How an Officer & Gentleman Rode Through Dettingen, Minden and the Marquis of Granby's Cup by Being the personal memoirs of a participant in the late pleasantness in South Bend, Indiana (a.k.a. the SYWA Convention)

The author metes out punishment to his wargame opponents in the midst of one of his " Great Cavalry Manouvers" during a refight of Minden at the 1994 SYWA Convention.

I arrived into the SYWA convention [Editor: March 1994] tired and weary from a long trip in a small cummuter aircraft. South Bend and the Holiday Inn proved excellent venues for the event itself ( a sincere thank you to Herb Gundt for organizing it). I was however unwary in checking my flight. I assumed that a Nashville to South Bend connection would be in a full-sized aircraft. Big mistake! Small aircraft plus prolonged turbulence equaled nausea and headache. I understand that the convention will be at the same place in April 1995 for next year -- great idea, but check those schedules if your are travelling by air.

[Editor: I'd recommend flying into Chicago O'Hare or Midway airports and then renting a car for the 90 mile drive to South Bend ]

On my arrival I lost no time in plunging into therapy, - a steady diet of aggression, violence and dierolling.

Part the First: Wherein the author gets to charge everything in sight

I first signed on with Jim Purky who was restaging the 1743 Battle of Dettingen. Jim had, of course, his beautifully-painted troops in action. A great deal of enjoyment of the convention is the overall quality of troops and terrain in the various wargames. Even when military incompetence is rising to its own level, one can always be satisfied that at least appearances are being maintained!

Dettingen is a blocking force situation. The British are withdrawing up the river valley, the Main River to their left, impenetrable woods to their right, pursued by a large French army. A smaller French force under the Marquis de Grammont lies across their path. The British must break through this blocking force before they are caught from behind.. Historically, the Marquis, clearly a descendant of the impetuous knights of Agincourt, unwisely advanced to meet the British instead of staying behind a protective stream. This proved to be an excellent and creative way to lose the battle. We modern French under the Marquis de South Bend, Vicomte de Mitchell, resolved to stay put.

My initial assignment was to be a foot-slogger in the French center. However the Gods (i.e. the game judge) looked over the land and it was not good: too many British players and not enough French. Therefore, Bart Redmon underwent a sudden severe transloction to being the British left wing commander and I consequently received a promotion.

I now became de Broglie, commanding a fine selection on the French right - the cavalry of the Maison du Roi, the infantry of the Wild Geese and Gardes Francaises, and some large siege guns across the river. At last a recognition of my tactical skills, my finesse as a general, my unbounded wisdom, etc. - nothing to do with the fact that I was sitting in the next chair.

We looked to our fearless leader, Jim Mitchell, for the plan de bataille. The Viscomte de Mitchell narrowed his eyes, inhaled deeply, cocked his head to one side and said, ' fe ne sais pas! " (translation: I don't know). A moment of stunned silence greeted this. Then a torrent of questions "What" "Quoi?" "Do we go forward or what?" "How about delaying them with sacrificial cavalry charges?" ( a distinctly tasteless proposal I may say promulgated by an infantry commander). The Viscomte beamed at us and said "Je ne sais pas ".

Oh well, I thought, we must be playing the historical level of French commander - totally ineffective. This of course was in retrospect a severe injustice to the Viscomte (by the way, no prizes for guessing his family's motto...) In fact my most recent experiences at conventions have all been with a hands off style of commander, i.e. no real plan, and the strange thing about it is that it often seems to work. So much for all that advice one reads about having a plan and sticking to it! The Duke of Cumberland called for "serried ranks" (I have often wondered what "non-seried ranks" look like) and so the British army duly advanced on our position. We powdered our collective wigs, sniffed our snuff and waited.

To my front my late French colleague and now British adversary commanded a mixed force of infantry, artillery and cavalry. His cavalry advanced rapidly on his left flank, screening his infantry and threatening to come to grips with my Maison du Roi. According to Michael Orr's book on the battle, this was the King's Own Regiment of Dragoons, a.k.a. Bland's. Actually, my artillery did not find them bland at all, rather tasty targets in fact. This cavalry manoever took them within range of my cross-river guns, and thus presented me with one of those challenging decisions which frankly brings out the best of my inherent tacticalgenius. I refer, of course, to the decision as to (a) gape at the cavalry as it danced by and do nothing, (b) shoot the you-know-what out of the lovely juicy target in front of me.

