Book Review: 1864: The Forgotten War that Shaped Modern Europe

1864: The Forgotten War that Shaped Modern Europe by Tom Buk-Swienty
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I've always been interested in the Dano-Prussian War, also known as the Second Schleswig War. In 1864, Prussia and Austria went to war against Denmark over control of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The war led to Denmark losing the duchies and made Otto von Bismark's career, giving him the political clout invade France in 1870 and then unifying Germany.
So it's an important war, and this book is a popular-level but detailed look at the political situation as well as the war's main battle.
Unfortunately, it misses the mark. The text is rather disorganized, jumping around from one subject to another and it appears to be the victim of bad translation. In a couple of spots the actions of the Danes and Prussians are switched. Also, there are proper names in the captions that are spelled differently than they are in the text. I'm thinking that this isn't the fault of the author, who is obviously familiar with his subject, but rather that the fault lies with the translator or copyeditor.
Other problems abound. There is no good operational map, many photos are reproduced at such a small size that they are difficult to see, and the author assumes knowledge that may be obvious to his original Danish audience, but not to outsiders.
The fact that this got glowing reviews in Danish tells me this is a good book badly mishandled by its English language publishers. That's a shame. Here's hoping that a second edition will come out that will correct these errors.

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Travel Tuesday: Old Family Crests in Salamanca, Spain

As I mentioned in my last Travel Tuesday post, I recently visited Salamanca, Spain. This historic university town is filled with old buildings from the Renaissance. Many noble families lived here and you can still see their crests on the sides of some of their palaces.

In Spanish, the term for the historical town center is casco viejo, which translates to "old helmet." There are a lot of old helmets in Salmanca!

Jump the cut for more.

Travel Tuesday: The Medieval University of Salamanca, Spain

The Escuelas Mayores building, Salamanca.

Last weekend my wife and I headed off to Salamanca, Spain. It's a wonderful old historic city best known for its university founded in the 13th century. Here is the facade of the university's most famous building.

Like Oxford, most of the university buildings are built around a courtyard. Jump the cut to step inside.

Travel Tuesday: Mysterious Stone Book in Vienna

Here's an odd little sign I spotted in Vienna last year. You'd think it would be hanging above a bookshop or library, but it isn't. Perhaps the building changed hands? Judging from the style, it looks like it was made in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Not that I'm an expert.
Austria's capital is a wonderful destination for art and culture. The museums are in old Hapsburg palaces and the cafes serve up cakes that will kill you with kindness. I got to thinking about Vienna yesterday because former Gadling colleague Pam Mandel wrote about a fun blog post about the Vienna flea market. Check it out. She's a great travel writer!

Military History Photo Friday: The Halle Gate, Brussels, Belgium

Belgium has some 300 castles, and while the focus of last week's trip was on the Western Front of World War One, I did get to see the sole-surviving example of the medieval fortification that once protected Brussels.

The Halle Gate was built between 1357 and 1373 as one of seven gates in the city wall. It eventually became a prison and was thus left standing when the rest of the wall and gates were torn down. Today it hosts the Royal Museum of Art and History

The Fin de Siecle Museum, Brussels

Mask of Cleo de Merode, by Georges Despret, c. 1907

Sorry for the silence last week. I was on a press trip touring the battlefields of Belgium and was kept very busy during a fascinating and enjoyable week. We focused on World War One sites but also took in Bastogne and Waterloo. Expect several articles about the trip on this and other blogs!

On my last morning before flying back to Spain I was left to my own devices and decided to check out the newest museum in Brussels--The Fin de Siècle Museum. It looks at Belgian art from 1868 to the disaster of 1914. While Art Nouveau will be the biggest attraction here, there's also a lot of works from the Realist, Impressionist, Symbolist, and other movements. I've focused on the Art Nouveau here because it's my wife's favorite art style and she doesn't read my blog enough.

Enjoy!

A weekend of writing and art in Madrid

Last weekend was a long weekend here in Spain, so we left Santander and headed down to our old stomping grounds of Madrid to see family and soak up some culture.

