Battle Of Jersey

FEW people outside of the Channel Islands, and not all that many within them, have heard of the Battle of Jersey.
It was fought in January 1781 as part of the wider conflict of the American Rebellion in which France, Spain and the United Provinces combined with dissidents in the 13 Colonies to oppose the rightful rule of Britain under George III.
That, at least, is one way of looking at the conflict, which was as much a naval war as a land one in that the key to the rebellion was Britannia's failure to rule the waves and get reinforcements through to North America in the face of the Continental alliance.
Jersey's role was rather more important than might be thought - the Channel Island was a base for privateers who ranged through the Channel and across the Atlantic to disrupt enemy, particularly French, shipping.
The French government of Louis XVI responded with an attack on Jersey in May 1779, but the invaders' attempted landing was easily beaten off by an unlikely combination of a recently arrived Scottish Highlands regiment and Jersey militia.
A second attempt began in earnest on January 5 1781 when 2,000 troops sailed from Granville, Normandy.
A storm scattered the ships, meaning only 1,200 men arrived off Jersey, but the bad weather, combined with some Jersey guards abandoning their posts to go drinking to celebrate Christmas under the old Julian calendar, meant their landing was undetected.
Some 700 of these troops, under Baron Philippe de Rullecourt, captured the capital St Helier overnight along with the island's lieutenant-governor, Major Moses Corbet.
So far, so good for the French, who made the governor sign an order instructing Elizabeth Castle, situated on a tidal island off St Helier, to surrender.
The castle's garrison responded by opening fire on the French, and meanwhile the most senior British officer not in French hands, 24-year-old Major Francis Peirson, gathered 2,000 regulars and militia to launch a counterattack.

Plaque on the wall of The Peirson pub, St Helier

The resulting battle was short-lived, with the outnumbered French having little stomach for street-to-street fighting in a hostile environment despite having what should have been a good defensive position.
A total of 78 Frenchmen were killed and some 600 taken prisoner. The British suffered 15 fatalities, including Major Peirson, killed by a musket ball through the heart.
The French commander, de Rullecourt, was among those mortally wounded, dying in a house in Royal Square that subsequently became The Peirson pub.

Monumental Fashion

YOU might think tributes to the dead would be one thing little affected by fashion, but the truth is very much the opposite.
This is starkly illustrated by two memorials within a few yards of each other in the Jersey capital of St Helier.
Imposing, one might say over-the-top, is a large edifice erected to commemorate Sir George Don, who was the island's lieutenant-governor during the Napoleonic Wars from 1806-14.
Sir George is credited with using his authority to build much of Jersey's network of roads. According to theislandwiki, the monument "consists of a group of three statues of cast iron on a platform of granite, approached by steps and flanked by old cannons. Don stands on the central plinth, with the figures of Commerce and Industry on either side of him."

Sir George towers above Commerce and Industry

Further along in Parade Gardens is a memorial to St Helier parishioners killed in WW1.
Made from steel, but looking like rusty iron, it lists the dead in alphabetical order without giving ranks, dates of birth or other details.
The memorial was due to be unveiled in time for the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day last year, but the ceremony was postponed to November 23 because of inclement weather.
A report that day on Jersey's Channel 103 stated: "Since it was opened, it's been revealed that more work needs to be done to correct a construction mistake.
"Constable Crowcroft explains the problem: 'It was simply an error by someone in the factory where it was made, so they've agreed to replace that particular part - which will be done in the coming months.
"'The other question that has arisen is that people have contacted us to say that the names of their ancestors who fell in the war are not on the memorial.
"'That's clearly something we're looking into. There inevitably will be one or two names missed off and the memorial is constructed in such a way that extra names can be added in due course if they meet the criteria that we used'."

Understated, and arguably 100 years and two weeks late

Shipshape

I FIND this hard to believe, but the bar at The Revere Hotel on the Channel Island of Jersey is supposedly made with wreckage from the Spanish Armada.

Spanish practices?

That would make it 431 years old - not impossible, but highly unlikely, to say the least.
I popped into The Revere as I am staying further along Kensington Place, St Helier, at its cheaper sister hotel, the Stafford.
The bar, whatever its age, has character, and would normally be a tempting place to drink, but I am on a course of antibiotics, so anything alcoholic is off-limits.

All Present And Correct

MY small, to-be-expanded, Russian 10mm army for the War of the Austrian Succession is the last to get its officers put on bases.

