old Copenhagen and another horse for the Duke of Wellington. Wellington rode him throughout the Peninsular Campaign, particularly at Vitoria and in the Pyrenees but he had some fifteen other horses from which to choose.
Wellington described him as "a dark chestnut with two white heels, [he was] a hollow-backed, powerful horse" but reportedly had "bad shoulders." Copenhagen allegedly "never refused his corn" but had an unusual habit of eating while lying down. Wellington said of Copenhagen, "There may have been many faster horses, no doubt many handsomer, but for bottom and endurance I never saw his fellow." His "enduring qualities" were often attributed to his "Arabian blood."
Wellington on Copenhagen, painted by Thomas Lawrence.
Becoming his favourite,
Copenhagen was the Duke's mount in the Battle of Waterloo which actually made
the horse’s reputation. Wellington rode Copenhagen in a number of battles.
Before Waterloo he took him on his hazardous ride to Wavre to liaise with
Marshal Blücher. during the Battle of Waterloo, Copenhagen carried the Duke's for
17 hours continuously during the battle. Immediately after the battle, from
which Wellington emerged uninjured, Wellington dismounted and patted Copenhagen
on the flank, causing the horse to kick towards the Duke's head, which the Duke
narrowly avoided. Copenhagen continued to be
Wellington's primary horse during the occupation of France.
Retirement and death
The Duke continued to ride Copenhagen in parades and other ceremonial events after the battle. Hair from the horse was made into jewellery. The horse was retired to the Duke's Stratfield Saye House and lived as a pensioner there for the remainder of his long life in 1828. Copenhagen was said to, "liked being noticed" and "kissed hands and ate his apples with all possible grace." Copenhagen died from reportedly due to indulging in too many sugary "dainties" such as "sponge cakes, bath buns and chocolate creams," but he most likely died due to his advanced age.
Despite becoming deaf and
blind, he was given the very best care until his death. He died on 12 February
1836 at the age of 28 years. He was buried very early in the morning the next
day with full military honours in the Ice-House Paddock at the Duke's country
residence, Stratfield Saye House. The Duke personally witnessed the horse's
burial and reportedly "flew into a most violent passion" when he
noticed that one of Copenhagen's hooves had been cut off as a souvenir. The
Duke reportedly exhumed Copenhagen's body a few months after his death to
retrieve the other hooves as keepsakes, but "his three remaining hoofs had
rotted away." The pilfered hoof was eventually recovered. According to one
source, a farmer bought the hoof for a little over three shillings and returned
the hoof directly to the Duke. In another account, a servant confessed to the
Duke's son many years after the incident to taking the hoof, stating that at
the time, "None of us imagined that the first Duke would trouble his head
about the carcase of the horse." The returned hoof was later made into an
ink-stand by the second Duke.
Copenhagen was buried without a headstone, and a few years after his death, the Duke was asked by the United Services Museum to disinter his body so that Copenhagen's skeleton could be publicly displayed alongside the skeleton of Napoleon's horse Marengo. The Duke refused and claimed that he did not "know for sure where Copenhagen was buried," The paddock where he was buried at one time had "a noble cluster of elms in the centre" and his grave was once surrounded by a small railing.
His grave site is marked with
a marble headstone that stands under a Turkey Oak planted in 1843 by the elder
Duke's housekeeper Mrs. Apostles. A lead plaque with the inscription and
"some coins of George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria" were buried
at the grave site. The inscription reads:
Here Lies
COPENHAGEN
The Charger ridden by
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON
The entire day at the
BATTLE OF WATERLOO.
Born 1808. Died 1836
God's humbler instrument
though meaner clay
Should share the glory of
that glorious day.
