Wuppenhas, the Sixth!

As the battle begins to move into its final stages, circumstances for the the army of the Palatinate of Saukopf-Bachscuttel decline faster than a Vulgarian economic miracle. (Below, top) Barry-Eylund decides that the red-coated Milchfrau Lieb Garde, isolated in the marsh, must be brought forwards in a charge upon the exposed flank of the enemy battalion in front of it. With a soggy cheer, the guard regiment wades forwards with the bayonet. Showing the elan for which elite Mittelheim soldiers are rightly famous, the unit hits the undefended flank of the enemy and then immediately routs. To be fair, and illustrating the sorts of qualities one might expect from an elite unit, the rout is conducted with impressive elan, the troops sprinting rearwards with commendable speed, soiling their britches in quantities impossible for ordinary musketeers.

Reflecting the morale of the Bachscuttel army as a whole, circumstances, which weren't  terribly pert in the first place, begin to sag markedly. (Above) The single regiment left in Barry-Eylund's front line is heavily outnumbered and the ensuing musketry duel, like Prince Rupprecht himself, is badly lop-sided. But the doomed regiment holds for a while, frustrating the Fenwickian command.
'What is the hold up, Nitwitz' says Tripodi, looking up from his writing table where another stack of beautifully written orders are about to be whisked away efficiently to Cavandish's army. 'Their army is clinging to the edge of the precipice of defeat. Be a good fellow and stand heavily upon their fingers'.
'Yes sir; but the remaining regiment of their front line is proving to be rather resilient: they are holding on, barely'.
'Barely? They're fighting naked?' Cavandish's Chief of Staff nods slowly, with not a small measure of respect. 'Well, push on regardless- we must bend them to our will'.
Nitwitz looks on as the enemy regiment survives another volley. 'Hmm, my lord. We will probably need to cut as well as bend'.
But soon, this Bachscuttel regiment can take no more and it, too, tests its cardio-vascular fitness in the doomed relay-race of rout (below). The centre of Barry-Eylund's line is now a horrifying charnel house of corpses; a blood soaked tableaux of dead and wounded, the latter crawling slowly hither and thither crying 'Help!' and 'Redrum! Redrum!'

A brief moment of hope emerges for the Bachscuttlers. Musketry and canister fire does for one of the left hand units in the Imperial column. Immediately after, one of the right-hand regiments, in the heat of battle, launches an unwise bayonet attack on the Bachscuttel troops to their front (below).

(Below) The Bachscuttlers are victorious, although the successful regiment is now badly disordered.
Looking on at the developing fight, Major Bohner claps excitedly and points.
'See, my lord!' he says to the weary looking General Barry-Eylund. 'See how circumstances now change in our favour! I never lost faith in you sir, - I always knew that you had an especially cunning long-term plan!'
'I had a long-term plan?' says the general. 'Did I?'
'Drawing them in sir! Waiting like a crafty snake with a post-graduate qualification; ready to strike!' enthuses the major.
Barry-Eylund shrugs and points at the piles of Bachscuttel dead. 'Calling that a plan I think isn't just stretching the truth, it's making it fully elasticated.'
'What's elastic, sir?'.
'I really have no idea, Bohner. But if this is a long-term plan, then it's so long-term that there will be generations of mammals as yet to evolve opposable thumbs that are still unlikely to see its fruition'.
'What's evolution, sir'.
'No idea, Bohner. But write it down: it might come in handy some day'.

Barry-Eylund has five infantry regiments remaining, but two of those are so far back as to be irrelevant. Of the three that now comprise his front line, one is a guard regiment, a worrying fact in itself, and the two facing the immediate imperial attack are only regulars (below). Tripodi orders one of Cavandish's regiments to swing leftwards and brings the Kurassier von Fliegerweiner under enfilade fire.
Nitwitz shouts a loud 'huzzah!' and then sits down to recover his breath. (Below, bottom) The Imperial staff have had to push Cavandish's bed all the way up the battlefield so that it is properly positioned at the decisive point of the battle. 'Let them feel our wrath!' cries Nitwitz. 'Which they will discover is frighteningly proportioned and always ready for action!'