Russians line up in front of 54mm dragoons

Priming and painting 100+ metal squares before adding already-painted single figures has been one of the easier tasks I have undertaken at my work table.

Book Knowledge

CHARITY shops are well-known as a good source of cheap books, although I find them more useful for travel books than for history.
My favourite travel books tend to have a historical bias, however, so my recent purchase of Heinrich Harrer's Seven Years In Tibet from a charity shop - Oxfam, I think - in Tunbridge Wells should scratch both itches (assuming events in the 1940s count as history rather than current affairs).
There is a book-selling establishment in Hampstead which, while not a charity shop, has something of the feel of one as it only opens on Saturdays, I believe, and consists of mostly remaindered books laid out on temporarily erected trestle tables in a sort of passageway off the High Street.
Last month I bought there A Brief History Of Khubilai Khan - Lord Of Xanadu, Emperor Of China for £3.99, marked down from £8.99.

A Khan-do type of guy

The author, Jonathan Clements, is credited as "a leading expert on Asian history" and the writer of biographies of Marco Polo and the Chinese empress Wu Zetian.
The book includes an index - never a bad sign.

Prussia's Turn

AM continuing to base the officers of my War of the Austrian Succession 10mm armies even as I work on 54mm figures for my Project Kaiser refight of the Franco-Prussian War.

Prussians being based … behind them are small packs of painted 54mm figures and a box of Napoleonic French dragoons ripe for converting

Comparing Grids

HAVING thought about it overnight, I am strongly leaning towards buying a second wargaming table.
That would give a total playing space of approximately 6ft by 5ft, allowing me to form a 4in grid of 18x15 squares.

How a 4in grid would look

But why stop at a 4in grid? I could form a 5in grid of 14x12 squares, which would have the advantage of allowing figures to share a square with terrain features, as in the photo below.

A sample 5in grid

I have checked out the price of buying a second table, and it has risen by less than £1 since I bought the first one three years ago.

Pounding The Streets

POPPED into Poundland in Peckham yesterday on the off-chance I might find something useful, and was rewarded by spotting a jar of beads of the sort little girls use to make necklaces.

Fab find

At least, I assume that is what the beads are for - the good thing, as far as I am concerned, is that they are green.
As such they should make good markers for the grid for my Project Kaiser 54mm refight of the Franco-Prussian War.
My plan, as it stands, is to have a grid of 12x10 3in squares, and it turns out I have plenty of beads for this purpose.

The grid roughly laid out - more precision would be needed for the real thing

Unfortunately, contrary to what I thought, my wargames table is not quite 2ft 6in across, which means arranging 10 3in squares is a bit of a tight fit.
The second problem is that 3in may not prove big enough for my planned units of four infantrymen, two cavalrymen or a gun with four gunners.

The grid with some figures and not-to-scale scenery

Having written the above, I must say the units look better in the photo than they did when I hastily set them up this morning.
I shall have to give this some serious thought. One obvious solution would be to buy a second table - there would just about be enough room in my central London flat.

Dragoons

THE next part of Project Kaiser involves using the box of HäT Napoleonic French Dragoons I bought from Transport Models of Preston for £8.70 (plus postage).
The box contains eight brown horses and eight blue cavalrymen with drawn swords, which works out at just over £1 a figure (counting a mount and rider as one figure).

HäT dragoons - good value for money

All of the horses and some of the riders come with unsightly lumps produced by the moulding process, but these proved much easier to remove than I feared.
I have not made a direct comparison, but I am fairly sure these HäT figures are less substantial - both smaller and slimmer - than my Armies In Plastic figures. However, I do not think this will be too much of a problem when displayed on my wargames table.
I will be painting four of the HäT figures as French dragoons of the Franco-Prussian War - the uniform hardly evolved in the 55 years after 1815.
Two of the others are earmarked as Prussian dragoons and the remaining two as Bavarian dragoons.
The former will definitely need conversion work as Prussian dragoons wore the pickelhaube; I may be able to get away with a paint job for the Bavarians.

First Four 54mm Cavalry

I HAVE finished painting four Armies In Plastic Mounted German Uhlans, two as Prussians and two as Bavarians.
Technically, only the Prussians are uhlans - Bavaria did not use the term, at least during the Franco-Prussian War.

Prussian uhlans (left) and Bavarian lancers