A Very Mogul Civil War Battle 3

We are still in October 1658, but several hundred miles south of the last action in the VMCW campaign. Here, former allies Aurangzeb and Mir Jumla are squaring up to each other over the plunder of Bijapur. As related last time, the new leader of Bijapur had managed to subvert the old alliance and make the two hostile to each other. The fact that a newly raised although rag-tag Bijapur army is also in the offing is also of interest, although they are trying not to get involved, at least yet.

The terrain was rolled up and it turned out the Mir Jumla had a great big hill near his baseline, and so he immediately did the obvious and occupied it with all his strength. He needed something, I felt, to offset Aurungazeb’s advantage in cavalry – the Mogul prince had 4 bases of cavalry against Mir Jumla’s one guard lancer base and one light horse.

The initial deployments are in the photograph.

First things first. If you look in the top right of the photo you will see the outline of our household feline, waiting to be let out of the snug in which I wargame. I am fortunate to have a picture at all because shortly before I took it she was using my general’s armchair to admire the view out of the window. Fortunately, the lure of her food bowl was too much for her to take permanent residency.

Back to less important matters. Mir Jumla is deployed on the right of the shot, with his command elephant on top of the hill, as you do if you are an Indian commander. The rest of the troops are deployed on the hill itself, aside from the light horse who are on the right, thrown forward to disrupt whatever Aurungzeb might try.

Aurungzeb’s plan was to outflank the hill on both sides with the cavalry and lock up the centre with his firepower, keeping the elephants in reserve for the final breakthrough. The rockets were held back to lob little parcels of joy onto the hill, hopefully disrupting command and control if nothing else.

The picture above shows the plan developing, as the cavalry advances to left and right, with the central infantry units advancing and the rockets in full flight (they only had one hit all game, and that was ineffective). Mir Jumla has deployed his levies on the hill on his left to ward off the Mogul cavalry. For the rest the Golcondans are waiting for the hammer blow of the attacks. A lot will depend on whether Aurungzeb can coordinate his attacks.

The above shows the problems that the Moguls ran into. The cavalry have become disrupted on both wings. The light horse have done their job on Mir Jumla’s right, splitting the Mogul cavalry and opening one of the bases to being charged by the guard lancers while the other is still entertained by the lights. On the flank nearest the cavalry, the disruption was caused by Mir Jumla’s archers. The other base is about to advance too far unless Aurungzeb stops them. In the centre, the firefight has developed, slightly in the Mogul’s favour.

The picture above shows the crisis on Mir Jumla’s right, from behind his lines. The guard lancers have done their job in the distance and are now pursuing one of the Mogul cavalry bases. Nearer to the camera, the remaining Mogul cavalry charged the light horse and both have been recoiled. The Moguls, having charged and been repulsed now pick up two terrain-shaken levels, with a base of elephants bearing down the hill at them. On the other flank, Aurungzeb’s cavalry has deployed facing the Golcondan levies. However, they have refused to charge uphill and overlapped.

To say Aurungzeb was getting a bit frustrated would be an understatement. You can see he is pushing himself and the elephant base up. This will have, shall we say, consequences.

The crisis in the centre was a bit messy. Aurungzeb attacked the archers up the hill, and the other Mogul elephants attacked the other one. They put the archers to flight but at the cost of their mutual support. Mir Jumla then led his swordsmen downhill into the general’s elephant base. In fact, the swordsmen at first refused to charge so Mir Jumla had to take command and move them down the slope. A couple of rounds of combat led to the Mogul general’s base being routed, as you can see above, and that routing base also swept away a base of archers – you can that about to see.

This was catastrophic for the Mogul army command. They lost the general and two bases of troops (the general’s elephant counting as well as a base for morale purposes) in one move. The army went to ‘withdraw’ status, and so it did.

That was a quite short but fun action. Aurungzeb’s coordination was very poor because at crucial times he rolled really badly for tempo. I did wonder if his plan was over-ambitious, but then it worked for Hopton at Stratton, so I let it be implemented. The terrain on Mir Jumla’s left was a bit constrained for the cavalry, which led to one base being stopped before it got into a flanking position, so that was one disruption. On the other flank, the Golcondan light horse did its job magnificently disrupting the advancing Moguls and opening them to being charged by the guard lancers downhill. The Golcondan elephants then arrived to finish the job.

In the centre Aurungzeb’s assault was a bit ‘do or die’, it has to be admitted. He could have withdrawn, I suppose, but for someone who wanted to be Emperor that might be viewed as being a bit wimp. He had a chance, but Mir Jumla’s reserve swordsmen finished the job. I do not know yet whether Aurungzeb is alive or dead, wounded or carried off by his guards to a place of safety. If one brother is down, that could well affect the development of the campaign. We shall see.

War and Wilderness

As the longer-term reader of the blog might be aware, I rarely stray to an era more recent than the very early Eighteenth Century. All right, I admit to having wargamed World War Two, occasionally, and also to have lost to the British in a Napoleonic Wars game. But mostly I stick to the Seventeenth Century and earlier. This is not for any particular ethical or taste reason. They just do not appeal that much.

Be that as it may, I was intrigued by an article in this month’s (roughly) History Today:

Scribner, V., ‘Natural Enemies’, History Today, 75, 2, 38-49, February 2025.

The article recounts the various difficulties British (and assorted German, of course) forces had with the natural environment in the American War of Independence (or American Revolutionary War, if that is more to your taste).

The basic idea was that not only was there a human enemy, but the natural environment of the territories fought over was also against the soldiers. Firstly, there was the trip across the Atlantic to even get to the theatre. This was scary enough for many troops and could take up to three months. The reinforcements could arrive weary, sick, and despondent, which is probably not what the local commanders needed.

The major obstacle to the forces movement was the great American swampland. I imagine that this was a good deal more extensive than it is today, and most troops seem to have found it a memorable and dangerous problem. The ‘Great Swamp’ in New York was bad enough, but further south they got bigger and more dangerous. The ‘Great Dismal Swamp’ in Virginia and North Carolina was daunting, not only was it difficult country, but the natural fauna as well as rebels were a major problem, for scouting let alone moving bodies of troops.