The ensuing turns are calamitous for Barry-Eylund and his army. The cuirassiers are destroyed by musket fire, and a combination of musketry and a bayonet charge break both of the Bachscuttel regular regiments (below). There is now no longer any Bachscuttel right flank to speak of: just a wide gap between the Bachscuttel cavalry and the remaining guard regiment. All that stands in the way of the three remaining Imperial infantry regiments are a few grassy tussocks, some clumps of nettles, and a small middle-aged rabbit named Brian.*

As Major Bohner contemplates the situation, Barry-Eylund lights a pipe.
Bohner sags visibly. 'Sir, I have an apology to offer'.
The general nods reflectively. 'If, Bohner, you are about to say that it might have been better on reflection to have done a little turtling and protected our flanks, then you can take your apology, stick it in this pipe, and you can puff away'.
Bohner nods sadly. 'But sir: I remain convinced that your plan can still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat'.
'I don't really have a plan', admits Barry Eylund, 'because almost everyone in my army is now dead. My plan now consists of nothing more than a set of really quite fruity expletives, and a general hope that things might improve'.
'Is there no hope, my lord?'
'Well, Bohner', says the general, 'on a more positive note, in the event of a defeat I have a horse, and you do not'.



* Though, as any of the denizens of other local warrens could tell you, Brian actually can be surprisingly combative after a little too much dandelion and burdock.

Wuppenhas, the Fifth!

There is much billowing of white smoke, but, as it clears, it is evident that little damage has been inflicted upon the defending line of Bachscuttel musketeers.
From the Fenwickian headquarters, Captain Fabius Nitwitz wrinkles his nose as he surveys the results. 'Did they fire?' he says to the imperial chief of staff, Giovanni di Tripodi. 'Or did they just light a lot of very big pipes?'
Tripodi nods, philosophically. 'It is typical: one gets excited by the prospect of carnage, but then the troops just let one down'.
'Did they even fire?' mutters Nitwitz. 'Perhaps that isn't smoke - perhaps it's flour. Perhaps what we witnessed was just a great Fenwickian bake-off'.

The Bachscuttel return fire is rather more effective and for a period the battle degenerates into a vicious exchange of musketry, interspersed by frantic attempts to rally off the resulting disorder. By frantic rallying, of course, what we mean is that officers run up and down behind the respective lines of troops informing them that death by musket ball would a mere inconvenience compared with the pain and suffering that will be inflicted upon them by the cunning application of disciplinary badgers if they don't stay in line. Also, the word "degenerates" implies perhaps a higher standard of initial activity then is merited. Perhaps "further degenerates" would be more accurate. Or perhaps "sucks even more mightily". The indecisive nature of this combat is reinforced by the fact that the troops on both sides are of an elite quality, a condition evident less by the quality of the musketry than by the fact that their britches are done up properly.

The larger of the Imperial columns consists of five regiments stacked up one behind the other. To their front, though, their adversaries are bolstered by artillery. Some surprisingly accurate fire from this mixed Bachscuttel force causes the first infantry loss of the battle as the lead Fenwickian element flees. (Below, left) An imperial unit behind marches up to take its place. It too, however, takes some nasty canister right where it hurts.

