Warning, Not to Scale!

The purposes of a siege are manifold - the seizing of a point of strategic importance, for example; the chance to tie down a portion of the enemy army; the opportunity to force the enemy to march to the relief of said position and so wrest the initiative. But in Mittelheim, one of the other advantages, theoretically, of a siege, would be the opportunity to procure some really big pieces of artillery and to make some really very loud explosions without being shouted at, or having one's stuff confiscated. Indeed, the luxuriant heft of the Nabstrian siege park has already been alluded to in previous editions of this publication: such a collection of heavy metal has surely not been seen since Princess Caroline of Bachscuttel's corsets were last laid out for cleaning.

On the other hand, there has been rather less said on the subject of the contribution made to this siege by the Palatinate of Saukopf-Bachscuttel . For this omission there is a reason. Envious of the size of Burgrave Falco of Nabstria's ordnance (not a phrase that could ever be said in polite Fenwickian society), the prince had perused the catalogues of several manufacturers of heavy artillery and mortars. One, in particular, took his eye -  described as a 32lb siege mortar, this weapon seemed just the ticket. 32lb sounded quite big: easily as much, for example, as one of King Wilhelm's buttocks.

Alas, (above) the piece delivered was less impressive than hoped for. It was either quite small, or else permanently quite far away, and looked less like a siege mortar than it did a chocolate log with a vase stuck on the end. For Prince Rupprecht, this disappointment chafed. It was not the chafing of the intensity, say, of putting on a fur hat and discovering that it was in fact a small and angry honey badger; but it was not far from being comparable to going for a long gallop on one's horse before discovering that one had earlier inadvertently tipped iron filings into one's underbritches.

Nevertheless, since it was the only Bachscuttel contribution to the siege force of the Spasmodic Sanction, there was nothing for it but to crack on. And so, for day after day, the crew of the mortar have been firing it at the enemy, more from a sense of duty than any real belief that it will do any damage. Lobbing munitions into the fortress from this mortar seems rather like presenting facts or objective evidence to Prince Rupprecht - ultimately pointless, but one feels the need to go through the motions. The crewmen have taken to coughing loudly as each round is fired, in order to make the explosion seem more impressive.

Whilst the Bachscuttel bombardment might be, metaphorically, administering to their Fenwickian enemies merely some minor tweaks to their noses, the weight of the Nabstrian attack is much more serious, comprising, as it were, a persistent and heavy flicking of the Fenwickian genitals with a quite substantial ruler. These eye-watering consequences are likely to become even more serious as work continues apace on the third siege parallel ...