Review and Outlook

Bundle of Joy

An eight pound bundle of joy by the name of Lelia Jane Purky is largely responsible for the tardiness of this current issue. My wife gave birth to our new daughter on October 3, 1998, exactly 8 weeks before her expected birth date. As you might guess, all work on this Journal ground to a halt as all of my spare time was spent at the hospital over the next four weeks. We brought our little wiggling, cooing, screaming and crying child home in early November and I envisioned finishing this issue during the week that I took off from work.

As those of you who are parents know, the needs of a baby are a thousand times greater than one can possibly imagine, so the time that I could spend typing articles and doing the layout work was limited to an hour here and thirty minutes there. We are currently going through the colic stage, which means staying up all night to comfort and hold Lelia Jane, yet I still having to go to work the next morning. I am told that this can last up to four months, and since Lelia Jane is a "preemie", the time clock starts ticking from early December, which would have been her actual birth date.

To make a long story short, it appears that this issue will be in everyone's hands by New Year's Day. I apologize for the lengthy delay and at this time, I can only guess that issue number four might get mailed at the end of March or April 1999, but I can make no promises until our schedules and lives return to some level of normalcy. I hope that the members will be patient and understanding, but I am willing to refund the price of the fourth issue to anyone who is not satisfied with my proposed timetable for issue number four.

Going forward, it is quite clear to me that I can no longer publish the Seven Years War Association Journal on a quarterly basis. If I continue as editor in Volume XI, then I will return to the schedule that my predecessor, Bill Protz, established when a volume covered a two year period, i.e. publishing journals at the rate of two per year. Another possibility is to pass the editorial reins on to some one else to carry on the work of serving our unique band of historians. If any of our readers has an interest in assuming the task of publishing our Journal, then please feel free to contact me for more information. If I can not find a replacement, then I will continue Volume XI as a biannual publication. These are hard decisions for me to make, but I also realize that I do not have the amount of free time available to serve the members in a timely fashion.

I want to thank Fritz Mueller for his excellent article on the recent Christopher Duffy trip to Silesia. Fritz asked me to embellish the article with any comments that I would care to make, and admittedly I went overboard in some of the background information and details. I am sure that many of the members that went on the trip never dreamed that they would actually have the chance to visit such sites as Leuthen, Hohenfreidburg, Kunersdorf and Zorndorf in their lifetimes.

I for one am grateful and on behalf of the members, I would like to thank Christopher Duffy for making the trip possible. When you really think about, Christopher Duffy has probably done more than any one of our contemporaries to make the stories and information about the Seven Years War available to the Englishspeaking world His knowledge of the subject is unmatched and his ability to relate stories and anecdotes about the personalities of the period really makes the history come alive.

The Foundry

The Foundry (formerly Wargames Foundry or Guernsey Foundry) has advised me that they plan to release the rest of their 25mm line of Russians for the Seven Years War during the first half of 1999. New additions will include infantry in green overcoats (at present only the summer uniform is available), artillery and crew, light infantry, dragoons, hussars, cuirassiers, some vignette packs, and officers and staff. No mention was made of the horse grenadiers, but I am sure that there are plans to include these in the lineup. Keep watching Wargames Illustrated for color pictures of upcoming releases in this range.

I have been holding off on building a Russian army for the SYW until I had a reasonable expectation that The Foundry would have a "complete" line. My understanding is that Foundry sculptors now undergo a training program of about six months during which they practise their technique and bring their skills up to The Foundry's high standards. Ibis is an interesting concept and one that is probably unique to this industry. The end result is that we gamers get a high quality product and a certain amount of consistency across the product line.

My growing interest in things Russian probably stems from The Foundry figures, my recent visits to Kunersdorf and Zorndorf, and my realization that I have not spent much time studying the Russian involvement in the SYW. I think that most of us tend to focus on the main event between Frederick and Daun/Loudon in Saxony and Silesia, while neglecting other interesting aspects of the period.