One big event was hooking up with my old writer's group. They'd organized a write-a-thon for the first day of National Novel Writing Month. We took over the back room of one of my favorite cafes and wrote like mad! It was very cool to sit with a room full of people all writing novels.

My wife and I also got to see some art exhibitions, something that's sadly lacking in Santander. Many of the best shows are at private galleries owned by banks. The Fundación Mapfre has two exhibitions on currently. One is called MACCHIAIOLI: Impressionistic Realism in Italy. This was a mid-nineteenth century movement that broke away from the strictures of Classical painting and paved the way for Impressionism. Here's a bunch of them enjoying themselves in true Italian style.

They were against the snobbery of the establishment and to prove their point often painted their work on the backs of cigar boxes and other found objects, like this nice landscape.

I've started a travel series on Estonia on Gadling, the travel blog that sent me there last week. As you can imagine, the northernmost Baltic state was pretty snowy this time of year, although unusually mild--only 0C or 32F.

Anyway, hit the link and follow my adventures as I explore one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe, visit old Soviet military installations, and explore secret tunnels underneath the capital!

The Library of Forgotten Books

Shuffling between my two home bases in Oxford and Madrid last week I had a couple of hours to kill at Gatwick airport. It being past noon, I decided to spend them in the airport's pub, The Flying Horse, enjoying a last couple of pints of English real ale.

Airport pubs are soulless places, but the management at the The Flying Horse has tried to make it homey by installing big bookshelves stuffed with volumes of an age suitable for the faux country mansion decor of cheap wood paneling, dark carpet, and dim lighting.

Studying the titles I had to wonder when the last of them was read. They all seemed to be unknowns that passed into obscurity in the first month they were published. How many people really read A Girl and Her Ways by Amy Le Feuvre or Edward Henry Bickersteth by F.K. Aglianby? Did Hine's Relics of an Uncommon Attorney earn out its advance? The Six Proud Walkers almost got me with the title, but sorry F. Beedin, I prefer to hike alone.

The only familiar face in this crowd of strangers was War and Peace--in an edition old enough to be tattered but recent enough to be of no value. And it was in Russian. And only volumes three and four.

I can't decide how I feel about books being demoted to mere decoration. On the one hand, it's demeaning to the dreams of hundreds of struggling authors. They're all almost certainly dead, so I guess that's a relief. On the other hand, their only other destination would have been the rubbish skip. If books can still provide the atmosphere of refinement, don't they still have a value?

I wonder if my son will walk into an airport pub seventy years from now and see one of my own titles being used to line the walls.

Guest Post: Leather armour

Today I'm trading blogs with A.J. Walker, a medievalist and novelist who's just starting a virtual book tour for his first fantasy novel, Roots Run Deep, epublished by Double Dragon. He has a series called Medieval Mondays over at his blog and today I'm blogging over there about Medieval handgonnes. So without further ado. . .


In the first chapter of my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep, a team of goblinkin are preparing for a raid on a human city.

Kip was as prepared as she could be. Like anyone who lived on the Reservation, she went armed at all times. Not that she had much. Her tattered leather jerkin gave scant protection, and for weapons she carried a flint knife and a tfaa, a traditional goblin fighting stick. A balanced, two foot-long rod carved from ironwood, the tfaa didn’t look like much, but in skilled hands it could disarm and cripple a swordsman. Prenta had gotten rid of her showy clothes and dressed in a more practical leather jerkin similar to Kip’s.

These impoverished goblinkin are wearing leather armour because they can't afford anything better and their human rulers forbid them from bearing metal weapons and armor. (This ban doesn't last, but that comes later in the story. . .) Leather armour is a staple of fantasy fiction and roleplaying games, yet many people don't realize just how common it was in medieval warfare. Even knights wore it.

