1. From member Neil Cogswell

I've received this plea: "Horace St Paul and the Austrian Army are about to liberate Silesia. Unfortunately, the staff cannot provide sufficiently detailed maps. I have the modern 1:100,000 topographical maps of Poland, but relating the smaller villages to those familiar in 18th century Silesia is extremely difficult. What I really need is a pre-1945 road map of Silesia with the small villages marked in their old German style. I have searched bookshops to find these - thousands must have been printed and just as many thousands discarded. I will keep on searching BUT, perhaps you can help.

A photocopy would be very welcome and might get the Austrians to Breslau that much quicker! Please contact Neil Cogswell at neil@cogswellfn.freeserve.co.uk."

2. Brian Vizek writes:

"I just wanted to inform the SYWA members that Ken Trotman Ltd. is going to be reprinting Knowles' book Minden and the Seven Years War. The book is 114 pages, 9 plates, and 5 maps. The book contains concise accounts of Minden, Warburg, Vellinghausen and Wilhelmsthal. This reprint run is limited to just 50 copies. As soon as Ron Brown, owner of Ken Trotman Ltd., gets 50 subscribers for the book he will get it printed and I am sure it will be a long time before you see this book again.

I just wanted to let the members know about this great opportunity to get a copy of this hard to find book. The cost is only £ 29.95 or just under $45.00. The phone number for Ken Trotman is country code (44) 1223-211030, calling from the UK 01123-211030, their e-mail address is trotman@netcomuk.co.uk. Their web site is http://www.Kentrotman.ltd.uk. The address is Ken Trotman Ltd. Unit 11, 135 Ditton Walk, Cambridge CB5 8PY England."

Well done, Brian! Thanks for this most welcome news. I will be contacting Ken Trotman as soon as possible to put in my order. I heartily recommend that those readers who are interested do likewise. I have received a lot of input from subscribers who are interested in the history of the Seven Years War in western Germany, and this should be a very welcome addition to the literature of this little known theater of war.

3. ***IMPORTANT*** FOR THOSE WHO HAVE ORDERED MY SCENARIO MAP OF THE BATTLE OF MEHR, MEMBER LUKE MULDER SENDS THE FOLLOWING:

"It is with pleasure that I view your fine maps. Much research has gone into them, and it is with the enthusiasm of viewing them that I offer my own comments concerning the allied order of battle for Mehr.

If one looks at the allies with "Etats" in mind, perhaps they were not quite so weak in numbers compared to the French.

The two Hanoverian regiments probably had their grenadiers with them, as these weren't separated from their battalions until 1759. Thus, Stolenberg "4B" could have had up to 912 men, of whom 65 would be grenadiers.

Saxe-Gotha "9A" could have had up to 814 men of whom 65 would be grenadiers.

Saxe-Gotha did not join the Hanoverian Army until January 1759, so in 1758 they would have fought with a strength equivalent to the Hanoverian etat of 1755, to which they had been stipulated for service with the allies. Thus they have 98 less men that Stolenberg.

The Hanoverian Dragoner Regiment Busch could have had up to 714 men in 4 squadrons, of whom 52 would be grenadiers.

The Brunswick Grenadier Company (Imhoff) could have numbered up to 170 men.

Captain von Buttlar's Hessian Grenadier Company could not have had more than 70 men.

Thus my estimate for allied forces present at Mehr, allowing for attrition, baggage garde (2-3 men per battalion), recruiting and depot assignments, etc., would be in the neighborhood of 4100 men. So instead of being 1.8x smaller than the French force, it well may have been only 1.6x smaller."

My hat is off to you, Luke, for your very relevant comments. I shall be revising my maps to reflect this information, and I encourage the members to do likewise. I will print out new orders of battle at the earliest opportunity and make them available for free to those who may already have my map and who happen to request them.

4. "Instrument of War," the first part of Christopher Duffy's new work on the Army of Maria Theresa is now available through the Emperor's Press, the Seven Years War Bookstore, and other finer book dealers. For anyone who is truly interested in the Austrian army during the Seven Years War, this book and its projected companion will probably never be surpassed, at least in my lifetime! This book can be ordered through both the Seven Years War Bookstore and the Emperor's Headquarters. See the ads elsewhere in this issue.

