Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Re-enacting the Prussian Landwehr

 Here I am at Chalke Valley festival of History last week. It was a boiling hot day and the dark wool uniforms became like ovens in the heat. This is me learning the drill, complete with Landwehr beard. I upgraded my sideburns for the weekend.

 It was quite hard learning a new drill, but even more so because the landwehr drill in German! After a while I started to get the hang of things as some of the words did sound quite English. I like the fact that even the language has been adopted so that we sound as well as look authentic.


 I got to fire my first flintlock musket as well which was amazing. After all my years reading and drawing history, I finally got hands on with it. I was amazed at the shower of hot gun powder that blows up when the gun goes off. It was a little scarey at first with the noise being louder than you expect, even though I hear them going off all the time next to me. I think I am now hooked!


Here is a nice group shot with most of the regiment marching in formation. My musket was a replica Brown Bess I bought ten years ago. I was very pleased to be using it in anger, as I thought It would just sit in a cupboard for the rest of it's life. I will apply for my shot gun and black powder licenses soon and when I have them, I can buy my own working musket and take the fight to the enemy. Until then, I will have to rely on the old cold steel!


 Being the man with the replica gun, It was my job to die in glorious fashion every now and then. I enjoyed this very much. I also got to play a Frenchman on the second day to help the poor old out numbered French...this was the highlight of the weekend for me.

Here i am on the second day in borrowed French uniform.

The excellent pictures were taken by Pat Patrick, Sarah Ford and Barry James Wilson.

12 comments:

James Brewerton said...

looks like a fun but hot weekend

BigRedBat said...

Yes- looks great fun, but looks very hot, indeed!

Mike said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mike said...

Very impressive....looks superb!

Ian said...

Glad you had a great time, I think a dark uniform is a bit better than said uniform and back & breast with a morion on the noodle ;-)

Ian

Grenzer John said...

Blue uniforms in the heat are wretched. Luckily I have the white cotton roundabout of the US 1812 summer uniform.
Does your flintlock have a flash guard attached near the lock? I'm just wondering how things are done in the UK.

Unknown said...

Great pictures, this must have been a blast!

Phil said...

Very nice pics, great uniforms!

Ken said...

Looks like great fun to me. I've never fired one but one reanactor of the 68th light infantry let me pick up his brown bess musket.

Anonymous said...

Cool pictures! Any chance you might one day start doing roman re-enactment?

Quyen said...

This is fantastic!

Unknown said...

Hello, my friend and I are starting a Prussian Landwehr (2nd Kurmark at Leipzig) Reenactor Group in California and we have been finding it difficult to research the uniform for Landwehr Officer and Sargeant-as we keep finding different variations from the short jacket to the regular Litewka coat with extra buttons. We would really appreciate it if you can provide me and my group with any information regarding these uniforms and on the Landwehr in general. Thank you very much.