Then, of course, we come to the larger animals found there. Alligators were creatures of fear for many troops. This did actually inhibit movement, as troops refused to sleep in boats and insisted on camping on high ground with a fire to ward off the nasties. There were a lot of them, as well – one diarist reckoned that he could walk across the river on their heads. No wonder they were a bit apprehensive.

Other problems abounded, of course. Mosquitoes were a persistent nuisance, with their bites a constant aggravation. Yellow fever and malaria were also common causes of sickness and death. Scribner remarks that for each death in combat there were 8 from disease. The British and German troops had no prior exposure or immunity to these diseases, and so were particularly vulnerable. The cultivation of rice in the southern states led, of course, to perfect mosquito breeding grounds. It is quite possible that malaria caused the loss of Yorktown, as disease is reported to have reduced Cornwallis- forces by up to 65%.

There were worse places, of course. The young Nelson was sent to capture the Fortress of the Immaculate Conception on the ‘Mosquito Coast’ in 1780. Indeed, the entry of Spain and France into the war forced Britain to defend Florida as well as take the offensive in Central America. The fortress in inland, downstream from Lake Nicaragua. The approach was bad, the boats accompanied by manatees, which the men thought to be alligators. Some of the troops succumbed to snake bites and the like, let alone the jaguar that attacked an outlying unit, or seemingly potable water poisoned by nearby trees. Nelson himself had to retreat, seriously ill with, apparently, malaria and dysentery, before the fort fell. He returned to England to recuperate. I would guess that many of his troops were not so lucky.

Even those who did return from North America were, shall we say, affected by the experience. Scribner has an account by a young officer of wandering around the delights of Brighton and finding little pleasure in the amusements on offer. As the officer in question, Thomas Hughes, had been in America for five years and endured battles, captivity, disease and thoughts of suicide. A modern diagnosis of post-traumatic stress might be appropriate, if anachronistic.

I am sure I do not need to spell out the implications of this for the reader of this blog. We all sort of know that disease was a problem in most armies; it still is, after all, in those places of the world unfortunate enough to have any modern infrastructure it might have destroyed. Largely, however, as wargamers, we ignore it. I do not have a problem with that, but it is as well to be reminded of disease from time to time.

The question of the environment fighting back is, however, something we perhaps consider a bit less. Aside from ferocious wild animals, the attack of which could make a good skirmish or role-playing game scenario, the sheer difficulty of some of the terrain is something we probably underestimate. We are quite happy scattering around bits of ‘difficult going’ without really considering how difficult it is, or how troops of one side or the other might be more at home in it. This does seem to have been a significant problem in the AWI, with British and Hessian troops uneasy in the terrain which their foes had already adjusted to.

These points do not just apply to North America, of course. As colonial empires expanded from the Fifteenth Century on, European adventurers encountered more and more dangerous animals, difficult terrain and inhabitants who knew the land extremely well. Including these things in a set of wargame rules, whether for battles or campaigns is a challenge, I think. We can always go down the route of ‘Rebel forces get +1 cm move in swamps’ but while workable, it does not really capture the essence of was going on. British forces were quite happy operating in the fields of New England, I believe. It was the swamplands and other areas that were the problem. And that is even before we consider logistics...

VMCW Battle 2: Dara Against Murad

The last battle was in turn 2 of the campaign and featured the routing of the army of Bijapur by Mir Jumla of Golconda. The dice suggested that the commander of the Bijapur army, Afzal Khan was a casualty of the rout, and the dice indicated that he was alive but a prisoner of Mir Jumla.

In the next few months, there was no overt military action, but there was a lot going on. In March Aurungazeb moved to Bijapur, while, in the north, Jai Singh moved the Rajput army to Allahabad. In April Aurungazeb drew a subvert card (he is rolling really well for a 50% initiative character) and Bijapur surrendered to him with no further fighting. His ally, Mir Jumla also moved to Bijapur.

May saw Dara move from Agra towards Murad’s forces in Gujerat. He was allied with Jai Singh who was watching Shah Suhoh in the east, so he felt his rear was secure enough to engage with one of the others. It was also a fact that he was already at war (a 1 on the diplomacy table) with Murad, as was the latter with him. In June, however, Murad scored a subversion success against Dara when he induced Jai Singh to abandon his allegiance to the oldest prince and become hostile to him. This does not, at present, make much material difference to the campaign but leaves Dara a bit exposed. In the south the new (currently nameless leader of Bijapur drew a subvert card and managed to switch Mir Jumla and Aurungazeb to being hostile to each other.

In September Aurungazeb attempted to subvert Mir Jumla, with only limited success, while Bijapur rebelled against its squabbling conquerors (this was a fumbled initiative roll). Meanwhile, Murad has plundered the city of Champanar, and the now-active Marathas tried some diplomacy in the south.

It all came to a bit of a head in October. Both Aurangzeb and Mir Jumlam drew plunder cards. Given that they could not really both plunder the same city in the same turn, I decided that they came to blows over who was going to take the spoils. At the same time, Dara contacted Murad’s army outside Champanar. Meanwhile, Shah Suhoh subverted Jai Singh, who was now not only hostile to Dara but an ally of his. The Marathas plundered Poona, creating an army. It was all getting a little busy.

There were, therefore, two wargames to resolve: Murad against Dara and Aurangzeb against Mir Jumal. I decided on dealing with the two princes first, so wargame 2 of the campaign was staged.

The deployment is above, Dara to the left and Murad to the right. The forces are mirror images of each other. Dara’s plan was to get his rocketeers and archers (on the far side) onto the hill in front of them to take on and disrupt Murad’s cavalry, while his own cavalry swept the centre. Murad’s plan was to take the hill and Dara’s forces on it with the said cavalry, and then outflank the rest of his army while holding the hill on his left (right front of the picture) with his shot, militia and rocketeers.