For those among you who are interested in the military decision process, I should point out that I was influenced by 2 factors, viz. [ 1 ] the cavalry could not shoot back at me and [2] they could not charge me across the impassible Main River. Well, it is tough when the odds are stacked against you, but it's great when they are not! After struggling with this difficult problem for a micro-second, I shouted, "Give me a gazillion dice! ", for we were playing Age of Reason rules and I had several batteries of heavy and medium guns, so I proceeded to blast away with all projectiles known to man. A couple of rounds later the British cavalry was a mere fraction of its former self, and my travel-induced headache was distinctly better.

There was a short interlude during which the British artillery sought to avenge their horse. By more incredible skill (I can't recall whether I outgunned him 3 to 1 or 4 to 1) I managed to crush this impertinence and began to think offensively. I queried our gallant leader, "Do I go forward?" "Je ne sais pas" (The hereditary passion for consistency known among generations of Vicomte de Mitchell, I suppose). Well since I had the best cavalry in the French Army togeather with the Wild Geese and Les Gardes Francaises, all covered by heavy guns, it seemed fairly risky!

Furthermore, I was faced with desperate odds against me, a line of British infantry lacking cavalry and artillery support had their left flank in the air, daring me to attack. As you can see another rough decision; so shouting "All for me and sauve qui peut!" I launched de Broglie's wing forward. The Wild Geese closed up to the stream and the Maison du Roi began to cross on their right, covered by my artillery.

After that, the cavalry gods shined on de Broglie and the French right wing. The threat posed by my advancing Irish infantry fixed the British line in place. Bart could not afford to leave any gaps, nor could he create any angles in the line to serve as a weak point. The infantry began to trade volleys as the Wild Geese emerged from the marshes of the Haggraben stream. The Maison du Roi treaded their way forward on the far flank. They emerged, straightened their lines, ready to engulf the British left. A lone British battalion faced to flank in a vain attempt to halt the looming French demarche.

There then ensued what is known in the trade as a "roll-up" as various British battalions got hit in the flank by charging cavalry while being shot at from the front, or vice versa. The Maison du Roi rolled; the Wild Geese volleyed; my heavy artillery pounded; and my Gardes deigned not to disturb their coiffs, i.e., I did not need them. The British left wing ceased to exist. The game was called in favor of the French and King George was invited to dine with Le Viscomte ( a fate worse than death for I believe that snails were on the menu).

I received plaudits from all on my apparent mastery of the art of cavalry warfare. Utter drivel flowed from my lips: "Well I've studied Murat's intellectual concepts and Von Breedow's principle of economy of force, blah, blah, blah". However, as I basked in my fifteen minutes of fame, a little voice said "quit while you're ahead". As with all little voices I ignored it.

Part the Second: Wherein the author charges everything in sight, but is responded to in a most disagreeable fashion

Having eaten a hearty breakfast the next day, thereby really setting myself up as a condemned man, I presented myself at the table of Dean West, who was staging a refight of Minden, the western theatre 1759 battle between the French and the Allies. Dean's troops were also superbly finished, but the striking feature was the terrain. For a convention, the landscape he assembled was outstanding.

A great virtue of the board was the simplicity of construction. A basic green indoor/outdoor carpet over blocks served to sculpt the landscape. K&M trees and really nicely painted houses were the main focal points. [ Editor: Dean also uses 10mm buildings with his 15mm troops and the overall proportions look very realistic.] Excellent use of lichen and flocking made the whole blend into a natural picture. My usual gaming group puts on ACW games at our local conventions with terrain that is simply awesome (Californiaspeak, you know).

I can say this without blushing as I have nothing to do with making the game board. However, the group puts a lot of work into achieving the effect - the whole thing is first sculpted topographically in styrofoam, etc. and requires major logistical effort to set up. Dean's arrangement went a long way to achieving a similar effect, but much more efficiently. I for one would welcome an article on his methods. [Editor: so would I!]

Minden is one of those "can-they-deploy-in-time" battles. To coax the French out of Minden, Prince Ferdinand withdrew his main army some distance. He left a strong detachment entrenched northwest within easy reach of the city to serve as bait and a picket to the west of Minden as a early warning force. His plan relied on a timely alert that the French were debouching to attack when he would march the army back with all speed and hit them before they were properly deployed.

In the event the warning was late and the French had ample time to form up. The most famous incident in the ensuing battle was the failure of repeated French cavalry charges to break nine isolated infantry battalions: six British and three Hanoverian, which had mistakenly advanced in front of the main line. Despite repeated orders, Lord Sackville (a.k.a. the Coward of Minden), in charge of the Allied cavalry, failed to countercharge and the French were able to withdraw in good order.

