Fontenoy – my favourite battle painting

I remember many years ago seeing this picture for the first time on the covers of Charles Grant’s 1975 book  The Battle of Fontenoy in the Background Books for Wargamers and Modellers series.  To me the painting instantly reflected the feel of 18th century warfare, with its glorious colour and pageantry, its mannered politeness, and also its timeless horror. Click on the above picture (and the others in this posting) to see a much enlarged version.

Since then I’ve remained fascinated with Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux’s 1873 painting entitled The Battle of Fontenoy, 1745: The French and the Allies Confronting Each Other.  In fact, the first historical wargames troops I painted were the Gardes Françaises as shown in the painting [an embarrassed shrug at the quality of these early efforts at painting 25mm miniatures!].

But recently Philippoteaux’s painting came to my attention again when I stumbled across a second-hand copy of that same Charles Grant book that had started it all off for me way back when.

According to trusty old WikiPedia, the Battle of Fontenoy, 11 May 1745, was a major engagement of the War of the Austrian Succession, fought between the forces of the Pragmatic Allies – comprising mainly Dutch, British, and Hanoverian troops under the nominal command of the Duke of Cumberland – and a French army under Maurice de Saxe, commander of King Louis XV’s forces in the Low Countries.

The battle was one of the most important of the war, and is notable on several accounts: for the French it is a famous victory and the masterpiece of Marshal Saxe; for the British it is remembered for the stout-hardiness of their foot, and as one of the great infantry advances of the 18th century.

[above] Philippoteaux’s painting depicts a famous incident that took place during the battle.  A large Allied column had clambered up to the crest of a rise and found itself facing the first line of French infantry. The Gardes Françaises, along with several other French regiments, rose and advanced towards the crest, whereupon the two forces confronted each other at a distance of 30 paces.

Voltaire’s version of what happened next has become proverbial. He wrote that the English officers saluted the French by doffing their hats.  The French returned the greeting.  Then Lord Charles Hay, captain in the British Guards, cried, ‘Gentlemen of the French Guards, fire!’  The Comte d’Auteroche,  lieutenant of grenadiers, shouted back, ‘Gentlemen, we never fire first; fire yourselves!’

In the end, the French fired first, but the volley was somewhat ineffective, although it threw the Third Guards into some confusion and wounded George Churchill, the commander of the Guards brigade.

Captain Lord Panmure then led the unbroken companies of the Third Guards to the flank of the First Guards, and the Allied infantry fired a devastating discharge into the French. The volley of musketry, along with the battalion guns delivering numerous rounds of grape-shot, swept away the French front rank, killing and wounding between 700–800 men, reducing the rest to a shambles which were driven back by the British advance.

[above] These officers graciously take up the salute to their enemies.  I think the blue coats with ornate rococo trim and the red breeches and stockings worn by the officers of the Gardes Françaises reflect the epitome of the resplendent uniforms of the 18th century.

[above] The tall drum major stands steadfastly in front of his corps of drummers, some looking decidedly nervous.  Philippoteaux has carefully depicted the royal livery worn by the drummers – picking out that intricate lace pattern must have been a painstaking job for him.  Those drums look pretty big, too, compared with the drums in most wargames figure ranges.  Note also how the drummers are standing as a group massed behind the lines, rather than dotted in the lines as we wargamers so often have a tendency to do.

[above] One of my favourite characters in the painting is this sergeant using his spontoon held horizontally to keep the men in his company from shuffling back nervously under fire.

[above] Here’s another (but somewhat less energetic) NCO, standing behind his men.  You can also clearly see the flag of the Gardes Françaises fluttering above the line.

[above] The British line can be seen in the background of the painting.  Standing in front is Lord Hay, doffing his hat.  In actual fact, Lord Hay allowing his enemy to fire early was not as silly as it sounds, as it then left the French unloaded so that the British could at their leisure make ready and fire a much more telling volley.

Despite their diminutive size in the painting, the British redcoats are quite clearly wearing the distinctive blue breeches of the Guards. And if you look carefully, you can also see one of the battalion guns on the left.