The picture shows the action developing. Murad’s cavalry have charged some of Dara’s in the centre (brick red counters) while the rest of Murad’s cavalry are manoeuvring to assault the hill. The rocketeers of both sides have opened up, totally ineffectively.

The cavalry clash developed slightly unusually, in that, despite the early shock of being charged, Dara’s cavalry rallied rather magnificently and more than saw off the enemy. The action with the brick red counter shows Murad’s squadron losing rather badly, while just up from them in the picture Dara’s cavalry, despite being shaken, have recoiled their opponents. On the other hand, Murad’s elephant has just arrived to sort things out, while on the hill at the top of the photograph, Murad’s cavalry have taken out the rocketeers, although they are finding the resistance from the archers had to overcome.

The ongoing cavalry combat in the centre was resolved in Dara’s favour, and Murad’s army managed a horrendous morale throw, which meant they had to fall back. The pressure on Dara’s left was relieved, while the latter had the opportunity to bring the rest of the cavalry, and himself, to the fray. As Murad tried to advance his archers to assist, Dara and his cavalry charged Murad’s elephants and routed them, sweeping away a cavalry squadron into the bargain.

I did debate whether it was fair to have Dara charge with his cavalry and the general’s bases are combat units in these armies. I thought it was reasonable enough, and, as it happened, the odds were so stacked against the elephant once the charge was resolved that any other result would have been a surprise.

Murad was now 3 bases down, and another poor morale roll meant that his forces fell back again. At this point, he had some strategic thinking to do. He still had the loot from sacking Champaner (the ox carts at the rear of his position, by the mosque), and most of his army intact. Staying on the field could lose him the war, as well as his life, and almost certainly the money. His army was also getting a bit scattered while Dara’s was a little more coherent, and he had lost half his cavalry. If this had been a stand-alone game, he would probably have fought on; his position was tricky but not hopeless, and a change in luck could have gone in his favour. But in a campaign, the risk is not worth it. Murad retreated, keeping the loot and his life while conceding the battle.

As for Dara, he can always claim the kudos of having led the charge that clinched the battle, with the caveat above. In campaign terms, Murad will retreat to Chambar while Dara decides whether to follow up his victory or retreat back to Agra after the defection of Jai Singh. Meanwhile, in the south, I have to resolve the fate of Bijapur.

A Very Mogul Civil War Battle 1

For those of you who have been waiting with bated breath for the first installment of the Mogul campaign, as outlined last week, here it is. The non-Mogul battle between Bijapur and Golconda, in the south of India beyond the empire. The Bijapur-ains consist of a general on an elephant (of course!), an elephant, three bases of cavalry, three militia levy, two archers, two swordsmen bases, and a base of musket-armed skirmishers. The Golcondans have the inevitable elephant-mounted general, an elephant base, a base of guard lancers, a base of light horse, 4 bases of archers, three levy militia, and two bases of swordsmen. Different, slightly, but fairly balanced, I think.

The terrain turned out to be fairly simple. A stream marks the near-side of the battlefield. The Bijapurians are to the left, their cavalry and elephants furthest from the stream. The infantry and militia are ordered to advance on the enemy archers and militia, while the elephants and cavalry try to defeat the Golcondan right. That right-wing is held by the guard cavalry and elephant, while the left is screened by the light horse. The idea was to hold off whatever Bijapur threw at the line with firepower and disruptive skirmishing, while the general and swordsmen are in reserve.

The above picture shows the Bijapur attack developing. The cavalry on the far side has charged in, with reasonable success, aside from the Golcondan elephant, a charge at which was declined. The Golcondans have brought up their swordsmen to stiffen the line, as well as the general. Elsewhere the Golcondan light horse are doing a good job in delaying the Bijapur militia, but the archers and swordsmen are getting into position.

Most battles I have run in these eastern settings have tended to the chaotic after the opening exchanges, and this one was no different. The next picture shows this increasing chaos rather nicely, I think, from behind Golcondan lines.

Working our way from right to left, you can see that the Golcondan elephant has charged the lagging Bijapur cavalry base and has the upper hand in combat. Next along, the Golcondan guard cavalry have snuck into position to flank the Bijapur centre, including their elephants, who have got stuck in front of the Golcondan swordsmen. Nearest the camera, a base of Golcondan archers are fleeing from some pursuing cavalry. On the Golcondan left contact, at least between some of the infantry is about to happen. It was tight, as you can also see a base of Bijapur cavalry fleeing back right-ish.

The guard cavalry turned out to be the Golcondan ace-in-the-hole. With the supporting cavalry for the Bijapur elephants gone, they had a clear run at the flank of the nellies locked in combat with the Golcondan swordsmen. Charge home they did indeed, and they caused much human head-scratching when they recoiled the base into the general next door. This situation is not explicitly covered in my rules – elephants can recoil while war wagons cannot – so I had to be a bit careful. I decided that the elephants recoiled and pushed the general along half a base width rather than get themselves eliminated or even eliminate themselves and the general’s base.

The results of the battle can be seen above. The Golcondan cavalry charge, supported by an advancing base of swordsmen, eliminated the Bijapur elephant. However, before the end of the move, the Bijapur general had decided to get out of the firing line and advanced on a stray base of Golcondan bowmen, who are now fleeing. Behind that the Golcondan general has advanced on the base of Bijapur cavalry that was rallying from their earlier charge and routed them as well. On the far side, incidentally, the Golcondan elephant base has routed the opposing cavalry.

In the centre, the infantry battle has been a bit mixed. You can see a severely damaged base of Golcondan archers, but also that the rest of the Golcondan infantry has been stalled (nearest camera) or is fleeing (next across). This was probably my mistake because the Bijapur swordsmen were behind their bowmen in the assault. If it had been the other way around (or rather, if the bowmen had been somewhere else) the results might have been different. On the near-side, the light horse are still delaying the Bijapur militia, just about, although the room for the light horse to manoeuvre is becoming limited.