In the refight at South Bend there was a preponderance of Froncophile players, so I found that I had "turned-coat" since the night before and was now serving with His Britannic majesty's army against the villanous Frenchh. Our leader bore a startling resemblance to my commander of the night before - because it WAS my commander of the night before, here in the guise of Prince Ferdinand Von Mitchell. Espying me he said, "Ach, der Pferdmeister - you get the cavalry!" As the cavalry at Minden are in the command of the well-known incompetent, Lord Sackville, this seemed like a dubious honor. Dean, however, announced that there would be no "iron maiden" rules.

"Let's assume the Marquis of Granby is commanding the Allied cavalry. He can do anything that he pleases." Hmm, this called for thought. To maintain my image as the epitome of excellence in matters pertaining to the arme blanche, I first needed to avoid a major screw up. I decided on Plan Grouchy: first have breakfast while far off cannon roared (had done that); then let the other guys do all of the fighting , hang around threateningly without actually attacking anything for an hour or two, and then maybe pounce on a few hapless depleted French units. Toss in lots of fightin' talk and my colleagues might not catch on. Seydlitz it wasn't, but...

We gathered around our fearless leader for guidance in the difficult struggle ahead. Prince Ferdinand von Mitchell spoke: "Weiss ich nicht" (translation: I don't know). Oh yes, we've been here before. Ah well, zu Pferd! Actually in my case it was first zu fuss! My colleagues commanded either a column, each of several infantry battalions and artillery support, or in the case of John Hill, the entrenched bait. The latter force, von Wangenheim's wing, was near the charmingly named town of Todtenhausen (or Houses of the Dead). In my case the cavalry was a small command so I was also given the trip-wire force close to Minden. This consisted of a fairly mediocre Jager outfit and a battalion of Hessian infantry. My orders were to delay the advancing French as much as possible - "oh, and don't come back..you are not on the dinner list..." Inspiring stuff.

Actually since everyone else spent most of the morning session marching to battle, while I got to fight in a bloody little contretemps on the picket line, it wasn't bad at all. In this reincarnation I was the Prince of Anhalt in charge of the Allied pickets. In the real battle, Anhalt had been very dilatory about alerting Ferdinand, and thus in the bad books generally. The tactical problem was fairly straightforward.

The uninspiring jagers (regimental march: the Symphony Pathetique) were lodged in the village of Hahlen. About one march move away on the Minden side was a French brigade in column of battalions. My line battalion was a similar distance away in open country. The situation: outnumbered about three to one with orders to stand. Solution: De-fense, De-fense, De-fense - force the French to lose men and time getting rid of me. ( A pedantic diversion here: the importance of time is often overlooked by miniaturists - gaining advantage, not in material but in extra time to do things, the concept chess players term a "tempo". They potter around while their opponent is organizing and are surprised when, although the overall numbers are equal, they are defeated because the fast-moving enemy has massed a local superiority in attack.

In the current situation both sides were equidistant from the village which I wanted as my defensive redoubt. If we both went straight into the village, it would be an equal struggle in which numbers, French, would prevail. I needed to gain a time advantage on my opponent, who was no slouch. The only solution I could see (instead of rushing into the village which was the more conventional approach) was to take on his first battalion in the open area next to the village and gamble on repulsing it. The disorder produced would give me enough time to occuppy the village. He would have to make an organized assault to weed me out.

Fortune smiled, and things went more or less according to plan. The ground south of Hahlen was bounded by a marshy stream which prevented the French commander from deploying more than one battalion in line between the village and the stream. He was under orders to roll over the picket force and deploy well beyond Hahlen to defend against the main Allied army. I moved up slowly and gave him my opening volley. Since he had steamed towards me on the first move with great Furia Francesa his fire was less effective. Immediately next turn I charged, and his lead battalion took a temporary furlough. It furloughed into the guys behind who did not take it well. By the time he had disentangled things I was in my usual heroic posture, i.e behind stone walls, hedges, houses, etc. Hey, I'm not stupid; I've fought Atlanta, Petersburg (courtesy of John Hill), etc. Us veterans learns things ya know. It took time and men to demolish my brave landsers (I refer to my Hessians). By the time it was over, I was no more, but his brigade was fairly shot up and the first British column was close at hand. The jagers? Woefully they took a powder at the first sign of trouble.

It would be nice to stop here, I think, so I will! Okay, okay, I'll come clean about the avalry. Yes, well I like to think that I manoevered them around behind our lines with great panache and skill. My mistake was leaving my lines. Really, Lord Sackville was a tactical genius.

Great Cavalry Maneuvers