[above] Notwithstanding its colour and pageantry, on an individual level war in the 18th century was just as nasty a business as at any other period in history.  Despite the eventual French victory, this guardsman will never return to his homeland, having met his end bloodily from a shot to the head.

*****

The day my favourite maker of 18th century figurines, Minden Miniatures, ever produces the Gardes Françaises (hopefully including that NCO shoving his men into line, and the gaudy officers in their stockings and breeches), I’ll be ordering myself a 60-man regiment!  Sadly I’ll probably be waiting a while for that to happen, as Minden are now planning to concentrate on the Prussian and Austrian theatre of the wars.

*****

Attribution for photo of painting: Valerie McGlinchey.

Finally completed – my family tree book

Over the last year I’ve been working on the second edition of  a booklet depicting my family tree on both my father’s ( Hermans) and my mother’s (van Dooren) sides.  In 2006 I wrote the first edition of Double Dutch, the history of the ancestors of Stephanus Hermans and Anne-Marie van Dooren, who migrated from the Netherlands to New Zealand in the early 1950s. 

This second edition, Double Dutch 2, corrects some errors in the first edition and adds new information that takes the story of my families further back into history.   My aim has been to carry my two direct family lines as far back as I can, and I must say I am pleasantly surprised how far back I’ve now been able to take them (the Hermans family to the late 1500s, and the van Doorens to the late 1600s). 

This edition was spurred by my making contact over the internet with several genealogy enthusiasts.   Most of my information for the last two centuries came from the very comprehensive Dutch birth, death and marriage records that date back to the time of Napoleon, and now freely available online at www.genlias.nl/en/ .  The most common sources for births in the earlier years of this history were church christening records.    

One challenge was the way that the same names repeat across the generations and across different branches of the family, leading to much confusion.  My ancestors’ names were usually registered in Latin, but the ‘call-names’ they actually used in day-to-day life were often Frenchified forms of one of these registered names.  On the other hand, the sensible Dutch custom of the wife keeping her maiden name at least made that part of the research so much easier!

Here’s the page showing my earliest known Hermans ancestors.  As you can see, I also made a fascinating detour into the world of maps,  which I think help us to understand a little more about the surroundings our ancestors lived in.  

I had as much fun with the design of the booklet as the research. I wanted something that would be appealing enough to my children, nephews, nieces, uncles and aunts to enjoy browsing through, but that also recorded the data and sources.  For various reasons, I had to use MS Word for my design (graphic designers would throw their arms up in horror at this), and I think I have eked the most out of Word design-wise that I could. 

This page features one of my favourite ancestors, Napoleonic dragoon trumpeter Pierre van Dooren.  I’ve posted about him previously here on my blog.  

And this page features photos from my Dad’s life.  Again, I’ve posted a bit about him previously.  By the way, the headings in the booklet are based on my children’s generation’s point of view – so my father is shown as ‘Grandfather’.

Unfortunately I can’t publish this book, as there are several images in it that I have not got permission for, and it also contains some current data in it that could be prone to identity theft.  But if anyone does want a copy emailed to them privately, please send me an email to roly at paradise dot net dot nz.

More on my father’s Dutch war service

Note: I am updating this posting from time to time as I get new information from readers.

In May I posted here about my late father, who was a Dutch soldier during the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940.  At the time of writing that post, I knew very little about his war service.  Some knowledgable readers of this blog added comments to that post that filled in some holes.  But a lot remained unknown.

 

My father is on the left of this picture, in the front row. Note the red cross emblem on his collar, showing his service in the Medical Troops.

 

Little did I know that some of the answers were just a couple of kilometres away, hidden in a drawer in my mother’s apartment.  When I told her what I had been finding out here on the blog, she suddenly remembered a sheaf of papers that had belonged to Dad.  When she pulled them out, lo and behold, there was his official war service record, as well as records relating to his service in Indonesia after the war.

