Despatches
Letters to the Editor
From First Empire Readers
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Digital Corps! Dear Dave I was pleased to see another episode of "Hornblower" on ITV, not to mention the superb C$ series "The War against Napoleon", but what would really bring the Napoleonic Wars to the Public is, I feel, a feature film. Recent years have shown there is still plenty of money to be made from the war genre and most of these productions (historical inaccuracies aside) have been financially successful. New technology is constantly improving with film makers now able to resurrect dinosaurs, re-sink the Pacific fleet and even create vast and believable Fantasy worlds with the aid of sophisticated computers. Therefore, surely a Napoleonic Period film is not an impossibility? The days of paying many thousands of extras are long gone, as huge armies can be easily recruited via the microchip as witnessed in "The Patriot" and to much greater effect - "The Lord of the Rings". Gigantic affairs such as Borodino and Leipzig should not prove a problem. All that is needed is an eager director with at least some knowledge of the period (stand up Ridley Scott - I remember the "Duellists") and a Film company willing to take the gamble and put up some money where its mouth is! Yours sincerely
Ed. The idea is excellent, but not paying the thousands of extras isn't really relevant, the costs for digital understudies works out about the same! But I think you probably won't have to wait to long. The Napoleonic period has always been popular with the epic film makers, who have always been thwarted by the sheer scale of numbers involved. The Mummy II feature digital "Egyptian Armies" which I felt looked rather good, the passengers and crew of the Titanic also worked well. We will have to wait and see, but I expect a new Waterloo for 2015 . . . you read it here first! General Janssens and the Cape of Good Hope May I extend my thanks to Geert van Uythoven for answering my queries on Jan Willem Janssens in FE59. With information also provided by Terry Senior, it has filled a rather large gap in my research. There is, however, one small area of the article that I believe is slightly out of sequence, not in the life of Janssens himself, but in the events of the Cape expedition under Baird and Popham in 1805/6. Below I have outlined, in brief, the happenings of that expedition as a complement to the article and I would like to stress that this is, by no means, an attempt to detract from the quality of Geert van Uythoven’s excellent portrayal of the Dutch General. 31st Aug 1805: A British force of 6,360 men, 8 warships and 115 transports leaves Cork in Ireland for the Cape of Good Hope 3rd Jan 1806: The Cape of Good Hope is sighted. 4th Jan 1806: The flotilla anchors on the leeward side of Robben (or Penguin) Island. 5th Jan 1806: Colonel Beresford lands with a small force in Saldanha Bay 6th Jan 1806: The main force under Lieutenant General Baird lands in Blauwberg (or Blueberg) Bay - the landing is only opposed by a few native militia. 7th Jan 1806: Janssens sets forth from Cape Town with an army numbering between 2-5,000 men to confront Baird. 8th Jan 1806: The Battle of Cape Town - a brief encounter with the result never in doubt. The British are victorious and Janssens withdraws his forces from the field in good order, opting for a retreat to Kloof Passs in the Hottentot Holland rather than behind the defences of Cape Town. 9th Jan 1806: Baird and Beresford join forces and march on Cape Town where they are met by the Dutch authorities who wish to discuss terms of surrender. 10th Jan 1806: Cape Town capitulates to Baird without a fight. 18th Jan 1806: Janssens, faced with the gradual desertion of his remaining troops, is forced into talks with Baird and capitulates. The Cape Province is now wholly in the hands of the British. Thus ended the brief fourteen day Cape campaign. Just as a footnote, it appears that in 1804 Janssens undertook a Mineralogical Study of the Cape Province. Although I am unaware of his reasons for doing so, whether from personal interest or, more probably, for official purposes, the report seems to have fallen into British hands along with the province itself in 1806 and is now part of the manuscript collection in the British Library. Once again, I would like to thank Geert van Uythoven for his highly informative article to which this “dispatch” is purely an addendum and I would like to finish up with a few more ‘gaps’ in my research that First Empire readers may well be able to help me fill. i) The commandant of Cape Town, in Janssens’ absence, is a man named as Van Prophelow. Despite many attempts to find out more about this character, I still have no further information on him. Any help at all on this subject, however small, would be greatly appreciated. ii) The composition of the Dutch force under Janssens is disputed by numerous historians in both size and composition - for example, Baird claims that the Dutch General had 5,000 men under his command while the historian Sir John Fortescue puts that figure at only 2,000; in addition, Hugh Popham lists a force of “Chinese Artillerists” as being present on the field at Cape Town. As before, any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated, especially if someone could explain to me what a “Chinese Artillerist” is! iii) The British force appears to have been composed of three brigades that naturally had three brigadiers or senior colonels as their commanders. Two of these commanders are mentioned in a number of sources, these being Colonel Beresford and Brigadier-General Ferguson - however the third brigadier, who was actually present at the Battle of Cape Town, is not listed anywhere. It is possible that he was a senior commander of the regiments he led, like Beresford, or a Brigadier-General in his own right, such as Ferguson. A name for this mysterious person would be extremely useful. Please send any answers to the queries above to either the “Dispatches” column in First Empire or myself. Best regards and many thanks in advance for any help proffered. James Gaite
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