Shamrock, Crown and Crescent

My bedtime reading has got marginally less disturbing with Gerard Ronan's biography of the 19th-century mercenary, Eugene (Hassan Bey) O'Reilly (1828-1873).

I have been researching quite a few soldiers of fortune for my current book, but Eugene O'Reilly really does deserve the author's description of a 'remarkable life'. There were a number of British officers who served in the Ottoman army during the 19th century. Baker Pasha was an outstanding example, but few had such a varied route and subsequent career as Eugene O'Reilly.

He was born into a middle-class Dublin Catholic family of lawyers, and that appeared to be his career until he dropped out of university by refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy. The Oath required any person taking public or church office to swear allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church. The Act was modified in 1829 to enable Catholics to hold public office, but that was not enough for O'Reilly, who, as a teenager, was involved in radical Irish politics. He was part of the Young Ireland delegation to the new provisional government in Paris that had been formed following the abdication of King Louis Philippe in February 1848. He became famous as the organiser of the ‘Blanchardstown Affair’—a shambles of a paramilitary operation aimed at taking the police barracks at Blanchardstown in Ireland, which had to be abandoned when most of the promised volunteers failed to turn up.

His father's influence got him released from prison, but he had to leave Ireland. He served as a cavalry officer in the Hungarian and Sardinian armies during their wars of independence. In 1851, he returned to England and enlisted in the 10th Hussars, although the British army refused to recognise his Sardinian rank and he was forced to enlist as a private. 

In 1853, O’Reilly went to Turkey armed with a recommendation from the British Home Secretary, Lord Palmerston, a friend of his father's. The Ottomans were offering a one-rank step-up, which, given his Sardinian rank, made him a bimbashi (major). His exploits commanding Bashi-Bazouks against the Russians were widely reported. The source material for this book largely comes from newspaper articles. This led to his being commissioned by the British to raise a similar regiment during the Crimean War.

After the war, he served in several Ottoman civil and military roles, mainly in Syria, as directed by the Ottoman foreign minister and later Grand Vizier, Fuad Pasha. With his career going nowhere, he conspired with two Egyptian princes and foreign investors to raise a Bedouin rebellion in the Hauran desert (spanning the present-day borders of Syria and Jordan). The rebellion did not go well, and he was lucky not to be executed. Either way, his Ottoman career was at an end, and he became a railway consultant. He died of cholera in Fez in 1873, pursuing a railway project in Morocco.

This is a cracking tale about a character long since forgotten, even though he was infamous in his lifetime. Highly recommended.

For some reason that I have forgotten, I sold my 15mm Crimean armies. But here are some slightly later 28mm Ottoman cavalry.

Perth Museum

 I was working in Dundee last week and took the opportunity to visit the redeveloped Perth Museum on the way home. The museum opened in 2024 after a £27 million redevelopment project. The centrepiece is the Stone of Destiny, also known as the Stone of Scone, one of Scotland and the UK’s most significant historical objects. Returning to Perthshire for the first time in over 700 years, having previously been at Westminster Abbey, and briefly at Edinburgh Castle, when the UK government agreed to its return to Scotland. It returns to London for coronations.

The stone in Perth is an oblong block of red sandstone that was used in the coronation of Scottish monarchs until the 13th century, when it was seized by Edward I during the First War of Scottish Independence and taken to England. Thereafter, it was used in the coronation of English and later British monarchs. You can't take photos inside the exhibition, but the story is explained in a couple of short videos, with support from knowledgeable staff.

There is an alternative story that says this is not the real stone; rather, the monks at Scone, knowing that Edward was coming for it, hid the real stone and substituted this lump of sandstone. They knew that if they simply hid the stone, Edward would be none too gentle in extracting it. There is some evidence that Edward knew he was being duped, as searchers returned later to hunt for the hidden version. I remain a sceptic that this is the real stone, but in many ways it doesn't matter. It is the idea behind the stone that is important.

The museum has other exhibits that make a visit worthwhile. This was the final week of a special exhibition showcasing the final letters of Mary Queen of Scots.

