Monday, April 8, 2013

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!

5 comments:

  1. What a little gem! That would be a great period to do - lots of smaller actions amongst the few major battles BUT I know exactly what you mean about another wargaming era to collect - I'm drowning under the weight of unpainted lead as it is!

    Cheers,
    Doc

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  2. Very cool; your wife is a gem. I've often thought it would be a good idea to paint up some armed peasants to use for different periods and locales. Haven't followed through on that idea,...

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  3. That is a very nice book and a nice surprise from the mrs too

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  4. I have this book. Nice to hear that military history of my country (Poland) is interesting part of your hobby :)

    If you have a translation problem - just let me know. I hope I could help to resolve.

    yoritomo(at)wp.pl

    Greetings to your wife BTW :)

    ReplyDelete

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