I will probably include an article about the Russian infantry and cavalry organizations in the next issue, to coincide with The Foundry's figure releases. We are also fortunate to have high quality 15mm and 25mm Russian flags available from Regimental Colours to use on our command stands. Given the complexity of the Russian flags, there is no point in painting them when you can buy a sheet of colored flags that are well-rendered.

I was going over some notes that I took during the Duffy tour of Silesia, and recalled that I arrived in Berlin several days early so that I could do some sightseeing and shopping at the Berlin Zinnfigure store. Steve Carpenter and Ken Bunger were already in the store by the time I arrived. I picked up several books, one full of Menzel drawings, and another being a German version of Mollo's Uniforms of the SYW. My original English text version is starting to get a little dog-eared from use, so I decided that I might as well purchase the German version to use as a painting guide.

I was briefly entranced by the idea of buying some painted flats, but the price was rather dear and I knew that I would never start painting flats, so there was no reason to buy unpainted lead. Nevertheless, Herr Schultz's display cases are worthy of the visit in their own right.

Rossbach

The day before the tour started, Todd Fisher invited me to join him, Steve Carpenter, Ken Bunger and Mike Schundler for a day trip to Rossbach, some 200 km from Berlin. We crammed into Todd's rental car and arrived in the vicinity of Rossbach by noon. Our first stop was the center of Rossbach village where we snapped pictures of the little onion-domed church from which Frederick observed the movements of the French and Allied army. There is a small plaque on a rock in the town square commemorating the battle, which was actually fought at the nearby village of Reichardtswerben.

From Rossbach, we followed the flank march of the Allies around the Prussian positions and ended up in Reichardtswerben. There we saw several signs indicating that there was a Zinnfiguren Museum in the town.

What luck! We drove around, passed the location several times, and finally figured that it was closed for the day. Ostensibly it is only open on Sundays, but Todd and Ken were convinced that we could probably find somebody to let us in, given the small size of the town. We retired to the Kaiser Gasthaus for a tasty meal of roast pork, dumplings, gravy and cauliflower, and of course, some of the local pilsener.

The proprietor learned that we were Americans visiting SYW battlefields (courtesy of Mike Schundler's excellent German). He promptly produced a large color picture of the Zinnfiguren Diorama in the village and indicated that he could arrange to have it opened for us. Yesss!

After lunch, and leaving a generous tip for the proprietor, we walked over to the building that housed the museum, where we were met by an older man and a younger fellow (about 20 years old) who served as his interpreter.

We learned that the house was built in 1632 and that the diorama was built by Max Bauer in 1935. It depicts the initial charge by Seydlitz into the head of the French and Allied column, plus the attack of the Prussian infantry from Reichardtswerben, and finally, the second charge by Seydlitz, which was the final coup de grace. It was a magnificent display. The museum also housed some pictures and artifacts of Frederick the Great plus a whole room devoted to Seydlitz. Some of Seydlitz's descendants donated his camp bed and horse furniture to the museum.

There was also a picture of Frederick sitting in his study talking to his nephew (the future Frederick William II), who has dropped a ball beneath Alte Fritz's desk. He asked Uncle Fritzie to return the ball to him.

Uncle Fritzie replies,"I will return your ball but I will never return Silesia to the Austrians." With that kind of resolve, it is understandable why Frederick persevered through hard times during the SYW. We stayed in the museum for about an hour and took lots of pictures. Before leaving, the guide obviously recognized that we were admirers of Alte Fritz, so he produced a bottle of corn schnapps and some glasses and invited us to join him in a toast to Frederick the Great.

Matchmaking

Finally, congratulations to association member Ralph Morrison and his new bride Dorota Sibilska, who were married on December 5, 1998 in Wroclaw, Poland (on Leuthen Day no less). The happy couple met during the recent Duffy tour of Silesia and they will be residing in Wroclaw. I bet you didn't know that the SYWA also provides a "matchmaking" service, did you?

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