At the top of this form, you can see that it dates from the post-war period, when Dad was in the Stoottroepen (Shock Troops) of the Netherlands army in the East Indies (Indonesia) … but that is another story.  I’ll do a separate posting in a few weeks about Dad’s Indonesian service.

The information that relates to Dad’s WW2 service lies in the ‘Staat van Dienst’ section of the form.  It shows that in September 1939, Dad was conscripted from the municipality of Swalmen (the village where he lived) into the Depot Battalion of the Medical Troops in Amsterdam (see my previous posting on this subject) . Only a few months later, in January 1940, he was made up to corporal, and then three months after that to sergeant.   He had therefore  been a sergeant for only a month when the Germans invaded on 10 May 1940.

What happened over those days, we don’t know.  Dad never told us anything about the actual events of 1940.   My mother believes he was in Rotterdam, which was badly bombed, though as a conscript from the southern province of Limburg, it was also possible he was stationed there.

After the capitulation of the Dutch, like many other soldiers Dad returned to his home.  So you can see that for the remainder of the war he is shown as on “groot verlof”, or long furlough.

My father went back to Swalmen and worked for the radio firm he had been training with before the war.  A couple of years later he was caught when the Germans wanted more men as forced workers in Germany (or, as a reader has suggested, when Dutch soldiers were called up again in 1943 to be put into POW camps). A lot of men went into hiding, including Dad.  But he was caught.  There were two men in the house at the time.  One hid in roof, while Dad hid under couch.  Somebody said there was a man on the roof, but by the time the Germans investigated, that man had disappeared.  But Dad was still under the couch and got caught.

Dad ended up as a forced worker in Germany and was placed in a sausage factory, possibly in Wuppertal according to my mother, though I vaguely recall my Dad saying something about Cologne. Of course, he was then on the receiving end of the Allied bombing raids, which must have been harrowing for him.

Dad’s one story from that time was how they tried some basic sabotage.  When making the sausages in big vat, they would throw in a gall bladder to make the meat very bitter.  So there were spot tests to taste the sausage, and if caught the punishment was very severe.

After the war he came back and finished his training, and set up radio repair business with a friend.  Lot of radios had been hidden in war, so quite a lot of repairs needed.  For a while the business looked promising, but then he was called up by the army  again when there were not enough volunteers to fight in the growing conflict in Indonesia.  The last two entries in the ‘Staat van Dienst’ section show his return from long furlough to begin his post-war service in 1946 – but, as I said, that will be a tale for another time.

And if you’re interested in following my family’s military history, make sure you check out my previous posting about my great-great-great-grand-dad who was a dragoon trumpeter in Napoleon’s army!

What I’m reading …

The Two-Headed Eagle: In Which Otto Prohaska Takes a Break as the Habsburg Empire’s Leading U-boat Ace and Does Something Even More Thanklessly Dangerous by John Biggins – the third in a fantastically well-written set of novels about an Austrian sailor and airman during WW1.

This particular novel is about his adventures as an officer-observer in the KuK Fliegertruppe over the Italian-Austrian front. Wonderful stuff, like the two previous books in the series that I have read.

www.johnbigginsfiction.com/prohaska

Valeur et discipline

Today I was looking for pictures to illustrate a posting on WD3 forum about how to fold miniature flags realistically.  I was trying to find an old picture showing a well-folded flag, so started hunting though my old websites.

When I got to my Napoleonic French website, Valeur et Discipline, I realised that I had forgotten how pleased I was with the overall look of this site.  I haven’t visited it in several years, so it was great fun re-reading my own articles and looking again at the pictures.

The site was made in Dreamweaver, using an invisible  table layout (yes, I know, table layouts are very dated now).  I’m quite proud of the animated buttons that I made myself, as well as the banner (all done in Corel Photo-Paint).  While blogging is much easier, I must say blogs tend to look a lot more bland than these old-style crafted websites.   

My French army still occasionally goes to war, though I’m afriad my generalship doesn’t usually match that of the great Napoleon himself.