Robert Mantle RIP

I met Peter F. for lunch this week and in amongst our discussion of Calpe Towers topics, he mentioned that he’d received a distressing telephone call from Robert Mantle’s wife saying that he had died recently after an operation. Robert was the author of one of the few books in the English language brave enough to tackle the complex subject of the Prussian Reserve Infantry regiments. That book was published by the Napoleonic Association in the early 1970s, remains a sound reference and the text of it can still be found online.

When I added a link to this text to my Prussian Army Resources page I was surprised and delighted because Robert himself took the time to post a comment there. While we never met in person, I got the distinct impression from those comments of a modest and likeable individual. My condolences go out to Robert’s wife and family.

Twitter enhancement

Some of you will recall the brief BfK experiment with Twitter at Salute earlier in the year. Well, that didn’t turn out quite as I’d hoped – mainly because I spent more time enjoying myself than tweeting.

Now, with a recent addition to WordPress functionality, I can link my blog to my Twitter account and make it automatically tweet every time I add a new post on the blog.

Why should you care? Well, if you’re a Twitter user, you can now follow BfK on Twitter and know within minutes when I add a new posting here. Give it a go and let me know how you get on.

Another update to Prussian Resources Page

Standard bearer 2nd Silesian regiment (IR11)

Just a short note to say that I’ve started adding images of the Sturm cigarette cards created by Herbert Knötel and Martin Lezius. Last night I had initially thought it would be a relatively quick and simple job. That was before I realised just how many cards there were in the full set – 84 of them. And that’s just the Prussians! There are some Saxons too.

So I made a start by adding the ones for the line and reserve infantry regiments. Hopefully, I’ll gradually add all the rest over the next week or so.

New Prussian resources page

The eagle-eyed among you might notice that a new link has appeared in the menu above. Yep, I’ve finally got round to adding a Prussian Army Resources page to complement the Saxon one I’ve already done. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, it doesn’t make sense to have a Saxon one and not have a Prussian one; secondly, it’s easier to find and maintain if there’s one page; thirdly, the Saxon page has proved to be consistently one of the most viewed parts of the site, so a Prussian page seems as though it would be something popular.

But those reasons apply at almost any time. The spur for doing it now is that my Wargames Illustrated article will be published soon and it would be embarrassing if there wasn’t a Prussian resources page to accompany it on BfK. So I’ve decided to get started now to give me sufficient time to have it up to scratch. So far I’ve concentrated on adding the Knötel plates and that’s made me realise just how much material there is to get through. There were only 13 Knötel plates for the Saxons but I uploaded 49 for the Prussians this morning and I’ve a worrying feeling that I might have forgotten some!

Anyway, that was enough work for one go along with links to the Napoleonic Association’s pamphlet about the reserve infantry regiments. I’ll save adding further resources like the Knötel cigarette cards, the Jugel/Wolf plates and a list of books for future updates. If you can think of any other items that should be included, feel free to add a comment.