History

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Wargaming Korea: 1950-1953

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Wargaming Korea: 1950-1953

Partly inspired by some potential changes in my own life and partly because this year marks the tenth anniversary since my grandfather passed away, I’ve found myself with a newfound interest in the Korean War. I’m resisting the urge to turn this into a research/game project of a similar scale to We Intend to Move on Your Works, but I intend to at least dip my toe in and I would like to have a little structure as I dive deeper. With that goal in mind, I recently read The Coldest Winter and I’ve a short reading list to tackle over the rest of this year. In terms of games, I’m focusing only on operational games that look at the whole Korean peninsula – nothing tactical for the moment. I don’t want this to balloon into a huge life consuming project, so I’m only planning to play at most a handful of games.

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2023 in Review - Top 7 Favorite Books

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2023 in Review - Top 7 Favorite Books

Every year I set myself a target number of books that I want to read before the year is over. For the past few years, that target has been 50 books and with only one exception I’ve managed to exceed it. However, while I managed to meet my target in 2022, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with how I did it. Reading 50 books didn’t leave much room for the kind of doorstopper reads that I enjoy from time to time. So, with that in mind, I decided to lower my target for 2023 to 40 books - and at the same time to be less stringent on what constituted a book for the purposes of recording my reading. I managed to read exactly 40 books, just barely making my target, but I also read some hefty tomes so I’m pretty happy with the result. Just like for 2022, I’ve decided to pull out some of my favorite fiction and non-fiction I read last year and discuss them, in brief, below.

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Remembering Pearl Harbor

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Remembering Pearl Harbor

Before he passed away in 2014, my grandpa wrote down a few short pieces about some of his memories from the years 1941-51. These were written for a cousin of mine as a way to record and share some of his stories. For most of my life he had been relatively quiet about these topics, but as he passed through his 80s and into his 90s, he opened up a bit more about it. One thing that struck me, though, was how when remembering Pearl Harbor and the entry of America into WWII what stuck in his mind 60 years later was not FDR’s speech or the horror of an attack on America. It was what America did to its own people. The stories below reflect the specific circumstances of growing up in relatively diverse rural communities in central California, and how what happened there shaped his memory of December 1941.

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Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam by James M. McPherson

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Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam by James M. McPherson

I have immense respect for authors who are able to do more with less. While it cannot be denied that writing a massive, multi-volume epic history of a subject is an impressive achievement, I am often more enamored with historians who manage to convey nearly as much in a fraction of text. I recently read Stephen Sears’ impressive tome of a history on the battle of Gettysburg, and there can be no denying that it is impressive, but it is James McPherson’s far shorter history of Antietam that has left me stunned with what it achieves.

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Podcast: Discussing the Lost Cause with Beyond Solitaire

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I was lucky enough to be invited to appear on Dr. Liz “Beyond Solitaire” Davidson’s podcast a few weeks back. We discussed my ongoing project on the Lost Cause in historical wargaming as well as a range of subjects, including why we are drawn to difficult subjects and why we might want to play and write about games we know that we won’t actually enjoy playing. It was a great discussion and I think provides some excellent context to the We Intend to Move on Your Works project. You can listen to the podcast via all main podcast distributors or you can watch it on YouTube below:

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We Intend to Move on Your Works - The Lost Cause in Games on the American Civil War: A Project

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We Intend to Move on Your Works - The Lost Cause in Games on the American Civil War: A Project

I am a scion of the Great Commonwealth of Virginia, the Old Dominion, and the son of an avowed Civil War buff so you can probably imagine that my childhood featured a lot of information about the American Civil War. In School I didn’t learn any history after 1865 until I was fourteen. The period between Jamestown and the end of the Civil War was the high point of Virginian hegemony and the school system was perfectly happy to dwell within that temporal space for as long as possible. During my childhood I was frequently taken to battlefields to play - I’ve been to Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, Gettysburg, and many smaller sites more times than I can count. I even have a favourite obscure American Civil War site (it’s the Confederate Breastworks in West Augusta County, Virginia - although more for its scenic views and lovely hiking trail than its historical importance). Few historical events loomed as large in my life as the American Civil War and this has given me a complicated relationship with it.

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My Favourite Books 2022 Edition

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My Favourite Books 2022 Edition

For the last few years I've set myself a goal of reading 50 books a year. While initially pretty achievable, since becoming a parent the challenge of reaching that target has escalated significantly. Last year I barely crept over that line with 51 books read in 2022. While I am pleased to have reached the target, upon reflection I’ve decided to reduce my target to just 40 books in 2023. I read a lot of good books in 2022 but one thing that was clearly missing was big doorstoppers, the kind of books that take me weeks to read. I spent too much time picking books based on reaching my target and not allowing myself to sit and enjoy a book over a longer period. I’m hoping the reduced goal will give me that time while also keeping me motivated and reading every day! Enough musings about my reading habits, though, let’s get on with the list!

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Searching for Black Confederates by Kevin M. Levin

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Searching for Black Confederates by Kevin M. Levin

I had heard good things about Kevin Levin’s Searching for Black Confederates from people whose knowledge of the American Civil War and its legacy I hold in high regard, so I was very excited this past December to finally read it. I grew up in central Virginia and the memory of the Civil War was never particularly far away. I remember being taught Lost Cause myths about the Civil War’s origins in school (and then later, thankfully, being un-taught them by a better teacher). I even remember coming across the Black Confederates myth a few times on the Internet in my 20s. That said, while I have strong cultural association with the American Civil War and have picked up a lot of details about it through my childhood and early adulthood, I am not very well read in terms of books on the subject. I read Ron Chernow’s biography of Grant a few years ago and probably read one or two entry level histories in school years ago, but I would not consider myself an expert. In particular, one area I’m hoping to learn more about is the Lost Cause myth and its structure. I know the broad outline, but I’d like to fill in the details and that’s where books like Searching for Black Confederates come in.

