Starbucks bought me toy soldiers (1 Viewer)

[Mignot]

Good evening,

I thought I would share with the forum a new set of figures I got today. For the past couple months I have given up my daily Cafe Latte from Starbucks (a bad habit I picked up while living in London where it is impossible to get a normal cup of coffee) in favor of a cup of maxwell house. I have saved nearly four dollars a day, and I decided to spend my "savings" on a vintage set of Mignot Austrian Napoleonics. The set of Austrian musketeers is from the mid-60s. I have shown them advancing at open order, ready to engage with French voltigeurs.

So, I have kicked my starbucks habit...and I have a beautiful set of Mignots to prove it

Best wishes.

Cole

[/URL][/IMG]

 

[wadepat]

Good evening,

I thought I would share with the forum a new set of figures I got today. For the past couple months I have given up my daily Cafe Latte from Starbucks (a bad habit I picked up while living in London where it is impossible to get a normal cup of coffee) in favor of a cup of maxwell house. I have saved nearly four dollars a day, and I decided to spend my "savings" on a vintage set of Mignot Austrian Napoleonics. The set of Austrian musketeers is from the mid-60s. I have shown them advancing at open order, ready to engage with French voltigeurs.

So, I have kicked my starbucks habit...and I have a beautiful set of Mignots to prove it

Best wishes.

Cole

[/URL][/IMG]

Hi Cole,

That is a really nice set of Austrian musketeers! Congratulations on killing two birds with one stone: 1) Kicking the Starbuck habit and 2) obtaining a really fine addition to your collection! You have done very, very well.

Warmest personal regards,

Pat

 

[Shannon Reuss]

Excellent idea--and it gives the set more meaning to you because you thought about it in anticipation each time you made your Maxwell House and passed by the coffee shop.
Congrats on a beautiful set!

 

[desk11desk12]

Gees, now if I had the will to give up sweets, then I'd have a smaller waist size and extra $$$$ to get some ACW's sets from Britains.

Carlos

 

[Leadmen]

I find my coffee and sweets take precedence over toy soldiers. Leadmen

 

[kilted vampire]

I find my coffee and sweets take precedence over toy soldiers. Leadmen

Well met Leadmen, well met .

 

[damian]

Dear Cole.
Those figures are exquisite and you must be very proud of them.
I see Don Troiani is part of your library. I presume this means he has your stamp of approval as a reasonable historian. I have severla of his books they are very attractive and seem to be well researched.

Regards
Danian Clarke

 

[Mignot]

Thanks everyone! I must say, I have been tempted to walk into the coffee shop (there is one on every block in New York it seems), but I have resisted. I am very pleased with my new set of Austrians.

As to Mr. Troiani....I just grabbed that book because it was the largest hardcover around to display my figures on for the photos...but I do like the book. I like it in the way I like my toy soldiers, it's attractive, reasonably mindless, and relaxing. I would never consider it a work of serious history. I actually went to a conference on the Revolution recently, and Mr. Troiani gave a talk about his new painting of the battle of Princeton. Since this is a public forum, I will just say that I was not impressed. Mr. Troiani is a gifted artist, and he has accomplished his goal of becoming a great battle painter in the vein of Detaille and Meissionier, but I would not call him a historian, and I don't believe he would use the term to describe himself. Nevertheless, I buy his books, which I think are better than ospreys, and I keep them on a shelf near my figures and think of them as part of that collection.

I should add, however, that I am not a military historian, and I frankly deplore most works of military history that have come across my desk, so perhaps I am biased. It is all well and good as a hobby, but there is not much intellectual gravitas in the study of uniforms, tactics, operational and strategic maneuvers in my opinion.

Best,

Cole

 

[damian]

My dear Cole

John Keegan talks about the dispute and differences between military and academic historians in the introduction to his book " The Face of Battle". He lectured miltary history at Sandhurst for many years. There are some other British military historians with academic pretensions such as Clayton and Ian Holmes. Ian Knight in lecture on the Zulu Wars said that Battles were the excalamation marks of history. Military history can get a bit boring with endless details of unit movements and the like and true academics feel it is a bit of a dead end. However even though the Allies outnumbered Nazi Germany or The Union was far more powerful than the SOuth in terms of industry was it not some of the evenst on the ground that actually determined history. I know that in terms of the broad sweep of American history it makes little difference if Custer had won the Little Big Horn or not, but I cannot but believe that if Hitler had won the Battle of Britian things would have been vastly different.
Regards
Damian Clarke