At this point, morale rolls were called for on both sides. Having lost two bases the Golcondans went to ‘fall back’ on an admittedly bad roll. The Bijapur army, however, had been more severely reduced and was hanging on with a base morale of 1. A negative roll for them as well ensured that the whole army was routed and, looking at the situation, who can blame them?

That, then was the first wargame of the campaign, and a lot of fun it was as well, with interest all the way through. Reflecting on the battle seems to suggest that in this sort of action when the initial shock is over, the armies break up into smaller packets, and the action of a single base, such as the Golcondan guard lancers, can make a big difference. In a similar way the Golcondan light horse really did delay the enemy militia, while the Bijapur’s jezail-toting skirmishers faced the Golcondan bows and were lucky not to get routed as a result.

In this game, I did expect that the Bijapur cavalry would be decisive, and they were important, but cavalry charges are one-shot weapons in tight situations such as this game. Here, they managed to stop pursuing at the table edge but were kept from rallying by a base of Golcondan bows until the general was ready to see them on their way. On the other hand, the Golcondan elephant did charge home but as there were no other enemy units near got away with it, and did not, in fact, rally.

All good fun, anyway, and apart from pondering the recoil rules a bit, it is on to the next campaign turn.  

A Very Mogul Civil War

It might be an underappreciated fact, but politics in the rest of the world was not the same as it was in Europe in the ‘early modern’ period. As noted in the last campaign, the death of a ruler in Burma (or in Mexico) did not lead to the eldest son immediately gaining power. The situation was, perhaps, a bit more like what happened after the death of William the Conqueror, Henry II, or Alexander III of Macedon: a bit of a free-for-all.

Thus we come to India, towards the end of the reign of Shah Jahan, Mogul Emperor. He had four sons, Dara Shuhoh, Shah Shuja, Aurangzeb, and Murad Bakhsh (with all due apologies for the spelling…). Shah Jahan had become increasingly reclusive and stayed in the fort at Agra, so the empire was, more or less, under the control of his eldest and favourite son Dara. Shah Shuja, the second son was in Bengal, Aurangazeb governor of the Deccan and Murad in Gujerat. The Imperial army, therefore was under the control of Dara, but Aurangazeb also had an army, and stop–go orders from Agra to capture Golconda and Bijapur further south. The stop-go orders were because the rulers or those states tended to deliver massive bribes to Agra to call Aurangazeb off, much to his frustration.

In late 1657 Shah Jahan fell ill, and none of the brothers apart from Dara knew what was going on, and Dara decided not to let them know anything much. Thus they immediately became concerned for their own position and started jockeying for advantage. The fact was that only one of them, really, stood a chance of surviving. Only one could be the Emperor.

A glance at the map (above) might clarify matters. The yellow and red pins mark Agra, Dara, and the Rajput army under Jai Singh, while the blue pin is Shah Shuja, on the move with an army having plundered Calcutta to obtain funds. The orange pin is Murad while the pink is Aurangazeb. In the south, the white pin is the Maratha army, who are a bit of a disruptive force in the game but inactive at present, while the green and blue are Bijaper (Afzal Khan) and Golconda (Mir Jumla). If you look at the picture closely you can see my scribbled notes in the bottom margin.

Putting the pins in the map actually helped to make sense of a number of things from the historical accounts. There is always something to be gained, I suppose, by setting it out visually rather than just reading about a situation. Murad and Aurangzeb are quite close together (relatively speaking – India is a big place), so it makes sense that historically they had some sort of ‘gentleman’s agreement’ and did not fight each other, at least initially. The other stand-out observation is that Shah Shuja is a long way from where he needs to be to influence events, so it is perhaps less surprising that he was the first to move, historically, and declared himself emperor.

The map actually shows the campaign after a couple of moves. There has been some diplomacy and some attempts at subversion already, with the results recorded on a diplomacy grid (see the book, p 121 for a brief outline of these). Here I have developed the idea a bit further. The four brothers and four non-brother forces (Shah Jahan is not active) have four option – to plunder, to move an army, to send out diplomats and to subvert. Aurangzeb was a well-known subverter, incidentally, on one occasion convincing the Rajputs that the Rajput allied brother and Aurangzeb himself were going to destroy the Rajput army, and it was a trap. The Rajputs fled, leaving Aurangazeb to face only the small forces of his brother.

On the diplomacy chart, a diplomatic activity gets you to a matched roll on the relevant row and column to see if your relationship with others (and theirs to you) goes up or down. Plundering a city costs you diplomatic points, however, and declaring yourself emperor (only open to a brother) also loses you DPs. Subversion matches your relationship with another with theirs with a friend or ally and reduces their DP relationship if successful. Lots of fun and games are possible here.

In the second turn, February 1658 (I am sure that India has a different month designation, but I don’t know it) Jai Singh has moved his army to Agra to support Dara, Shah Shuja has started to move as already noted and Afzal Khan has attacked Golconda.

The latter event of course sparked a wargame, although the thought of non-Mogul forces fighting each other outside the civil war context had not really occurred to me, except, perhaps, for Maratha raids. Anyway, the dice and cards determined the result, and so a wargame was to be fought. The armies are based on my original 100 AP condensed scale DBR forces, adjusted to 12 base plus a general forces. In this case, I had to raid the Burmese for some extra swordsmen, although in retrospect I could have raided my ancient Indians.

The raiding requirement came about because, during the great rebasing a few years ago, I put the Indian archers, musketeers, and swordsmen two (Irregular) strips to a base, hereby halving the numbers available. This was, in retrospect, probably a mistake, as much of the rest remains one strip to a base. On the other hand, the Aztecs were rebased one to a strip and really needed two. But I cannot, at present, face rebasing the Aztecs again, nor, for the matter of that, the Indians or Russians, who also really need it.