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Life in a Medieval City by Frances and Joseph Gies

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Life in a Medieval City by Frances and Joseph Gies

You don’t come across popular history quite like this very often. Frances and Joseph Gies produced some of the most popular medieval history of the mid-20th century, and reading it now I can see why. I have previously read their book Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel which was about medieval technology and quite enjoyed that - the scholarship is a little dated in places but it’s a good overview of the subject. I had meant to pick up another one of their books but never quite got around to it until now. I saw a copy of Life in a Medieval City in my local library and took it as a sign. I’m glad I did because this is a great introductory history and I’d definitely recommend it.

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Charles VII by M.G.A. Vale

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Charles VII by M.G.A. Vale

I was a little shocked when I found out that the most recent English language scholarly biography of King Charles VII of France was published in the 1970s. Charles’ long reign had a notoriously tumultuous start as King Henry V of England (about whom many biographies are available) arranged to have him disinherited in hopes of passing the claim to the English line. Henry died before the reigning French monarch, Charles VII’s father Charles VI, which meant that the dispute over who was truly king of France passed to his infant son, Henry VI, who also happened to be Charles VII’s nephew. Henry V’s brothers, acting as regent, would fight for control of France on behalf of their nephew against his other uncle, but it was Charles who would ultimately emerge triumphant. This is a critical period in Anglo-French history and Charles VII one of the central protagonists so it seems very odd that he has received only a fraction of the attention of his English counterparts - in English anyway, the French have understandably paid him a little more attention.

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[Malta Month] Playing the Siege of Malta

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[Malta Month] Playing the Siege of Malta

aving now played multiple games on the 1565 Siege of Malta I wanted to take a minute to think about what I’m looking for in a game about the siege and to reflect a bit on how each of the games I played portrays this historical event. I’ve tried to outline several of the key elements or events of the historical siege that I want a game to incorporate in some form. I will discuss why I think they’re important and how each game approaches them. This is not meant to be a critique of the games – if you want my opinions on playing them you should check out the individual posts on each game (easily found via this linke: https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/category/Malta+Month) –instead it is more of a (highly subjective) study of how the siege is portrayed in wargaming.

I should also put as a disclaimer here that there is one game about the Siege of Malta that I haven’t played: Knights of Justice a magazine game published in Wargamer Magazine #50 in 1986. Copies of this are hard to come by so I wasn’t able to play it this month. However, I have found someone who can share their copy with me, but not until they have access to their storage in a few months’ time. When I do get a chance to play it, I’ll write up some general thoughts for a much belated Malta Month post and I may revisit this post then to incorporate the final Malta game.

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River Kings by Cat Jarman

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River Kings by Cat Jarman

I have often felt like a fake archaeologist. I did my PhD on the development of the bow and the crossbow in the later Middle Ages and for much of my evidence I used surviving medieval weapons. I took measurements of five-hundred-year-old crossbows in a Swiss castle and examined an early 15th century crossbow in the basement of the Met in New York. This was, by any reasonable measure, an archaeological study. However, I’ve never been to a dig site or participated in any of the usual archaeologist activities most people picture when they hear the word. I kind of regret that I’ve never been hanging around when someone pulled something old and cool out of the ground and I am a little jealous of those who have. I really enjoy archaeology and I’m fascinated to learn what interesting nuggets of information have been dug out of the earth. That is roundabout way of saying that I really enjoyed how deep into the archaeological woods Cat Jarman’s River Kings goes in places and reading it reminded me a lot of my time as a PhD student – where I was surrounded by people doing Viking age archaeology in Ireland.

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Cutting Room Floor: The Bagler War

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Cutting Room Floor: The Bagler War

The Norwegian Civil Wars were a period of near continuous unrest that lasted for over a century, from1130 until 1240, and saw over twenty kings, pretenders, and claimants battling for control of the kingdom. Amidst this turmoil the reign of Sverre Sigurdson, who claimed the Norwegian throne in 1177 but only ruled as Sverre I from 1184 until his death in 1202, contains an interesting anecdote in the history of the crossbow.

Sverre’s rule was one marked by near constant conflict. He had originated as a pretender to the throne before eventually achieving legitimacy through warfare. An account of his reign was provided by the Sverris Saga, a poetic account of his life probably written by Karl Jónsson, abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Munkaþverá in Northern Iceland. Jónsson died in 1213, meaning that the saga must have been written nearly contemporary to Sverre’s life. The saga says that Sverre’s initial group of followers consisted mainly of “vagrants, outcasts, and robbers who are primarily interested in plundering farmers.”

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Cutting Room Floor: The Calais Garrison

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Cutting Room Floor: The Calais Garrison

In the immediate aftermath of his famous victory at the Battle of Crécy in 1346, King Edward III laid siege to the city of Calais in Northern France. The siege was long and lasted through the winter, but in the end the city could not hold out and there was no sign of a relief army coming from the French king. In the subsequent decades Calais would provide a valuable foothold for the English on the European continent as well as granting them greater control over the English Channel. By the late fifteenth century the Pale of Calais, which consisted of the city of Calais and several nearby fortresses, was the last area in France still held by the English monarchy after King Charles VII’s reconquests of Normandy and Gascony. Defending Calais was a high priority, even during the upheaval of the War of the Roses. The soldiers defending Calais represented as close to a standing army as England had in the Middle Ages, and the information contained in the detailed records left by the garrison and its treasurers provide insight into the extent of crossbow use by the English during the era of the longbow.