(Above) The left hand imperial attack column now consists of four regiments, and the right hand of three. Major Bohner turns to Barry-Eylund. 'See my lord!' he says excitedly. 'the enemy batter themselves uselessly against the firm ramparts of our defensive line! I sense a great victory in the offing! See, my lord, the benefits of eschewing the turtle!'
'"Eschewing the turtle"' replies the general. 'It sounds like buying a tortoise a new pair of boots. But, look Bohner, since we are using animal metaphors, let us not count our chickens before they are hatched. Indeed, since these are Fenwickians, the "Spartans of Mittelheim", it would better not to buy eggs from them in the first place; but, rather, to pretend to be buying eggs from them using a large denomination coin so that, when they are trying to find some change, we can kick them in their soft, dangly bits'.
'Right in their earlobes, sir - that's it!' cries Bohner.
'Actually, Bohner, I think I meant a target rather more central to the activity that produces babies'.
Bohner nods enthusiastically: 'Right in their beer, sir! Right in!'
The general gives up. 'Look, I think the point we need to understand here is that this battle is, like the leaning tower of Pisa, very far from being over'.

Indeed it isn't, because, at that very moment, the commanding officer of the splendid, red-coated troops of Bachscuttel's Milchfrau Lieb Garde is struck by a terrible bout of confusion. 'Quack, quack, wibble', the colonel says earnestly to his second-in-command. And, without further ado, the regiment wheels ninety degrees to the right, breaking the Bachscuttel line and moving them into the marsh. (Below, top) Disordered, unable to fire, and now no longer in commend coherence with the remainder of the nearby Bachscuttel infantry force, the guard's contribution to the fight is now that of disdainful observers. As the fetid marshwater begins to seep into their shoes, they stand to attention and make a contribution to the common effort similar to that of all members of the aristocracy throughout the ages - they watch while poorer people crack on with the hard work.

(Above) In front of the guard, the action begins to hot up. More orders, beautifully written and correctly punctuated, issue from the table of chief of staff Tripodi. Some of the orders even include alliteration; some, Japanese Haiku forms. In others, Tripodi, just for giggles, has used iambic pentameter. Not, of course, that this actually produces giggles in the regiments concerned, because the soldiers wouldn't recognise iambic pentameter if it had given birth to them and brought them up for seventeen years in an idyllic childhood on a small farm in Bavaria. Nevertheless, following Tripodi's orders, the lead regiments of each of the two Fenwickian columns give a loud hurrah (or it could be a "No! No!") and charge forwards with the bayonet in an attempt to break the deadlock.

(Above) In front of the red-coated guard, things don't go well for Cavandish - the attacking troops in his right-hand force are roughly handled and flee the field, leaving now three regiments in the attacking column. But this is not the critical combat - more Fenwickians stand behind to take the place of the routed unit. The other combat is more important. The Bachscuttel troops in front are the key to maintaining the integrity of Barry-Eylund's right flank. Though here, too, the Fenwickians are driven back, the victorious Bachscuttlers are left  heavily disordered and in a precarious position. In the subsequent exchange of volleys, Barry-Eylund's infantry are broken (below) leaving a major gap in his line!

(Above) With his right flank infantry regiment destroyed, the Bachscuttel cavalry are now exposed to flanking fire from the enemy infantry. The Kurassier von Fliegerweiner, in particular, look like they are about to have an uncomfortable time of things. The battle seems to be tilting now in Fenwick's direction. Barry-Eylund's sang froid starts to become distinctly chaud.
'We are staring into the face of defeat, Bohner' says Barry-Eylund grimly. 'I can see right up its nose'.

Wuppenhas, the Fourth!

With the redeployment of his infantry more or less complete, Tripodi continues to implement Cavandish's plan and now sends orders to Burgess to re-commence the advance of the Imperial cavalry. This order Burgess enthusiastically implements, the prospect of death or maiming in the incompetent militaries of Mittelheim being a refreshing change to much of his recent previous experiences.