 

[Mignot]

Damien,

You raise an excellent point. There is a tremendous difference between writing about warfare and writing about war. I would argue that the social implications of the Battle of the Little Big Horn are profound and should be actively studied. Just as the historical memory of that battle is academically relevant---ie. Custer the fool, Custer the hero, Custer the mass murder, etc. The way generations of Americans have thought about that battle over time speaks volumes about the cultural history of the United States. But whether or not the 7th Cavalry were armed with sabers at the battle or not, or whether having Gatling guns would have turned the tide of the battle...well frankly that is an intellectual dead end.

I think you would find most historians are not opposed to the study of war, they just look at it differently than military historians do. Take my own work, I write and study about the American Revolution (a military conflict after all), but I study it from the perspective of a social and cultural historian. It doesn't matter to me if the 10th Massachusetts infantry were armed with French Charleville or British Brown Bess muskets, what matters to me is why those men enlisted, what motivated their service, where did they come from, what was the society like in which they lived? How do they reconcile their identity as New Englanders, with the burgeoning notion of American identity?

There is also the question of why people are interested in war. War is after all an inherently destructive phenomenon. It is an important question to wonder why be interested in a subject that in the end is the story of the mass loss of human life? I once had a long discussion with a well known scholar of the American Civil War about the culture of historical "re-enactment" in this country. I don't think intellectually, this professor could understand why sane men (and women I suppose) would spend their leisure time pretending to kill one another in the memory of one of America's most bloody and destructive conflicts. I remember him saying, how can anyone be a Civil War "Buff," when I find myself everyday being a Civil War "Sufferer." Some interesting things to think about.

As for Mr. Keegan, I am rather keen on the first chapter of the Face of Battle, but have yet to see an argument in the remainder of the work. I must say I don't don't find much time to read Keegan, but I know his cultural history of warfare has spawned a great deal of debate in the academy.

 

[damian]

Cole
We have a similar division in my neck of the woods. The centenary of the Bambatha Rebellion was last year. This event had largely been written out of South African History. The Natal government in the wake of the inevitable slump following the SOuth African War decided to impose a poll tax on all Africans in Natal. This was much resented and a number of incident occured of Africnas refusing to pay this tax. The heavy handed resposne by teh Natal police precipitated an outright rebellion by a Natal chieftan called Bambatha. He was pursued into Zululand where he tried in vain to enrol the support of Dinizulu the descendant of Chetswayo. Dinizulu whilst sympathetic was obviously unable to lend full support. The colonial government ruthlessly put down this revolt using the most sophisticated of modern weapons. The whole thing culminated in what was know as teh Battle of Mome Gorge. Bambatha was surrounded and shelled into submission.

The only writings on this event were books by colnial officaks namely Stuart, and Bosman until Shula Marks who I think is proably a Marxist radically reinterpreted the event in 1970 with her book Reluctant Rebellion. ANyway teh anniversary was marked by two distinct schools. ALl the local regiments that took part in this rather one sided affair had reconciliation type events and miliary parades. Professor Jeff Guy another well know left wing historian took great umbrage at this. He released two excellent books looking at teh role of the courts in Natal as part of teh post rebellion trials adn a popular book called Remembering teh Rebellion where he tried to put things in context and explain the social ramifications.

I msut say I do agree with you endless military type arguments about which particular bolt action rifle the troops were carrying are boring. I much prefer insightful interpretation of teh events. Still it would be nice if the two sides occassionally attended each others events and book launches.
Regards
Damian Clarke

 

[Mignot]

Damian,

That is a fascinating story and one I was not aware of. Thanks for pointing that out. I shall have to track down Marks and Guys' books on the subject! In the case of the historiography of the rebellion, I have a feeling my temperament would put me more in their camp, than in that of the regiment's celebrating their unit's sordid history.

I think there is, and should be, a place for military history within the academic historical profession, but the kind of history that will conform to the standards of the academy is not the stuff that sells nor plays well on the history channel. I am afraid I don't see any reconciliation happening between the guns and bugles crowd and academic scholars of human conflict. I am glad to see that there are some history lovers who appreciate the larger social implications of war however!

Cheers

Cole