Actually, I am finding that only the Western Europeans of the 16^th and !7^th Centuries look better two deep. I am not entirely sure why that is, but it is the case. The problem here is, of course, that I could spend most of my wargaming time rebasing toy soldiers and not fighting wargames. Rebasing is fairly simple, granted, but it is a bit dull, so improvisation is the name of the game.

So, enough scene setting. Next time, the battle will have to commence.

The Personal Rule of Charles I

 When, historians ask, did the English Civil War (or the War of the Three Kingdoms) start? Well, there is an obvious answer, of course, which is when Charles I raised his standard in 1642. But historians tend to look further back. Was the cause of the civil wars the Scottish rebellion, the Irish rebellion, the general lack of money, the ship money demands, the ‘eleven year’s tyranny’ of Charles I, the state of religion or other causes? Similarly, if you look to structural explanations we can have the rise of the gentry, the decline of the gentry, the climatic conditions of the early 17^th Century, increases or decreases in trade, inflation due to the influx of silver from South America and, I am sure, many other ‘explanations’.

Another book which I wished, many years ago, that I could afford, was this:

Sharpe, K., The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven, Yale, 1992).

As I observed a long time ago on Facebook, this is a weighty tome: 954 pages of text, more or less. It has taken me ages to read but, as the Estimable Mrs P observed, I did rather enjoy it. She also asked whether I had changed my mind at all about Charles I. The date of his execution, commemorated in the lectionary of the Church of England, was fast approaching, and she wondered if I would say the collect that day. I might come back to that later.

Sharpe’s argument, so far as I can grasp it, is that 1637, the date of the Prayer Book riots in Scotland, was the key date in the personal rule. Before then there were the usual grumbles, but no one, puritan or high church, was really angry or upset enough about the government to take any action. In particular, Sharpe suggests, that the notorious cases which were portrayed as anti-Puritan, against the likes of Prynne, did not really establish any overall public sympathy for the Puritans, per se. Similarly, while the ship money case had raised legal questions about its validity, and hence the royal prerogative as the instrument of taxation, the tax was still paid and the fleet was taking shape, and, indeed, becoming a significant factor in diplomacy.

Sharpe paints a picture of England in the early 1630s as being at peace with itself. While a few radicals on both sides were trying to up the stakes, really, no-one wanted to get deeply involved in the wars on the continent. Charles followed a roughly pro-Spanish policy, on the basis that as the Spanish occupied the Palatinate, and English policy was directed to reinstating the Elector, it was the most pragmatic approach.

Pragmatic, perhaps, but not popular, at least among the more Protestant parts of the nation, who looked back to the good old days of war with Spain. On the other hand, English strategy had to be to keep the southern coast of the Channel in friendly hands, and that could mean either the French and Dutch (as they moved into alliance) or Spain. My interest in this part of the period arose due to the negotiations of 1636, where Charles sent envoys to Madrid, Paris, and Vienna, with different results.

Still, Sharpe argues that nothing much precipitated a crisis in England as much as the Scottish rebellion and Charles’ reactions to it. The First Bishop’s War exhausted the treasury and resulted in failure. Whether, as Sharpe suggests, the Scots were in a position to really fight, and a reverse at Kelso could have changed the whole complexion of the crisis is interesting and could deserve a wargame. However, the failure caused an acute fiscal crisis which needed a Parliament to address.

The problem with the Short Parliament was the argument as to whether taxes or grievances should come first. As taxes were not forthcoming the King dissolved Parliament and struggled on. Sharpe suggests that the dislocation in the provinces of this, the constant demands for money in various ways to pay the troops and the ultimate defeat in the Second Bishop’s War really caused the political crisis of the Long Parliament and led, ultimately, to the outbreak of civil war.

There were other factors, of course. Scottish and Puritan propaganda and fears of a Popish plot did not help. The activities of Pym and his allies, in probably treasonous correspondence with the Scots almost certainly led to Pym precipitating some of the crises just to stay out of prison. Whether, however, the crisis would have led to civil war without the Irish rebellion and the arguments about who was to control the army is a bit moot. Charles was proving to be untrustworthy and that cost him, initially at least, the support of quite a few moderate MPs who, in due course, became royalists (such as Edward Hyde, for example).

So far was wargaming goes, there are the obvious opportunities of the Bishop’s Wars, as noted above. There are also some items in the wars of the 1620s which could deserve attention, as Charles managed to arrange being at war with both the Spanish and the French at the same time. The problems that caused led to the personal rule in the first place as the Parliaments called to supply those wars proved to be unruly.

There are other, perhaps more far-fetched possibilities for the imaginative wargamer, however. For example, the Spanish were so desperate, particularly after the Battle of the Downs in 1639, to keep a supply route open to the Low Countries, that they were prepared to offer Charles 8000 troops to put the Scots down. That would be a political disaster for Charles, of course, but a fascinating wargame possibility. There are also possibilities of the fleet being used to either close or open the Channel to Spanish shipping, either in alliance with or opposition to the Franco-Dutch alliance. The possibilities are manifold.

This is a massive, and massively detailed work on the period. I am not sure that it made me much more sympathetic to Charles, however, although it did make me more sympathetic to Strafford and Laud, who were really made scapegoats for the crisis of the monarchy. Sharpe observes that Charles I was not a good politician, unlike his father and his son, and that made things more likely to unravel rather than less. But, perhaps, ruling three different kingdoms from London in the early modern period was always going to be problematic, especially without much money or military force.

Wargaming in 2024

Well, the scores on the doors indicate 24 wargames played in 2024, which I do not think is a bad score. Such is the nature of the blog that I suppose they might be described as ‘eclectic’ in terms of periods. I have ranged from a couple of re-fights of Marathon (the Greeks won both) through to the couple of test scenarios I have tried for the 1635 skirmish campaign.

There were a few tries at an ECW scenario, the Bridge at Muchado, which were nice games but which were supposed to spark a campaign, which did not take to flame. I seem to have a bit of a block at the moment when it comes to the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. I am not sure why. On the other hand, I transferred the scenario to the Ancient Spanish and that was a most enjoyable action, with skirmishers ebbing and flowing across the stream.

