Posts Tagged ‘France’

Ram's Head Snuff Mull - 42nd Royal Highland Regiment of Foot

So many of the 1500 photographs I took in the UK for our recently released book, “Crimean Memories: Artefacts of the Crimean War,” were unusual, with interesting histories, but this snuff mull is one of my absolute favorites. It is a silver mounted ram’s head snuff mull, which had a home in the Officer’s Mess of the 42nd Royal Highland Regiment of Foot until the Crimean War.

The Crimean War took place between 1854 and 1856, primarily on the Crimean Peninsula in today’s Ukraine. Imperial Russia had for some time been exhibiting expansionist ambitions which were threatening established trade routes to India. Under what was perceived as a veiled attempt to further these ambitions, Russia invaded parts of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). Britain, France, and eventually Sardinia joined Turkey and declared war on Imperial Russia.

The 42nd Royal Highland Regiment of Foot, more commonly known as The Black Watch, landed at Kalamita Bay in the Crimea in September1854, as part of the Highland Brigade, 1st Division, of the English Army of the East. Their battle honours include Alma, and the Siege of Sevastopol.

The snuff mull in this photograph is the head shoulders and horns of a ram, and is about two feet square. It currently rests in a fine case in The Black Watch Museum, Perth, Scotland, where we found it. It was originally in the 42nd Regiment Officers’ Mess, and contained snuff in the round silver jeweled tray on its top between the horns. There was a ritual-like ceremony attached to the snuff use that each officer was bound by mess tradition to follow.

According to the Black Watch Museum records, this particular mull was brought to the Crimea by the Highland officers to be used in their mess, but upon arrival, they found no source for proper snuff. Thus, the commanding officer used the snuff mull as an inkpot. On close examination you can see the ink stains inside the round tray on top of the mull.

After the war, the mull was lost. It literally disappeared for 75 years. It was found under odd, but interesting circumstances. There is now a silver plate added on the front of the snuff mull which reads: “This Black Watch snuff mull was discovered in a saleroom by H.M. Queen Mary who presented it to the Black Watch in 1932.”

Thus, this superb artefact found its way to its rightful home, and I found an amazing story to attach to my photograph of this noble creature. There’s something endearing about the way he is looking at you – almost as though he’s looking across the ages.

This artifact was photographed courtesy of The Black Watch Museum, Perth, Scotland.

There were many dogs with the British in the Crimea, including this one with officers of the 57th Regiment of Foot.

[This is a fictional tale by Will Hutchison, based on a very real story]

The war had begun.  Britain and France, unlikely bedfellows, were joined, with the help of Sardinia, against Russia – ostensibly to protect “poor, invaded, Turkey.”  As the 1st Battalion, Scots Fusilier Guards marched to the ships, they were led by a proud, prancing Sticks, his black and brown coat shining in the sun.

The marching troops passed by the amazed butcher along the way.  Private Gorman, marching near the head of the column, noticed Sticks’ back stiffen, his head tilt slightly higher, and he could have sworn he heard Sticks sniff loudly as he marched past his former master.

The sea journey was uneventful, except in choppy waters – Sticks being one of the few who did not tear his insides out retching over the rail.  Varna, along the western coast of the Black Sea was the army’s staging area.  It was also where cholera hit the British and French forces – hard – sometimes killing a hundred men in a day.  Sticks watched over his brothers in arms, adding joy to the last few moments of their lives when the sickness consumed them.  He was saddened by the losses, which cut his new friends down within hours of showing the first signs of illness.

“I think I have it, Sticks, heaven help me,” Sean Gorman pronounced one morning, when a grey pallor appeared on his face.  Sticks whined, remained with his friend … but he seemed to know that Sean would not succumb … or perhaps he willed it.  By the third day, it was determined that Sean had serious diarrhea, but not the cholera.  In time he recovered and was back with the regiment.

The real Sticks, whose name was actually "Bob" - This wonderful sketch is courtesy of an unknown artist

The regiment finally moved across the Black Sea to the Crimea, and a confrontation with the Russians.  Sticks first saw action at the Alma River, where the Scots Fusilier Guards were in the thick of a frontal assault on a Russian position fortified with cannon.  While they waited to assault, solid shot and shell rained down upon them perilously.

“What the divil is he aboot, Private Gorman?” asked the Sergeant Major, looking behind his line of soldiers, who were hugging the ground as close as possible.  He was watching Sticks cavorting about the field to their rear like he was playing with toy balls on a London green.

“He’s…he’s chasin’ after them cannon balls, Sar’nt Major.  He’s been doin’ it fer the longest time.”  They had been under intense cannon fire for over an hour.  The men’s nerves were frayed, stretched to the limit.  Watching this tiny dog scampering about was giving them a calming hope of survival.

“Ach, he is a charmer, that one,” said the Sergeant Major, laughing.  “You lads take heed now,” he bellowed.  “If the wee Sticks can stand this hell, then I’m damned sure we kin stand it.”  There were shouts of “Aye, that’s the God’s truth!” and “Charge on, Sticks, lad!”

