Serious military history is making a come-back of sorts in the British Army after sixty-odd years of neglect, and I was fortunate enough to be involved in on-site presentations of the battles of Hastenbeck (1757) and Minden (1759) which were staged by 40 Field Regiment Royal Artillery on 27 October, 1992. I worked closely with a retired officer of the regiment, Frank Baldwin, who did the groundwork and was able to give practical effect to some of my wilder inspirations, while the regiment itself threw itself into the enterprise with enthusiasm. My basic idea was not to put on re-enactments, but to re-create the actions in symbolic form across the full available extent of the sites. Thus a whole battalion was represented by man-sized Figure 11 targets which were painted red and staked out soldier-for-soldier across its actual position in the centre of the Hanoverian line at Hastenbeck, and the array was extended as far as the two wings by markers for each of the other battalions. The display could be seen from two or three kilometers' distance, and it attracted considerable local interest - a reporter arrived from Hanover, and the Hameln black powder club was incorporated into the action with their muskets and pieces of artillery. In the same way the locations of the actual batteries of 1757 and 1759 were indicated by the tank screens which are used on modern military exercises. As the guests (one hundred British, French, Dutch and German officers) took station at each viewing stand, so the relevant action came to life before them -- soldiers advancing at 100-tre intervals to simulate lines of battle, and pyrotechnics being set off at battery sites. At these distances the red football shirts were indistinguishable from elaborate uniforms, and SA-80 rifles firing blanks on semiautomatic gave a surprisingly real representation of the actual volume of musketry. We were very fortunate to have the services of the 2nd Rhode Island Artillery and the 37th Regiment of Foot (units of the recently-formed Society of the American Revolution). They were extremely well trained, dressed and equipped, and by representing, on a small scale, what actually happened in 18th-century battle, they made it easy for even the least-informed spectators to extend to scenes to the whole width and depth of the field in their imaginations - the targets, screens and so forth gave them all the extra indications they needed. Audience participation was an important ingredient of the show. At the first rehearsal I conceived the notion of issuing the guests with "muskets" (in the form of stakes), and forming them into a company to be put through two of the attacks. The NCO's of 40 Regiment were delighted at the chance to "beast" senior officers, and the first that our victims knew of what awaited them was when they were doubled into a slimy field at Hastenbeck and ordered to pick up their muskets. After a couple of moments of urgent exhortation from Sergeant Bradley they were advanced in three ranks across mud and into a wood at the foot of the Obensburg Hill, where they executed a left wheel, then pushed up the slope for several hundred metres to where the 2nd Rhode Island Artillery was firing its 3-pounder from a battery site of 1757. At Minden in the afternoon we represented the attack of von Sporcken's brigade across nearly two kilometres of ploughland and growing crops. By now all of our "soldiers" were thoroughly habituated to their roles and our line was extended on the right flank by the 37th Regiment of Foot and the 2nd Rhode Island Artillery, and on the left by the pressment, local farmers and so on who had entered into the spirit of the occasion. We were "charged" frontally by five horsemen where appropriate, and our second line (the soldiers in their red shirts) executed the famous right wheel against the counterattacking French infantry. As far as I was concerned this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to test some basic Frederician tactics, and we were all struck by how well the old methods worked, and how unexpectedly easy it was to maintain step and regularity across some pretty difficult terrain. The essentials seemed to be: (1) Keeping the eyes inclined towards the flank from which we took our dressing, and to the pivoting flank during the wheels, (2) A short and high step of no more than 75 paces to the minute - the little band was a great help, (3) Frequent halts on the Obensburg for re-dressing after passing fallen trees or patches of bushes. Just a few seconds were required on each occasion, and it was remarkable how fast and easy the ascent seemed to the members of the reconnaissance party which had made the climb at its own speed two days before, and had arrived at the top in disorder and out of breath. Afterwards a number of our soldiers commented independently how the experience had differed from modern parade drill and on the sense of solidarity given by the shoulder-to-shoulder formation in the open field. It must have taken some very considerable advances in the lethality of weapons to persuade armies to renounce the many virtues of close order tactics in the next century. We all learned a great deal from the event and the discussions, and a number of the officers found illuminating parallels between 18th century and modern warfare - the problem of securing flanks on an open theatre of war, for example, or the deployment of weapons systems. Thus the sites of the batteries of heavy artillery at Hastenbeck were almost without exception where most of our officers would have sited Milan anti-tank missiles at the present day. It is dangerous to push comparisons too far, or seek prescriptive lesson but 40 Regiment had succeeded in a dramatic way in highlighting areas of perennial military interest. Eighteenth -century battles, compressed in space and time, lend themselves particularly well to this treatment. I believe there is a future for this kind of recreation. It doesn't require very much in the way of elaborate resources, but it does need careful organization on the ground, good liason with the local community, thorough briefings and rehearsals, and features like radio control. Military cooperation is an invaluable asset, as is the participation of a small and cohesive group of high-grade re-enactors. I forgot to mention, by the way, that the Society of the American Revolution set out an 18th-century camp site amid a group of period during our lunch break near Minden. Back to Seven Years War Asso. Journal Vol. VI No. 3 Table of Contents Back to Seven Years War Asso. Journal List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by James E. Purky This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com