"Slow, uneasie and troublesome": Tales from the Baggage Trayne

"The great number of Coaches, Waggons, Carts, and Horses loaded with baggage, the needless numbers of Women and Boys who follow Armies, renders a march, slow, uneasie and troublesome." 

Sir James Turner, Pallas Armata, 1670.

Dear Readers, you might remember Sir James Turner, and his magisterial book, "Pallas Armata: Military essayes of the ancient Grecian, Roman, and modern art of war" from other posts here on the Blog. Sir James is the gentleman, experienced in the savage fighting of the Thirty Years War, who failed to write about precisely what happens in the heat of battle, but was capable of writing pages and pages and pages about the minutiae of seventeenth century warfare. 

Sir James spends three of four pages of "Pallas Armata" devoted to baggage "traynes", "waggons" and provisioning. According to Sir James' account, the number of "waggons", carts and horses accompanying an army in the field could be extremely high. He provides an entertaining scale of different wagon numbers for different armies in the Thirty Years War - Swedish, French, German and Danish - noting that 900 wagons for 6,000 horse and foot was not unusual.

With this in mind, I thought I'd have a go at creating some suitable baggage for a seventeenth century trayne.  

I had bought one of "Colonel Bill's" larger wagons, with a Renaissance artillery load, from the Colours show last year.  It was a joy to make, fitted perfectly, and painted up easily..  The heavy horses were a little rough-coated, but I quite liked that - being different in look to the sleeker horses of the Horse and Gendarmerie.  You get a jumble of bits in the MDF pack, but it comes with some useful instructions.

I added a couple of additional russet-coated musketeers, trudging along with the wagon, and a Wargames Foundry wagoneer, alongside the Colonel Bill's horse-ostler.  A Warbases 3mm MDF base completed the wagon, ready to join (or start off) the baggage trayne.

Listeners to the TooFatLardies "Oddcast" might remember that one of the books I mentioned in the Library section a year back was "The Memoirs of James II".  As I mentioned on the "Oddcast", James, Duke of York, was obsessed with .... fodder.  Barely a page goes by in the Duke's book without mentioning provisions, baggage, lines of march, fodder, forage, horse-feeding and logistics.  It's an amazing read, although one I found I needed to read through with a map or Northern France and Flanders by my desk most of the time.  

I wanted to create some wagons in the baggage trayne bringing fodder for an army's horses.  One of them I bought from "Blotz" at the Salute show a few years back.  The other I scratch-built from bits and pieces on my work-desk - card, some spare wheels and a couple of Wargames Foundry villagers.

The hay-fodder was made from a chunk of blue styrofoam, which was covered with a mix of cut up floor mat, sissal-string and small garden twigs. Dry-brushed with some matt emulsion from Dulux called "straw" (no, I'm not joking), I thought they looked the part. I added some loose chains, dry-brushed with Vallejo gunmetal, to complete the models.

And now, all I need is some rampaging dragoons or Croatian "hussars" to attempt to sack the baggage trayne ... while any defending horsemen make "handsome Sallies".  Here's Sir James, again - 

"When Convoys are put to fight for defence of their Charge, as many times they are, (for the desire of booty spurs men to desperate attempts) they should (if conveniently they can) cast themselves within the Waggons and Carts drawn up round for that purpose, from whence Musqueteers may do notable service, and out of which retrenchment the Horse may, as they see occasion, make handsome Sallies."

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