No. 27  October  2007

Dirk Smith, Editor

1  EDITORIAL

2  FEATURED ARTICLE

Why do we prefer historical wargaming over the equivalent intellectual challenge of Chess? Part of the answer lies in the colorful panoply of the armies, with their widely varying equipment, training, traditions, and morale. Just as large a part lies in the intricacies of terrain. The art of war has always involved understanding the land, and exploiting its features for military advantage, perhaps never more so than in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In our era of easy and inexpensive travel, we have the opportunity to enhance and enrich our grasp of military history and the challenges faced by the captains of old: we can walk the hallowed ground, stand where heroes stood, and see much of what they saw, up close and in three dimensions.

Living and working in Europe for 15 of the last 20 years (1987-94, 1997-2002, 2004-07), I spent innumerable weekends and parts of most summers in the highly enjoyable pursuit of military tourism. I would like to share a bit of what I learned, in the hope that these pointers may help you to plan rewarding expeditions exploring the campaigns and regions of your choice.

Pointer #1: Read up on the campaign in advance!
If, like most of us, you work for a living and have neither infinite time nor infinite funds at your disposal, you will want to use your limited vacation time (and funds) efficiently. The first step is to seek out good, detailed accounts of the campaign in question. For my taste, the works of F. Loraine Petre are unbeatable for the campaigns he covers: Napoleon’s Conquest of Prussia 1806, Napoleon’s Campaign in Poland 1806-1807, and Napoleon and the Archduke Charles (on the 1809 Danube Campaign) guided me through several trips. I also recommend Scott Bowden’s Napoleon and Austerlitz, and Peter Hofschröer’s 1815: The Waterloo Campaign. I made two visits to Marengo, one after reading only David Chandler’s The Campaigns of Napoleon, and one with James R. Arnold’s Marengo and Hohenlinden: Napoleon’s Rise to Power in hand. The second expedition was so much more rewarding than the first that I wrote to Dr. Arnold to express my appreciation (I also pointed out that the photo on page 161 was erroneously captioned, as it showed the village of Montecastello, rather than Castelceriolo – even good authors can make mistakes!). The time spent studying a detailed account multiplies your enjoyment of the trip, as you learn so much more about the localities, the episodes that occurred at each place, and the personalities that lived those anecdotes. Compared to the cost of travel, books are inexpensive, so buy good ones! As I read through a book, I make notes, linking locations I might want to visit with the page numbers in the book where episodes at that location are described. For example, regarding Arthur Chuquet’s Hondschoote, I noted: “6 September 1793, Rexpoëde: 198-9 Hanoverians try to retreat from Wylder through Rexpoëde (French-held), night ambush on the road to Wylder. 201-4 Austro-Hanoverian attack on Rexpoëde by the Bergues highway.” Using these notes, when I am on the trip, and I arrive at Rexpoëde, I can instantly turn to the pertinent pages of Chuquet for a reminder of what to look for in and around the village. If you can find a copy, and can read French, the Répertoire Mondial des Souvenirs Napoléoniens by Chappet, Martin, Pigeard, and Robe (S.P.M., Paris, 1993), now out of print, is a treasury of sites worth visiting.

Pointer #2: Get good maps!
In the first place, detailed maps with every village marked are necessary for following the course of a campaign or battle in your preliminary reading. The maps included in a good history are useful, but rarely adequate; they must be supplemented. For tracing a campaign, a national road atlas in a scale of 1:100,000 to 1:250,000 is ideal. These are widely and cheaply available; on my first day in the Czech Republic or Poland, I had no trouble walking into a department store book section and coming out with a splendid road atlas for $5-$10. For detailed exploration of a battlefield, you will want topographic maps in a scale of 1:50,000 or 1:25,000. In some cases, these can be ordered over the Internet. I have often just gone to the leading bookstore in the biggest nearby town (for instance, Brno for Austerlitz), which almost invariably stocks topographic maps of the region. There are some specialized stores where topographic maps of an entire country can be found for sale under one roof: for Germany, try Landkarten Schwarz, Kornmarkt 10-14, in Frankfurt (just a block from Goethe’s house); for Belgium, go to the retail outlet of the Institut Géographique National at Abbaye de la Cambre 13, in Brussels. One of the greatest inventions of recent times is the highlighter pen in assorted colors: these allow you to clearly mark locations of historic interest on your road atlases and topo maps, without obscuring details needed for navigation. In some countries, notably Poland and the Czech Republic, you face an additional challenge: historical maps and accounts will give the contemporary, often German names for towns, villages, and rivers, while modern maps list the current name. For instance, the pleasant town of Austerlitz is now “Slavkov na Brno.”

Pointer #3: Bring the right equipment!
Along with your books and maps, you will want a good compass, invaluable when navigating the countryside. Technologically sophisticated travelers may want to invest in a GPS guidance system; I confess that I never advanced that far! Much of your time will be spent on small country roads, so you want a car that can handle a bit of mud without getting stuck. You will also be tramping fields, hills, and woods on foot, so you want rugged, well-broken-in hiking boots. It has rained at least once in every week that I spent on military touring in Europe, so good rain gear is a priority: I recommend a good Gore-Tex rain suit (hooded jacket and pants), Wellington boots, and a sturdy umbrella. You will surely want to take photographs. Make sure that you are thoroughly familiar with your camera and accessories, and that you have taken and processed successful photos, before your trip: your one visit to Austerlitz is not the time to be fiddling with a manual, or to have your pictures spoiled by a technical glitch! I also carry a small notebook in my camera bag, in which I note down the location and subject of every frame right after I shoot it. My wife’s irreverent comment that “a picture of an empty field looks just like any other empty field” unfortunately carries some truth, even if that particular field saw the epic charge of the Chasseurs à Cheval de la Garde against the Russian Guard Cavalry.

Pointer #4: Travel flexibly!
As it is difficult to know exactly what you will see along the way, what will stimulate your interest, and exactly where you will spend your time, it pays to be flexible. I prefer not to be tied to pre-set hotel reservations. As I was living in Europe, I could easily load my car with a tent, camping/cooking gear, and canned food (along with a carton or two of books and maps) and be largely self-sufficient for a weekend or a week. For most European countries, you can find an inexpensive paperbound campground guide, updated annually, with a title like “Camping-Caravanning France” or “Italia Camping Caravanning;” the French version lists over 10,000 sites, and you can usually find a clean if unpretentious campground within 10 kilometers. On rare occasions I have camped “rough” (not at an authorized campsite) in France and Italy; picking a discreet piece of unused ground, setting up late, and leaving early, I have never been bothered by police, criminals, or landowners (one does miss the hot showers, though!). It is also usually possible to find a small-town hotel with a vacancy; most battlefield tourism takes place far away from the overcrowded and overpriced tourist cities. If you are flying in from another continent, it might be wise to rent a small camping van. This saves you the time and trouble of setting up and taking down a tent, and is more waterproof for those occasional rainy nights!

Pointer #5: Enjoy!
For a military history enthusiast, there can be few greater delights than standing on the Santon Hill or the Pratzen Heights at Austerlitz. When visiting a site made familiar by wargaming, such as the Napoleonshohe Hill near Abensberg, Bavaria, I could almost visualize giant hexagons painted on the fields! With good planning, imagination, and a spirit of adventure, battlefield tourism in Europe will reward your investment many times over.

References:
http://www.napoleon-series.org (select Military, then Virtual Battlefields)
http://www.wargame.ch/wc/nwc/newsletter/Travel_Supplement/NEwsletterTRV02/

3  NEWS & DISPATCHES

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6  LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

RECEIVED: 4 September 2007