5. UK Member John Boadle writes:

"I'm a long-time member of the SYWA and I thought I'd drop you a line to update you on something that ought to be of interest to some members. Remember the Guernsey/Wargames Foundry range of SYW Prussians and Russians? Lovely figures but an incomplete range. Well it's all just 'Foundry' now, established in the massive new factory/shop/HQ in Nottingham in the East Midlands of England ( http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/ ). I am going to be sort of working for them soon and have taken pains to find out what's happening about SYW.

As you may know the original figures were sculpted by Mark Copplestone. Regiments in uniforms aren't really Mark's thing and he's been doing Darkest Africa, and now Conquistadors. There are a few unreleased figures he did which were reviewed in this journal a couple of years back. The range was supposed to be taken forward by a sculptor called Nick Collier, who unfortunately did a couple of SYW then went off to work for Harlequin (now 'Icon') miniatures. (You may have seen the excellent 25mm WW2 figures he's done for them.) The range is now to be taken up by another new sculptor, by the name of Mark Simms. I had a long chat with him about plans for the SYW range. As we say over here, there's good news and bad news; which do you want first?

Well the bad news is that very little has been done at the time of writing, and the other bad news is that Mark Simms confesses to knowing very little about the SYW and it's uniforms. The good news, however, is that he is a great sculptor (see his Vikings on the Foundry website), and he's keen to learn. Foundry boss Bryan Ansell is a SYW fan and has been lending him the Duffy books, which is certainly the right place to start, I suppose. Bryan wants him to begin by doing a range of Von Kleist's Green Freikorps, and I have sent him a load of info on the same, including a portrait of Kleist for a personality figure. I plan to work it into an article on this Freikorps (background and painting details) for the Foundry website. There will be the Kleist Horse Grenadiers, the 'Green Croat' infantry and maybe the Hussars. Alongside this project Mark will be doing the figures necessary to bring all the existing stuff into the current pack format, then to fill the gaps in the ranges: artillery, dragoons and personalities being what springs to mind for both Prussians and Russians, also Prussian jagers, maybe the Bosniaks... If all goes well we may hope to eventually see some Austrians.

So I think it's more good news than bad, though folks are going to have to buy these figures if the SYW ranges are to be viable as an ongoing commercial proposition. Personally I will be delighted if I can help at all in making this happen, although I'm afraid my influence will be more of the 'Seydlitz encouragement and motivation' sort rather than the 'Saldern beat-them- with-a-stick' variety! When I say I'm going to be 'sort of' working for Foundry it's actually only as a self-employed model maker. I will be making some major displays/gaming tables for the HQ over the coming months (sadly not SYW ones yet), which you should eventually see on the Foundry website and/or in Wargames Illustrated.

By the way, I thought Vol. XI, No.4 was about the best issue ever, Jim. The color plates added a lot My resubscription is going straight off to Phil Mackie."

New 7YW Books

6. There are some new books out that pertain to our time period. Nothing But My Sword by Sam Coull is a new biography of Field Marshall James Keith. Born in Inverugie, Scotland, in 1694, Keith fought for the Jacobites in 1715 and again in 1719. Upon the defeat of the Jacobites, he immigrated to Russia where he served in their army, participating in campaigns both in Poland and the Ottoman Empire. From there Keith entered Prussian service and became one of Frederick the Great's most capable generals until his untimely death at Hochkirch.

Although this new biography does not go into a great deal of detail regarding the military operations, it does serve to flesh out many of the details of this intriguing man's life. For this reason it is a valuable addition to the much too rare literature of our period of interest.

The book is softbound, and the price is $19.95. This book can be ordered through most quality bookstores. I believe that both the Emperor's Headquarters and On Military Matters carry this title.

Another addition to my library is Stuart Reid's latest Wolfe: The Career of General James Wolfe from Culloden to Quebec. This provides a fresh treatment of Wolfe as well as giving an extensive bit of background information on the British army during Wolfe's lifetime. Reid paints a realistic picture of Wolfe while avoiding any indication of the strong partisanship, either for or against his subject, that has been seen in many other biographies.

Hardbound and priced at $32.95, my copy was purchased at the Emperor's Headquarters.

Although I have read and enjoyed both of these books, I haven't had time to write thorough reviews of them. I would certainly enjoy receiving a review or some other feedback from the membership as to what you think of them.

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