Wojsko Powstania Kościuszkowskiego - The Army of the Kosciuszko Uprising

Mrs Rosbif found this gem in the 'For Sale' trolley at her work for the princely sum of $0.50!

It's a really detailed record of the uniforms and personalities of the War of the Second Polish Partition, or the Polish-Russian War of 1792 using contemporary images of the people, soldiers and battles of the conflict. She bought it for me because she thought it looked 'Napoleonic'. Published in 1987, it must have been a product of the decline of communist censorship as the topic of Polish national resistance to Russian invaders would have been unthinkable even a few years earlier.

The text is in Polish, but it does have a multilingual translation of the plate information at the back of the book.

It creates food for thought for a wargamer; I could use Austrians, Saxons, Early French with head conversions, etc. to create some of the regular army units, but as the majority of the infantry were peasant levies armed with modified scythes, that would make an accurate representation of the insurrection forces more problematic!

It's a beautiful book with lots of colour illustrations and black and white etchings and sketches, but will most likely remain on the reference shelf of my collection, as I need a new period like a hole in the head at the moment!