Mick's Swiss and Burgundians (Steel Fist Knights 29th July 2016)

[Arlequín]

This 19th Century lithograph of the original is a touch clearer...



So it looks like a hedge with gaps, backed by a wattle fence, with breastworks constructed in the gaps. Presumably there was a ditch on the other side, which the sappers would have deepened and possibly put stakes in.  

"Dear diary, have found a really nice place to camp. Am paying all the hired help this morning, as I plan to pop into town later. Awful din outside, hope its not the English playing up again... must go see what the fuss is about."

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

Thank-you for all the comments on the Grünhag.  They have inspired me to dig out my books and do some internet research.

The Schilling picture is by Diebold Schilling the Elder (c. 1445–1485) and was probably drawn in 1482 which is soon after the 1476 Battle of Murten (or Morat in French).  His nephew, Diebold Schilling the Younger, wrote another chronicle in 1515.

I have visited the battle site and many of the museums with collections from the Burgundian Wars.  From the museum in Murten, I bought a teacher’s resource book about the Burgundian Wars in German.  This morning, inspired by your posts, I have been comparing the deployment and battle diagrams in the book with Google maps.

From the deployment diagram: - The Burgundian defences were a natural ravine (Burggraben) in woodland (Birchenwald = birch wood) at the northern end with the man-made defences forming an upside down hockey stick shape (blade facing right).  The top of the hockey stick was the artillery emplacements running SW to NE. From the SE edge of the artillery the Grünhag (reinforced green hedge or green fence) runs on a long line NNW to SSE down to the village of Salvanech.  This booklet does not mention a ditch, but I have seen other descriptions that say there was a ditch in front of the fence. The Burgundians were deployed on the SW side of the Grünhag with the area on the NE side a large flat killing field on the approach road from Bern.

From Google Maps: - The southern point of the Grünhag is Salvenach, a village 3km SE of Murten.  From there the Grünhag ran NNW.  1200m NNW is a stream corner of the Löwenbergbach.  The Löwenbergback stream lies in a steep valley (ravine) in a wood marked as Gultenholz.  This stream corner is the therefore the tip of the hockey stick.  On the left of the line of the Grünhag in the diagram there is a small hill behind the centre of the Burgundian forces. This is marked on Google maps as Wilerholz.

Schilling Picture: - I also found a bigger version of the Schilling picture on-line.  
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Schilling_murten_bern.jpg
From Schilling’s picture, we see artillery defences in the foreground.  These are substantial woodwork with two rows of vertical posts about 2m high and chest high horizontal logs in between.  From the end of the artillery position, there are sections of woodland linked by sections of wattle fence stretching into the distance.
I guess that the artillery defences must have been 150m to 200m long and the Grünhag was between 1000m and 1200m long.

Does that sound plausible?
Mick

[Arlequín]

It's not something I'm overly familiar with... but it all sounds good to me! 

One question for you Burgundian buffs... iirc Diebold Schilling was actually with the Swiss wasn't he? If so and even bearing in mind that he did the illustrations nearly a decade later, his depiction of the Burgundians doesn't appear to reflect the blue and white, with a red cross uniformity, that the Burgundians are popularly supposed to have had.

I've been looking into the Burgundians/Low Countries after Charles the Bold quite a bit recently and it appears that they certainly didn't keep to any sort of regularity, with the exception of the St. Andrews cross (in either red, white, yellow or black, with no apparent rhyme or reason - just what worked with the livery it was worn with). Looking at the picture close up... this also seems to be the case here... at least judging by the standards at least.

I know the 'Ordinance' specified blue and white for coutillier and mounted archers, and Gen d'Armes were supposed to wear a red St. Andrew's cross over their armour, but nothing is mentioned for the infantry. We know that in terms of manpower that the companies didn't achieve their full complements of infantry in any case. Was it also the case with uniforms too perhaps? Did they follow contemporary practice elsewhere and each Captain had their own livery for his company? It might certainly account for the lack of uniformity with Company banners etc.

What do you think guys? 

 

[painterman]

Mick
Very interesting, and very useful, research that you've done.
Can I ask if the map from the museum book is scan-able - as this seems useful to see?
it sounds a lot like the illustration in the Osprey Medieval Tactics book?




Cheers
Simon.

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

The map is visible on-line at the Murten panorama site.

http://www.murtenpanorama.ch/en/schlacht/222.php

The website is well worth exploring and the book is quite good too.

Have you got the Osprey "European Medieval Tactics 2" book?
Is it worth buying?

Mick

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

@ Arlequin

I deliberately chose the "theoretical" Ordinance colours for the Burgundians to make a pretty army.
I am sure that on the actual campaign they were not quite so uniform.

Mick

[Arlequín]

... and a very pretty army it is too! 

From what little I know of Duke Charles, if anyone at this time had an army uniformly clothed, it would be him. I think that a lot of his appeal to wargamers is that he displays many of the same characteristics as we do ourselves in our collections... and with the same proportions of wins to losses.

I'd imagine him today whining on a forum about how 'the Army lists are wrong!' and 'They shouldn't be able to do that for the points'.

 

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

Today it is snowing, so I stayed in and converted a mountain of plastic rod cut from sprue into artillery defences for the Burgundians.
These are mounted on 25x50mm Litko bases and can be arranged for one, two or three guns.

[max]

Had a similar idea myself, but got sick of trimming all the rods. Yours look great!

[Admiral Benbow]

Very nice armies, Mick, and so fast ...
 

[painterman]

Mick
Nice work on those wooden defences.
Envious about the snow...!
Simon.

[Silent Invader]

Great project Mick 

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

I have now painted the Burgundian artillery defences and added static grass.


I have also made my first attempt at the Grünhag (green fence or hedge) defence line. From research and previous posts in this thread, the consensus is that this was a strong wattle fence which reinforced a natural hedge.  Some reports also describe a ditch and bank in front of the Grünhag.


This is made as four 24 cm long sections of wattle fence on 2mm Perspex bases.  The groundwork is 9mm high softwood sections to give a ditch and bank.  The width is 9cm.
The wattle fence worked out quite expensive as I ended up buying various materials before I found an effect that I liked.  I tried 4mm and 3mm diameter beech rod for the posts.  For the wattle, I tried several kinds of string and wire and also 2.5mm bamboo skewers  but rejected them all as they looked too even.  

In the end I used 3mm beech posts which were from cookery skewers. 3mm is about 180mm at full scale which looks about right.  I drilled 3mm holes about 25mm apart.  With hindsight, the start and end should have been near to the ends of each piece so that the wattle finished neatly.

In medieval times, trees were coppiced to grow thin straight stems for poles, posts and wattle.  After several experiments I used 3mm beech skewers, which looked OK, but rather too large. The beech skewers needed soaking in water for 24 hours to make them pliable.

Yesterday, after I had built the wattle, I was in a hobby store and found some basket weaving material called „peddigrohr“.  Peddig is a material similar to ramin and is used in basket weaving.  This was labelled as 1.7mm in diameter but varies slightly in size.   I stripped off the beech from the upper half of the fence and replaced it with four strands of peddig.  15 minutes later, I had a very good looking result.

I painted the whole wattle in a mix of very dark brown and military green.  Then I added bone to the colour to get a grey green effect, like bark.

Regards
Mick

[Dave Knight]

Exceelent as ever Mick

[painterman]

Mick
It looks really effective and well worth all the effort. Great work!!
Simon.