For military history, there are exhibits on Cromwell's invasion and the Perthshire Volunteers during the Napoleonic Wars.

Dundee also has plenty to see, including the Discovery, HMS Warrior, McManus Museum and Broughty Castle. The biggest redevelopment along the waterfront is the V&A Museum. Not an obvious trip for anyone interested in military history, but it does have an interesting display of Jacobite memorabilia, and some models from the Carron Ironworks, famous for the carronade.

I also made my first visit to Claypotts Castle, on the outskirts of Dundee. This is a fortified house in remarkably good condition. Its most famous owner was John Graham of Claverhouse, who died leading the victorious Jacobites at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689. Better known as Bluidy Clavers or Bonnie Dundee, depending on which side of the Jacobite line you stand.

If Russia Wins

 This is a 2028 scenario book written by Carlo Masala, which I read for my day job writing a defence analysis for a European think tank. However, it is also a credible scenario for modern warfare and wargamers.

The book is set in March 2028. It assumes that the USA has sold out Ukraine and forced it into a land-for-peace deal with Russia. Zelensky loses the subsequent election, Ukraine descends into chaos, and Putin stands down as Russian president. The West is trying to work out if this signals a new direction in Russian foreign policy, or another Putin puppet.

In Brussels, NATO is split, with the US focusing on the Pacific and European nations unwilling to increase defence expenditure to levels required to seriously deter Russian expansionism. In Moscow, they have learned the lessons from the optimistic 'Special Military Operation' analysis and have adopted the 1936 Rhineland model to target Russian-speaking areas outside the Russian border. In effect, this means just take action, tell everyone your objectives are limited, and rely on a weak reaction.

On this basis, Russian troops capture the Estonian town of Narva and the island of Hiiumaa in the Baltic Sea. Europe’s slow rearmament and its compromised military and intelligence capabilities are now clear for its enemies to exploit. Does Article 5 of NATO apply? What will the alliance decide? Will they risk nuclear war?

The author takes the reader through the various meetings that take place to decide on a reaction. The Russians use hybrid warfare to distract NATO from Estonia. A defence contracor is killed in Germany and bombs go off at Faslane. The Chinese helped by capturing an island in the South China Sea. The bottom line is that the USA is not going to risk WW3 over a small town in Estonia. They are supported by Hungary and other of Putin's useful idiots in Europe. So they effectively do nothing.

If this sounds fanciful, last week the Russian Duma passed a law letting Putin deploy troops anywhere on Earth to 'protect Russian citizens'. The author argues that the only way to prevent this scenario is to ensure Moscow believes NATO will respond to a regional escalation.

This is a short, very readable book with a well-argued scenario. Not a cheery prospect, but one we ought to take seriously.

Some of my modern Russians in 20mm, in a game of Corps Commander.

Farewell to Salonika

 Modern Thessaloniki (commonly called Salonika in English) is the second-largest city in Greece and the administrative capital of Greek Macedonia. Today, it is a typical Greek city, but it was not always so. In 1430, the city was captured by the Ottomans, who would hold it for nearly 500 years, establishing it as an important port city (known in Turkish as Selânik) that played a key role in the empire. Probably its most famous son was Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the modern republic of Türkiye, born in the city in 1881.

In the early 16th century, nearly 20,000 Sephardic Jews immigrated to Greece from the Iberian Peninsula following their expulsion from Spain. The city became a magnet for Jews fleeing persecution, and by 1900, they constituted half the city's population. The only city in Europe where the Jews were a majority of the total population.

This is the backdrop to Leon Sciaky's memoir, Farewell to Salonika. It has been in my reading pile for a while, and covers the period around the turn of the century in the run-up to WW1. His family were prosperous Jewish grain merchants, with farms in the countryside. Their farm workers were Bulgarians, they traded with Turks, and the streets included Greeks and just about every nationality in the Balkans and beyond. His memoir vividly describes his upbringing in this thriving multi-cultural city, if somewhat chaotic as well.