In terms of ongoing campaigns, at the start of the year, the Siena campaign was ongoing. I was very successful as the Sienese commander until the French invaded. I lost the battle badly and decided that retirement to a roomy French Château with its own vineyard with a decent pension was preferable to carrying on. That, and the fact that I had more or less run out of army.

The Siena campaign mechanics were based on some older ones I created years ago for the rise of the Aztecs in Central Mexico. The transfer worked rather well, I felt, although the Italian Wars version is still on scribbled notes. It was revived again for the current and ongoing Burma 1530 campaign, this time with randomised troop selection and, of course, added elephants. It is nice to have a sensible sequence of games featuring elephants; I feel they do add rather a lot to a wargame table, even when they are 6 mm scale and painted by me. Still, I have properly written up the campaign rules this time, which means that they might see the light of day somewhere, somewhen.

The other things that happened on the wargaming front were the painting of a bunch of civilians for the 1635 France games and the making of a load of 20 mm card buildings for the same purpose. I have used them a couple of times, which was rather gratifying, but I really should get on with the campaign, which is a cross between skirmish and role-playing levels. Too much detail bogs play down, so I have evolved a method of simply noting the NPCs who join in the action and rolling them up as needed. Something fairly quick is needed, and, as it is a solo campaign, nothing that will bog it down in minutiae. In my professional life I have had to deal with minutiae, and I am not entirely sure I want to in my hobby time.

The only other painting that took place was of Far Eastern ships. I was very pleased to discover that Tumbling Dice produced a 1:2400th range of these – Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. I have been wondering why no-one created them in a usable miniature scale for over 20 years, and suddenly, there they are. Anyway, I am not good a painting and even worse at modelling, but eventually the ships were painted, with masts stuck more or less firmly in place. I also read a book about the Japanese invasion of Korea at the end of the Sixteenth Century, and very good it was too, although the events, let alone the place names, are somewhat complex and confusing. Still, a minor campaign was started once I found a suitable province-based map of the peninsular. This is a couple of wargames in, but unfortunately in planning I omitted a trigger point for the Chinese intervention, so it needs a bit more work. We shall see. I could also do, probably, with some more Japanese cavalry.

A slight hiccough this year has been the disruption of my dreams of expanding some of my more obscure armies, due to Irregular ceasing production of their 6 mm figures. This is a shame, although with the vast ranges they did have it is probably understandable. Mind you, every time I think about expanding an army, or starting a new period, part of me starts shouting ‘But you hate painting’, and that is still true. On the other hand, I still have a 28 mm King without a Queen, so I might have to rectify that at some point.

On that point, of course, I failed to get to any shows where I might have rectified said problem. I was due to go to one, but I woke up in the morning fired up for it (sort of) looked out of the window and saw …. nothing. Really. The snow was blowing horizontally against the windows of the windward portions of the house. When it eased off a bit I observed the black ice forming on the lane and decided that it was too dangerous to set off. Actually, the Estimable Mrs P inquired as to whether I really thought it was safe, and I had to confess that it was not. It cost me, as I promised to buy her a book about German vehicles in the Spanish Civil War if she did not make it to the talk at the show, and she did not.

Reading has rather slowed down. I do have some history books on the go, of course, but that has been interrupted by doing some philosophy courses, at least in the autumn. These were very worthwhile but surprisingly hard work. After all, I paid to do them, so I do need to do the reading to take full advantage. That, of course, eats into time for reading other stuff, and thus my banks of history, wargaming for the use of, are a bit run down at present. I can, however, bore for England on Simone Weil, ontology and ethics.

So, a brief run-through (rather belatedly, I confess) of activities in 2024. Where to in 2025? I shall, I dare say, have something to say about that fairly soon. Either that, or we shall all have to sit back and see what happens.

Toungoo Revixit?

Well, after the disaster of the rebellion of Mrauk-U (see the last post) my forces were reeling more than a little. The next campaign turn, 1535, saw one base (infantry) returning to the fold, but my field army was still denuded of troops. Which made it all the more unfortunate that the random event came first, and consisted of Lan Xang raiders attacking Chiang Mai, my easternmost city.

Grump. Why could I not draw something simple, such as ‘no event’? Anyway, the raiders are hard to deal with but not too scary, he said hopefully. At 2 skirmisher bases, 2 bows and 8 infantry I should manage to get the drop on them with the cavalry and, hopefully, my ever-faithful elephant. Still being rather short of troops, I called in two sets of vassal allied, from Chiang Mai itself and also Mone. These brought a welcome boost to my forces and meant that, except for potential ambushes, I just about outnumbered the enemy.

The battlefield is above, with the raiders to the left and myself and the allies to the right. I was hoping to outflank the enemy with my cavalry and roll them up by crossing the stream. Unfortunately, my wily foe spotted this and has placed the skirmishers and bows on the stream, backed up by a block of foot to see off anyone foolish enough to try to cross. So I had to revert to plan B, which was to threaten with the cavalry while using my foot, supported by the elephant, to smash the centre.

As you can see there was fair potential for ambushes, and with my raider hat on I hoped that they would happen and could cause disruption and chaos. Unfortunately for them, none of the ambushes were live troops, so that was a relief, although I did not know that until the end, of course.

As you can see, the plans developed. I have forded the stream with the elephants (in these lists the general is always mounted on an elephant) and the cavalry have deployed, menacing but out of bow range. My bows (technically, allied bows) have also moved up and have caused a little damage to the enemy skirmishers. The infantry are about to bite the bullet, as it were.

The infantry have crunched home but, rather to my disappointment, the impact, even though I charged, was less than I hoped. Only a couple of recoils which, while not a disaster, given that my foot are 4 or 3 deep and theirs are only two, could have been better. On the other hand, my cavalry and bow base are keeping 8 bases of the enemy amused, or stuck to their positions anyway.

