"THE WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION - A Wargamers' Guide. Part I, Uniforms of the French Army 1740 - 1748" by STEPHEN MANLEY - and - same title except "Part III, Uniforms of the Dutch Army 1740 - 1748" by the same author.

Available from "Potsdam Flags & Publications, 16 Buckminster Close, Derby, DE21 2EA, England, UK at Ł3.99 + 50p post & Packing per copy. Members of the SWA are given a Ł1.00 discount. Booklets can be supplied to Canada and the USA on application.

Other titles currently available are "Part II, Uniforms of the British Army 1739 - 1748", "Part IV, Uniforms of the Spanish Army 1739 - 1748." Other nations and states uniforms are in preparation.

Stephen Manley has been a member of the SWA for many years and is one of the Advisers in the SWA Advisers Service. I am happy to see these well presented booklets as I am very interested in "The Lace Wars" as a whole and I have had some good games in the W.A.S. period.

As an old English teacher I quibble over the line in the title:- "A Wargamer's Guide" - "A Wargamers' Guide" surely? - meaning a guide for all Wargamers and not a Guide by a single wargamer for a single wargamer. It depends where you put the apostrophe.

The booklets are well illustrated and are A4 in size with a clear plastic sheet covering the front and plastic ringbound.

Part I. After an introduction pages 1 to 10 deal with the Infantry of the line. Besides uniform details one gets facts about equipment, Weapons, Musicians, Headgear, Grenadiers, Sapeurs (Pioneers), Milices (Militia), Les Grenadier Royaux. Then there are tables which give details of the dress of Line Regiments 1740 - 48. Using this you can get an idea of how Les Gris looked en masse.

Next comes pp11 to14, The Foreign Corps, Les Swiss, Germans, Scots, Irish and Italians. Tables are given for these stout troops too.

III. The Footguards, Les Gardes Francaise and Les Gardes Suisse all on page 15.
IV. The Cavalry pages 15 - 21. All different types of cavalry are covered and pp19 - 21 include tables of uniform differences.
V. (misprinted VI in my copy) The Maison du Roi, pp22 & 23.
VI. The Gendarmerie de France, pp24 & 25.
VII. Artillery and Supporting Troops pp26 - 27, includes the pieces, Engineers, Sappers and Labourers.
VIII. Les Troupes Légčres, pp28 - 33, besides these the Volunteer Corps have a couple of pages.

General notes p.34 gives you the address of "The Seven Years War Association" run by the redoubtable Jim Purkey of Illinois. Then an ad for full colour scale flags 25mm - 6mm! at the same address as the publisher. Then availability of wargames figures. Three manufacturers are named. Then an ad for a second hand army supplier - who also does painting to order.

Finally there is a select bibliography. 15 books in all including Funckens, Lawson, Pengel and Hurt, Knötel and Kannik.

Dutch Army

The other booklet, The Dutch Army is produced in the same way. As so little has been produced in English on this army, three advisers have helped - M. P.W.J de la Taste M.O.D. (Army), Major (retired) P.D. van den R˙ke and Mr B.B. Süsshamer. Most of the work is based on contemporary writing and 18th Century prints and portraits and unpublished manuscripts.

Another excellent gathering of information at a reasonable price. I am told Richard Barbuto is doing a booklet on the army of the USA for the War of 1812. This is accompanied by one on The King's Army by Stephen Manley.

This series is very well worth looking at and I recommend the booklets I have seen to you.