The memoir largely covers his childhood, with vivid descriptions of daily life and the community he lived in. While the different peoples retained their language and customs, they generally got on and supported each other. However, by the end of the 19th century, society was coming under pressure from natural disasters like drought and the rise of nationalism. The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO) was formed in Salonika in 1893 and would develop into one of the fiercest terrorist/liberation organisations in the region. Salonika was the scene of various attacks, including the blowing up of the Ottoman bank and the sinking of the French steamer Guadalquivir. They also dynamited the gas and water mains. Leon describes these events and their impact on the city and its community. He also describes more peaceful developments, such as railways, trams, and street lighting, as well as just everyday events. 

Sadly, most of the old city is long gone. Mostly during the Great Fire in 1917, when Salonika was an Allied base for the Macedonian campaign. The population is almost entirely Greek, after the Jews were murdered during the Holocaust in World War II, and the Turks left after the Balkan Wars and the later population exchanges. The White Tower is probably the best-known remaining feature of the earlier period. The tourist is reminded that the city was founded by the Macedonians, with a massive statue of Alexander the Great on the promenade. The city was named after Thessalonike, his half-sister.  There is also an excellent army museum.

This is a personal and cultural memoir, which only touches on the military events. For a full history of this fascinating city, I would recommend Mark Mazower's Salonika, City of Ghosts.

The White Tower

I am 6'-2", standing in front of the statue to give an idea of how big it is.

Inside the military museum.

Wargaming outreach

 There has been quite a lot written about the hobby's ageing. Having been at the funerals of two Chairs of our club in the past year, the message is being driven home rather starkly. On a more positive note, we do have a few young members, and quite a lot of our newer members are joining, or returning to the hobby in later life. 

All of this indicates that we should be doing more to take the hobby beyond our normal comfort zone at wargame shows and into other events where we can expose members of the public to what wargaming has to offer. I am particularly attracted to hobby shows held in museums, which is a win-win for both parties. I once got to the show held at the Tank Museum in Dorset, which was excellent. My local model railway club does something similar at the Maritime Museum. 

Last Sunday, we took a stall at the Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust's modelling Open Day at their Bridgeton depot in Glasgow. This isn't a museum in the conventional sense. It only opens on Open Days to show off the fantastic collection of vintage vehicles, mostly buses. We took a collection of wargames figures and a small participation game of Pillage to give visitors an idea of what is involved. While it's not a game I play, the handful of figures needed make for an excellent introduction for those who might enjoy it but be put off by one of our big games with hundreds of figures.

Other hobby clubs in Glasgow also attended, with some fine military modelling, model railways and engineering of all types. And of course the buses!

We had some excellent conversations with members of the public, most of whom had never heard of wargaming. It was also an opportunity to promote our Napoleonic Open Day on 31 May.

The Star Captains

 ITVx is currently streaming the old Hornblower series. It provides a handy backdrop for my painting, as my usual poison, Turkish TV, requires me to read the subtitles. It's a cracking series, first shown in 1998. They used three actual sailing ships and eleven scale models for the bigger battle scenes. It inspired me to start a book that has been languishing on my to-read pile for some time, which I picked up in a second-hand bookshop. This is Tom Wareham's study of frigate command in the Napoleonic Wars.

I read a lot of books about the Royal Navy, particularly frigates, while researching my book on HMS Ambuscade. The first British-built HMS Ambuscade, a 32-gun frigate, fought in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It had a mixed war, being captured and then recaptured. The frigate in the age of sail was the Royal Navy’s glamour ship, big enough to carry significant firepower but fast enough to evade larger enemies. They were the light cavalry of the seas, patrolling, scouting and above all, fighting. As Admiral Nelson said, they were ‘the eyes of the fleet’. 

There are many books about frigates, but most understandably focus on the frigate actions. Individual frigate-versus-frigate actions were actually rare; more typically, they were involved in capturing smaller ships and merchantmen. Battles between frigate squadrons were even rarer, one exception being the Battle of Lissa, which I covered in my book on the Napoleonic Wars in the Adriatic.