The attack soon began in earnest.  First they crossed the Alma … where Sticks found he could swim, and Private Gorman went flat on his face in the water.  As the regiment moved up a gradual slope toward the enemy, men began to fall from the ranks.

Sticks would run to each, sniffing, prodding.  If the man lay still, he’d go on to the next.  If the man moved, he’d bark loudly until other soldiers or one of the bandmen, who were used to carry wounded to the rear, came up to aid the fallen man.  Sticks was utterly fearless and relentless. There were times when he ran so fast he outstretched the moving line of guardsmen, and had to be called back – bullets kicking up ground around him.

An officer went down, hit once in the leg.  It was the young lieutenant who had been Officer of the Day when Sean found Sticks in the snow. The ground where he lay was exposed except for a pile of rocks nearby.  The officer was hit again in the arm while lying on the ground. Sticks ran to his side and began dancing around, barking.  Sean heard the bark and recognized the wounded officer.  He moved quickly, grabbing the officer by his shoulder belt and coatee collar, dragging him behind the rocks.

“Good work, Sticks, lad,” he said, “but ya better bide here behind these rocks.  It’s no a safe place out there.”

Two bandsmen with an improvised stretcher came up.  Sean ran on to catch the regimental line moving ever closer to the Russians.  He looked back over his shoulder. “Stay – boy!  Stay!”

There was, of course, little or no chance of Sticks “staying.”

[The Conclusion, Part VI, will be along tomorrow with more of the real story behind the fictional tale.]

{Photograph at top taken by Roger Fenton}

The first in the Ian Carlyle Series.

What on earth possessed me, a Yank, to write for my debut novel a book about the Crimean War, a very British war – not well known in the US.  Actually it didn’t start out that way. My original thought was to write about British observers in the American Civil War on General McClellan’s staff. There were about a dozen of them.

I began writing about these Civil War observers, but it soon dawned on me that they received their combat experience, and became the fine officers they were, in the Crimea, six years before our Civil War. I decided that the setting for the first novel must be the Crimea. I would bring my characters into the American Civil War in the sequel. The Crimean War then became my passion, my obsession, if you will.

Through the next three years of research I made numerous visits to the UK, and two trips to the Crimean battlefields.  After a ton of hours at the Scots Guards archives at Wellington Barracks, London; Eton College; and various amazingly beautiful places in Scotland; I finally felt I could put pen to paper … or more precisely finger to keyboard.

Actually, people know more about the Crimean War than they may realize. For instance, the Charge of the Light Brigade – Florence Nightingale, the lady with the lamp – the ‘Thin Red Line’. These all came out of the Crimean War. It took place at the height of the reign of Queen Victoria, and was primarily fought on the Western coast of the Crimean peninsula (present day the Ukraine), between 1854, and 1856.

The war’s origins are shrouded in political mystery and intrigue, ranging from somewhat bogus religious reasons to the expansionist doctrine of the Russian Czar, Nicholas I, in an effort to gain free access (A warm water port)  between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The spark which caused the feces to hit the fan was when Russia invaded the then Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.

Britain and France, the most unlikely of bedfellows, came to Turkey’s aid, supported by Sardinia. Although a Turkish Army basically forced Russia back across her borders, the people and governments of Britain and France felt strongly that Russia needed to be taught a lesson. Thus in September 1854, a combined allied army landed on the Crimean peninsula. Their mission was to capture Sevastopol and sink the Russian Black Sea fleet harbored there.  Their long term strategic goal was to stop Russia from ever again entertaining ideas of expansion in the Mediterranean.

The Russians sunk a major part of their own fleet to block the harbor to British and French ships, and it took the allied army, at great cost, the next two years to ‘capture’ Sevastopol. In the end, the Russians merely evacuated the city in good order, and left it to the British and French.

I think a writer must follow his instincts and above all his passion. I guess my original intent was that “Follow Me to Glory” would be a prequel to the major American Civil War work, but as I researched and wrote, Ian Carlyle’s owing up adventures and his Crimean combat experiences took on their own character and importance.  Thus, it is a prequel in the sense that it is the first in the Ian Carlyle Series, where his character comes of age as a man, then as an officer in the caldron of war.  The sequel, “The Gettysburg Conspiracy,” brings Ian Carlyle, now a seasoned veteran, into the American Civil War. There will also be at least a third in the Ian Carlyle series. I am determined, however, that each book will be of equal importance, and each will stand alone as a story in itself.

I did ponder the idea of making the setting for the series in a different era, but there is such a strong connection and impact between the Crimean War and our Civil War (only a few years apart) that I doubt there is any other period or set of wars which would so readily lend themselves to my vision.

I have always been mesmerized by this simpler Victorian age. Where they were more gentle and genteel among themselves, yet still using terribly blunt linear tactics when throwing armies at one another head-on. The lines drawn in cultural values, and in war, seem to me clearer than more recent conflicts. Of course, there’s that passion of mine for the 19th century. I couldn’t very well ignore that, could I?