A few moves later and my left-hand infantry column has prevailed, although the right hand has been bounced (as has their’s, incidentally). My elephant has performed heroics routing a base of bows and a base of skirmishers, while my right-hand infantry column pursues their fleeing foes. This could get messy in the centre, of course, but the enemy morale has just dropped to fall back so I’ve a little space to manoeuvre.

As so often it depended on the timing. In spite of losing another base, the enemy morale actually improved, while I managed to stop my elephant rampaging too far after its charge. My left-hand infantry column also started to rally, while my own and the enemy infantry on my right clashed again. I needed, however, to do something about their infantry who had spent the game facing the stream, on the left of the picture. If they turned and attacked my disordered infantry I was in trouble. In slight desperation, I turned the disordered elephant base into the rear of their infantry and, mercifully, routed two more bases, which was enough to rout the entire raider army.

Well, although I have now defeated the raiders twice, I still think they are pretty tough. The terrain favoured me, slightly, I think, in that they had to cover their flank from my cavalry, but could not advance against them for fear of being charged while disordered. On the other hand, my cavalry could not attempt to cross the stream for the same reason. I was a bit surprised by the infantry fight turning into such a slog. I am used to four deep tribal foot blowing away the enemy, but poor dice rolling on my part meant that it was rather closer than I liked. If they had got the initiative a few more times my infantry could have performed embarrassingly.

I am still, incidentally, pondering the details of the charge moves. In the current version, a charge which strikes home but is then repelled gets the bases disordered. This is a change from the rules on the page here, by the way. But what I have not worked out yet is whether a charge which does not even attempt to strike home should also be penalised. It would make declaring charges more costly, and often it might seem not to be worth the risk, but on the other hand, someone shouting ‘Charge’ and the men looking out and replying ‘Not likely, guv’ might well cause some confusion. So I am still pondering this. After all, the model of charge combat is of various people looking fierce and waving weapons and shouting ‘Grrr’ to see if they can intimidate the other side. ‘They are not falling for it, sir’ might be a reasonable response which would not disorder anyone in particular.

Rules considerations aside, the campaign is throwing up its challenges, as noted. While I have in fact won most of the battles, each of them has had its struggles and been a lot closer than I am really comfortable with. While some people might not like the degree of random events which is in the system, one a year is probably not unreasonable and certainly keeps the solo player on their toes. As I mentioned, keeping an army in being becomes important, which I nearly failed to do last time. If my army routs then I suspect I will have lost the campaign….

The Apogee of Touangoo?

The next few turns of the campaign were fairly quiet. A full-strength army moved about the map, cities submitting cheerfully and gladly to my rule. Truly, I thought, I cannot be far off actually winning this campaign. My personal rating was in the teens, the city count approaching half the cities on the map, and I had avoided capturing Manipur, which would have provoked the Mughal army to invade. I was nearly a distinctly regional hegemon.

I did, unfortunately, lose a third of the army to a famine, which was a shame, but by 1534 these were more or less replaced, I was only an infantry base down. The southern cities were falling into my grasp, and all was well with the world. My personal rating was hitting 20, heights unheard of in the past.

The latter part of 1534 raised a problem, however, in the shape of a random event. This was that the city of Mrauk-U rebelled, with external aid. Not only that, but when I appeared before their walls demanding their obedience, they refused. Not even a personal rating of 20 could persuade them (I needed to roll over 11 on a D20 and failed).

A few dice rolls established that the allies were 2 contingents of Moguls, six bases in total, consisting of a base of shot, 3 cavalry, 2 bows and a light horse. If you are about to object that that is seven bases, you are correct, because I drew a Jack on the cards for the forces, which indicated that I had to draw two extras.

The Mrauk-U forces were 4 elephants, 1 artillery, 1 bow, 1 cavalry and 5 infantry, plus their general on an elephant, of course. The enemy on the table, thus consisted of 20 bases.

A bit of pondering led me to call in some allies from my vassal cities – Pagan and Ava. These were 4 foot, 1 cavalry and a bow unit, giving me with the general and my own 11 bases a force of 18 to tackle the problem. This is not, I thought, going to be easy.

Deployment can be seen above. Somehow I managed to roll a wood in the centre of the field, which was occupied by all of the enemy’s firepower, except for the artillery which is on the hill on the far side (and did not hit a thing all game, snigger). The enemy cavalry, over whom I have a slight advantage, is deployed to block mine, with a trap set of me with bowmen lining the near edge of the woods. The enemy's plan was to hold with their cavalry and in the centre while using their enormous elephant advantage to get into my infantry block before it captures the wood. My plan was the inverse – to get into the wood with my infantry before their elephants arrive, holding them up with my bowman who you can see looking rather lonely on my left.

The above indicates that both sets of plans proceeded more or less as outlined. The elephants are menacing my left flank, although my archers are in the safety of the wood. My infantry are within striking distance of the wood, although the left-hand column has been recoiled by the shooting, which will, as it happens, in due course, cost me dear. On my right, nearest the camera, the cavalry are engaging in a standoff, just outside charge distance.

In an effort to keep the pressure up, I moved both my cavalry and infantry up. The infantry blew away the shot and archers in the wood, as you can see, while the cavalry did not do too badly (or at least, not as badly as I expected) against the charging foe. My elephant intervened against one enemy base, and my extreme left held firm. On the other hand, the enemy elephants have got into my delayed infantry column, which looks (and is) messy.

Both sides were starting to reel from their losses, and the forces were getting scattered. As you can see, my infantry contacted by the elephants have vaporised, and the elephants have just charged, en masse, my skirmisher base. Talk about overkill. The skirmishers have understandably routed. On the near side, the cavalry combat has tiled slightly in my favour, as I managed to charge an isolated base and see it off – it is fleeing in the bottom right of the shot. My infantry have moved through the woods and assaulted the waiting enemy there. The column with the general was successful, but the other were pushed back. Fortunately, the sensible enemy infantry declined to charge them, so it became a bit of a stand off.

