I've read three articles recently on knapsacks, and what goes in them. As a reenactor, I perhaps look at this aspect with a more jaundiced eye than a military illustrator or wargamer. One of the aspects in which a French hair sack has advantages over the British 'Trotter' which you don't usually read about, is that in really cold weather, you can empty it and wear the contents, then pack it with hay or straw, stick your feet in it, and try to sleep! Another thing I soon found out - when your trotter is shot and damaged, it is very difficult to repair. Bar wrapping the contents up in your blanket, and utilising the harness to contain it, you've had it. A hair knapsack can be stitched up or bodged back together, somehow. Campaigning jerks facility back in the direction of utility. When you have to carry your home on your back, for long periods, and in rough country, you evolve a classification on all the items in your pack. It was after one such 'campaign', when after a 'night on a bare mountain' in the Crimea, I reclassified my liquor flask as a 'necessity' rather than a 'luxury'. Tobacco also underwent promotion up the list! As anyone who has served in any army will tell you, if you lose a piece of kit, nicked by someone, you nick it back from someone else. The only discrimination is that you choose someone not in your hut or mess. Does the same hold true for the prospect of carrying a heavy pack filled with the Regulation items on or during a long march? Would you discard your spare soles and heels, blackball, pipeclay, brushes, shaving brush, etc. faced with the heat and fatigue? Would the prospect of a later 'flogging' for wilful loss of camp necessities cause you to reconsider? These are imponderables - the decision on this would, perhaps, to a soldier marching in July sun from Lisbon to Talavera, under a harsh/considerate/indifferent officer - differ from the choice of a military adviser recreating 'campaign conditions' in the Crimean mountains in 1993. As a soldier enjoying a certain amount of freedom in my military disciplines, I was able to make several amendments to my kit! Philosophically - as a man living day-to-day never knowing if a bullet or microbe would end my term on this earth, I dumped most of the hard-stuff and started again with a list of kit. Worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes... I kept the rifle, of course. With my sword bayonet I could fash-ion a good shelter in 15-30 minutes. With a socket bayonet it would be different. Maybe a billhook, shared with my mates? The greatcoat, after three trials, proved to have advantages over a blanket. It is heavier, but, you can sleep in it warmer than a blanket. In really cold weather, a blanket, even if secured by safety pins (okay I cheated!) will not keep you warm, on the move or on the ground asleep. In heavy rain or freezing cold, you find your shelter and your sleeping arrangements leave much to be desired! I tried sleeping with my feet through my coat sleeves - have you ever tried this? You take off boots and gaiters, struggle into the coat with trousers tucked into socks (they don't stay there!), button it up, put boots back on, then discover your neck and ears are freezing! The coat only comes up chest-high! and despite attempts to sleep, ends up all over the place as you toss and turn (I later found three blanket pins invaluable on this point). A scarf to cover the head and face, forage cap plonked over it, with mittens improvised from your spare socks, helps. If ever I'd have had to get up quickly in those early days, the sight of me struggling with boots, pouches and pins would have been very amusing to an observer! Food and drink I generally committed to the haversack and water-bottle (very rarely holding water!) Local wine, with the meat cut up and soaked in it, then roasted on the end of a sword or stick over the fire, was a very good condiment for all seasons. I couldn't enjoy a stew - I'd thrown out my tinware early on. A mug served as a general purpose receptacle, for boiling rice. I kept the razor - a sharp edge along with a needle and cotton for re-pairs to both clothes and body (hopefully not the latter!) has many good uses, such as skinning small animals. I did shave with it, once. I also kept my bone toothbrush, the one and only civi-lised task every day, dipped in salt. I did begin to notice after a week that a certain odour permeated the vicinity - maybe I should have included a small piece of soap? I always carried the small toolbag for the rifle. In it was a worm, wiping-eye, oil bottle, ballpuller and springclamp. A small turnscrew completed the kit. I also had a tampion, lockcap and square of clean linen, for rags. Right at the bottom, wrapped in an oiled pouch - my precious tinderbox. No one who hasn't lived 'rough' can possibly appreciate the importance of looking after this small item. Without it, you're sunk. No fire means no cooked food, heat or smokes. I never use the lock on the rifle to strike a light unless in a real emergency. One thing I did find out very early on. Where one man can survive, two men can fare well. Division of labour pays off. A group can do well, when it comes to travelling light and fast, in an experiment of 'make-do' and 'do without'. I hope to conclude this article in the next issue, with a list of what my conception as a Peninsular 'Rifleman' carried in his knapsack, and why, in my pursuit of 'living history'. (With acknowledgements to Costello, "T.S", Wheeler, Lawrence, Kincaid, Harris, Simmons, Surtees ... and not forgetting; Sharpe!) Another Practical Observation on the Knapsack Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #18 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com