This book is somewhat different. The author has done an exceptional job researching the data on frigates. Mostly using the Admiralty List Books, supplemented by Steel's Navy Lists and Pitcairn Jones' List of Commissioned Sea Officers. I had to scour the National Archives for just one ship, so covering all the frigates is no mean feat. The result is a fascinating breakdown of the officers who sailed frigates. For example, frigate captains (670 of them in the Napoleonic Wars) were promoted more quickly, suggesting that they displayed the qualities that enhance promotion prospects. By the end of the wars, they could also be very young, between 23 and 26 years old. 

The median length of service was 3 years and 6 months, although this hides enormous variations, and the Admiralty appears to have had a policy of limiting the length of time a captain could serve on frigates. The dangers of the sea and disease were more likely to kill you than the enemy, but frigates were more likely to suffer from natural weather hazards given their service, and this partly explains the shorter service periods. There was no shortage of applicants, as although frigate captains were paid less, they were more likely to get prize money and had more freedom to operate independently. More than half would command more than one frigate.

This is just a sample of the data analysed in this book. If you are looking for the stories of naval actions, this is probably not the book for you. However, if you want to know more about how frigates were commanded, this is an invaluable source.

It also reminds me to play more Black Seas.

The Heretic

 My latest bedtime reading is The Heretic by David Pilling. It is another grim story, and after Vlad, I really must review my choice of bedtime reading! This is a fictional account of an English mercenary who ends up in Bohemia during the Hussite wars.

The Hussite Wars (1419–1436) were a series of religious and political conflicts in the Kingdom of Bohemia that followed the execution of the Czech reformer Jan Hus in 1415. His teachings, which criticised corruption in the Catholic Church and called for reform, inspired a strong movement among his followers known as the Hussites. After Hus’s death, tensions between reformers and Catholic authorities escalated into open warfare. The Hussites successfully resisted several crusades launched against them by forces loyal to the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy, using innovative tactics such as war wagons and disciplined infantry formations. They were led in the first stage by the outstanding tactician Jan Zizka, who was blinded in combat. The wars ended with a compromise that allowed moderate Hussite practices in Bohemia, marking one of the earliest major challenges to the authority of the medieval Catholic Church and foreshadowing later movements like the Protestant Reformation.

The story is told through an English mercenary, John Page. His narrative covers the years 1421-24. This is book two in the series, and he arrives in Bohemia after serving in the English army in France under Henry V. He witnesses the blinding of Zizka and takes part in some of the most famous battles, such as Kutná Hora and Malesov. His tale provides a brief snapshot of conditions in Bohemia at this time: the ever-present threat of war and invasion, the relentless fanaticism of splinter groups such as the Táborites, and the desperate battles, in which armies of peasants roared hymns as they drove the flower of European knighthood from the field. Above all, Page highlights the military genius of one man, Jan Zizka, still celebrated in the Czech Republic today as a national hero.

I didn't know much about the Hussite Wars, so this is a good introduction. It is fast-paced and well-written, with a hero that is just flawed enough to be credible. It readily served as inspiration for our midweek game. I found enough war wagons and generic 15mm figures to field a Hussite and German army in a game of DBA. The German army was led by Sigismund, the Holy Roman Emperor. This is a character I am familiar with, as in 1396, Sigismund led the Crusade of Nicopolis but was decisively defeated by the Ottoman Empire. Pilling is pretty dismissive of him as a ruler and battlefield commander, which may be justified. However, his major failures (such as his handling of the Hussite movement) are now generally considered by most scholars to be the result of a lack of financial resources and other constraints, rather than personal failings.

I was playing the Hussites, and I had little idea of how to use war wagons, which make up half the army. So, I chose the best available terrain and formed them into a line, as they appear to have done historically. I used the remaining troops on the flanks or in reserve.

My opponent shifted his main strike force of German knights to attack my left flank and brought a bombard forward to shoot at the war wagons.

As you can see from the above, his bombard blew a hole in my line. In fact, he destroyed all five war wagons with just five shots. I did reinforce the left flank and succeeded in killing Sigismund and all his knights, but it wasn't enough. Even allowing for the dice, I should have got out and attacked the bombard. It outranged the war wagons, and artillery destroys them fairly easily under DBA rules. I think it is known as a learning experience!