At this point, however, the morale of my army hit ‘withdraw’. The enemy was not in much better nick, admittedly, but I had lost the battle. Casualties were high: 1 skirmisher, 2 cavalry, 3 infantry and a sub-general for me, while 1 shot, 1 bow, 2 cavalry, 1 infantry and a sub-general for them.

This was a bit of a mess as a battle. The best I could do, I thought, was to get my infantry into and through the woods, out of the way of the elephants. This indeed, turned out to be the best plan, but the disruption by bow fire of one of my columns left it vulnerable to being stomped on, which it duly was. I thought I had made a mistake in allowing my cavalry to be charged, admittedly, and it probably was an error, but in the longer run the combat was fairly even, especially when my elephant got involved. As often happens with cavalry combat, the results left neither side in a particularly good place to continue the fight.

More broadly, of course, I could be in some trouble as far as the campaign goes. Not particularly because of my personal reputation, although that has dropped by 4. 16 is still pretty good. The problem is the 7 bases of the army which have been lost. I will need to divide these up between the allies and myself, of course, but even so, the loss of 4 or 5 bases could be a major issue, as I only get one back per year. It could all be downhill from here.

Richelieu and Olivares

I have been slowly picking up on my wargame-related reading, after my sojourns in Simone Weil and Reality, and finally got back to this slim volume:

Elliott, J. H., Richelieu and Olivares, Cambridge, CUP, 1984.

This is another work I remember from being impoverished, and I concluded that there was never a chance that I should read it. However, umpteen years later, the advent of the internet and second-hand bookshops thereon, selling off ex-library books on the cheap, means that I have obtained a copy. And worth reading it was.

Now, I am no expert of France and Spain in the 1620s and 1630s, which is when both gentlemen were at the height of their powers. From a wargamer’s point of view, however, the interest is more in the 1630s with the cold war for Italy, including the Mantuan Wars, and then the start of the war between the two countries in 1635. There is, of course, a lot more to it than that.

The historian's interest is, of course, somewhat different. Richelieu and Olivares were the chief ministers of Louis XIII and Philip IV respectively, and both had their problems in staying in power. Richelieu was regarded with hostility by a group of courtiers around the Queen Mother, called the dévots. This group believed that France’s foreign policy should be aligned with Catholic Europe against the Protestants. Richelieu, of course, famously allied France with the Dutch and the Swedes against the Empire. This led to such excitements as the Day of Dupes, in which Richelieu nearly lost power, but emerged triumphant.

Part of the reasoning behind Richelieu’s foreign policy was the fear of being surrounded by Spanish and Hapsburg territories. Olivares, it would seem, had no such concept, but was trying to gain Spain a sort of peace with honour, at least with the Dutch. He believed that this was only achievable by close cooperation with the Hapsburg Emperor, who should support Spain’s war with the Dutch. While Ferdinand was quite happy to cooperate with the Spanish in the events that led to Nordlingen (1634) he was a bit less keen to invade the Low Countries. All the powers, after all, had their own internal problems to deal with.

Richelieu dealt with the major problem within France’s borders, the semi-independent Protestant Huguenot, in 1628 at the siege of La Rochelle. This included the attempted intervention of both an English fleet and a Spanish one. The English failed, which led to the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham. The Spanish arrived too late. This was more or less the tone of Olivares’ time in power; the Spanish were always scraping around for resources of men and money to defend the Empire from assorted enemies. There was never enough, and this led, indirectly, to Olivares’ downfall. From the 1620s he had pushed for a union of arms across the Empire, including all the semi-autonomous regions of it – Naples, Catalonia, the Americas, Portugal as well as Castile. As it was, the main burden fell on Castile which was becoming bankrupt and depopulated. However, the result was that Portugal, Catalonia, and Naples all rebelled causing even more problems and leading to the retirement of Olivares himself.

Richelieu, after 1630, was probably more secure in the confidence of the King, although neither man could count themselves as wholly safe in power. On the other hand, the great lords of France had a tradition of rebellion and revolt, rather than loyal service to the crown, which was a problem that Olivares did not have. Thus the King’s brother and mother were, and remained a problem, whether living in France apparently reconciled to the King, or in exile hostile to Richelieu. Given that Olivares was interested in causing dissent in France, of course, they offered a cheap way of attempting to undermine Richelieu. The fact that the conspirators were not actually that good at conspiracy (or that Richelieu was very good at blocking them) to some extent did not matter. The Cardinal had to spend a fair bit of time and energy watching them and nipping any dissent in the bud. This also led to some summary trials and executions, which led to Richelieu’s reputation as a tyrant.

Both men would, in fact, have preferred to spend their time on internal reform. Both kingdoms were hotchpotches of semi-autonomous regions, directly controlled crown lands and various jurisdictions. Both regimes needed money, and that only came from taxes – ultimately at least: loans had to be repaid sometime. Both countries needed to increase trade and industry while breaking down internal barriers. Some efforts were made in these directions but any reform became impossible with the advent of warfare between them.

Richelieu is often regarded as the winner of the contest. This is perhaps a little unfair on Olivares, who played a perhaps weaker hand with skill and determination. As Elliott points out, after Richelieu died, France was convulsed by unrest which led to the Fronde. He did not leave a well-ordered, obedient, and quiet country, but one seething under the burden of war taxation. The weak government, albeit under Mazarin, was open to noble revolt and the nobles duly revolted.

Spain, of course, suffered more revolts and the Empire partially collapsed. Catalonia and Naples were restored to it, but Portugal was lost. While Elliott does not go into it, the loss of Portugal was a strategic decision by the Spanish high command – Catalonia and Naples were deemed to be more important, so the Spanish did not really give any attention to Portugal until 1660.

The results of the comparison could probably be described as a score draw, which is more the most historiography ascribes to Olivares and less than it give Richelieu. The real interest of the book, however, is in the career parallels of Olivares and Richelieu. The latter gets the kudos for making France great again, and the former gets opprobrium for the dissolution of the Spanish Empire. Neither judgement is above criticism, however. History is, after all, contingent.