Burgess' furtive and accelerated exit from England had as its origin his foolish dabblings in Palladianism, the architectural style championed by Lord Burlington. Focusing on the symbolic potential of classical buildings, this style incorporated allusion and allegory into the fabric of architecture, imbuing structures with a philosophical as well as a formal meaning. Burlington, of course, was an intelligent and sensitive patron of the arts, whereas Burgess was a penniless chancer with the right family connections but the wrong moral compass: the sort of compass, in fact,  that had a needle that pointed constantly in the direction of "do it, you know you want to". For example, there was nothing especially classical in the allegory of the gardens he designed for the amply proportioned Duchess of  Swindon, the gardens having as their centrepiece a pair of overly large rotunda, the ensemble being entitled "Blimey, Look at the Size of Those". Nor was his work for continental luminaries much better received. The gardens created at huge cost for the Archbishop of Bohemia included a huge glass orangery, the panes of which fell out one mildly gusty Tuesday morning. Forced to replace all of the windows, the "Refenestration of Prague"  left Burgess with heavy debts. After that, he was forced to take almost any employment to survive: selling tulips on dangerous Bristol street corners; bulb-running on behalf of vicious Tetbury criminal gangs; the backstreet pruning of vulnerable young stems.

(Below) Burgess' command sweeps through the forest and, still in perfect order thanks to his understanding of local flora, emerges from the other side. Burgess now orders his troops to begin to wheel. The threat to the Bachscuttel right flank is a clear as King Wilhem of Gelderland's exercise diary.

Recognising the peril he faces, Barry-Eylund responds. He orders his own cavalry to form line and then advances them to try and seal off his flank. As the Fenwickian cavalry continue to wheel, one of Burgess' regiments, indeed, the one that he is attached to, in the heat of the battle launches an unauthorised charge on the infantry to their front. (Below) However, the Bachscuttel troops are in good order, and the cavalry are easily repulsed. The disordered cavalry, with Burgess in their midst, fall back, though not beyond Bachscuttel musket range.

On the long-standing military principle of "in for a penny, in for a pound", Burgess orders a general cavalry charge (below). With his two elite regiments to the fore, and putting their stirrups in, the Fenwickian regiments thunder forwards, hoping for a lucky break.

Sadly for Burgess, however, he must watch both his penny and his pound roll lazily down the back of the chaise longue of defeat. With the only breaks being applied to the limbs of his cavalrymen, the Imperial attack is defeated. The elite Bachscuttel Kurassier von Fliegerweiner it turns out also have a ready supply of stirrups, and they stand firm against Burgess' assault. (Below) The Fenwickian horse fall back. In the background, however, can be seen the massed ranks of the Imperial infantry. With the cavalry assault having, in the short term, failed, Tripodi orders his foot regiments to resume their advance.

(Above, top left) Bachscuttel infantry volleys pour into the cavalry to their front. (Below) Already disordered by their previous charge, the Fenwickian cavalry can take no more, and they break and rout. Burgess, luckily, is able to extricate himself and joins his reserve horsed regiment.

(Above, right) But now, the Fenwickian infantry arrive: two massive columns of Imperial musketeers march forwards. As the pressure on the Fenwickian line builds, Major Bohner turns to General Barry-Eylund and suggests delicately 'Could it now be time for a change of plan, my lord?'
'No', says the general grumpily. 'My course for this battle is set. I shall persevere. Change is overrated'.
Bohner watches the approaching horde of Imperial musketeers and gulps with trepidation. 'But, sir. You know, change isn't a sign of weakness. Everything changes. Perspectives change. Plans change. Er, hair styles change. Ah, interest rates fluctuate'.
'No'.

'A collection of low denomination coins: that's change'

'I think that we're losing our focus here, Bohner. I've made my plan: I flopped my flanks out right where the enemy could get at them. Now, we'll just have to see this through. We'll see how how those damned Fenwickians feel after we give them a good volley!'

Cavandish's infantry level their muskets, confident in their ability to fire first. But wait! Before the Bachscuttel troops are able to fire, it is the Fenwickians who suddenly discharge their muskets, having stolen the first volley! There is a thunderous roar, and smoke erupts from the head of the Imperial assault columns. Barry-Eylund peers worriedly through his telescope ...