Leather armour goes back to ancient times and continued in use through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. This picture shows the shoulder and upper arm portions of an elegant suit of leather dating to the Italian Renaissance, courtesy of the Schola Forum. As you can see, it looks much like regular metal armour, and many historians believe that it was worn as much as or even more than metal armour. A suit of plate was hot and heavy, so on the march or during a friendly tournament the knight may choose to weather cooler leather. The rank and file would also be fitted with leather and perhaps some portions of metal armour for vulnerable places such as the head and chest.

While leather was much cheaper, it provided pretty good protection. Regular soft leather wasn't much help, but combined with quilted padding provided some protection, especially against blunt weapons such as maces.

More effective was cuir bouilli--boiled leather. If you soak leather in water and then place it in boiling water, it becomes elastic and pliable. It soon begins to shrink, thicken, and harden. As it's hardening the leather is hammered onto shaped blocks to create breastplates, greaves, vambraces, and anything else. A full suit of armour could be made in this way. The 14th century French chronicler Jean Froissart claimed that it was "leather that no iron can pierce" and while that may be overstating the case, leather armour certainly gave good protection. Games such as D&D probably undervalue its effectiveness. Modern experiments show that the average sword blow wouldn't get through, although a good English longbow would make short work of a leather breastplate! This basic article (PDF) explains the technique. Also check out this thread from Schola Forum for some more insights and pictures.

The picture below from The Historians' History of the World shows some improvements on leather armour, with overlapping metal scales, discs, and rings. These were all cheaper yet pretty effective alternatives to full plate and variants of these were used from ancient times into the Renaissance.

Photo friday: The Bodleian Library

Welcome to Photo Friday! I've been in Oxford for the past week and when I haven't been playing in the park with my kid or sampling real ale in Oxford's many fine pubs (including my local) I've been doing research in the Bodleian Library. The oldest parts of this library date from medieval times and there's some splendid architecture.

The photo shows the Tower of the Five Orders, finished 1619, and is the main street entrance. Its name comes from the five orders of columns on its facade: Doric, Tuscan, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. I like having a nice place to work, but the views can be a bit distracting so I tend to sit away from the windows!

Photo Friday: Roman ruins and modern sprawl in Mérida, Spain

Welcome to Photo Friday. This week we have a shot I took on the outskirts of Mérida, in Spain's autonomous community of Extremadura. It's a Roman aqueduct on the edge of town, not far from the ancient hippodrome. I like the contrast between ancient and modern here, with the car whizzing by on the highway and a modern house right next door.

I just wrapped up a travel series for Gadling about this region, titled Exploring Extremadura: Spain's historic southwest. Hop on over to see more pictures!

Photo Friday: Library After Air Raid, London, 1940

What can I say that any sensitive viewer can't already feel? As a lover of books I love this photo. Trust the English to calmly browse the shelves of a bombed-out library. Chin up and stiff upper lip and all that. No wonder they won the war (with a bit of help).

I've always been impressed with how books and writing endure. During the Lebanese civil war a literary magazine was regularly published in Beirut on the border between two warring factions. During the economic collapse in Venezuela, some publishers took to printing their books on recycled cardboard. You can't stop writers from writing, or readers from reading!


[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Best travel writing on Gadling in October

Halloween has come and gone, and here we are in November. As I look back at my Gadling travel posts in October, they aren't as adventurous as they were in September, what with my trip to Rome, but it was still a pretty good month.

I did a series on travel in Yorkshire that turned out to be popular. This was my first press trip, courtesy of VisitEngland and Welcome to Yorkshire, and it was an interesting experience. I'll be blogging about what it's like to go on a press trip next week here on Midlist Writer. It's a controversial subject, and I'm not 100 percent in support of them, but hey, at least I got to spend three nights in a haunted hotel room.

More on that later. As usual I did a variety of posts on archaeology, including a possible solution to the mystery of Silbury Hill and proof of Chinese trade with Africa before the Europeans. I also wrote a piece on favorite hiking spots near Madrid. Other random posts included an aquarium that's hiring a mermaid and a weird Japanese ESL video a friend sent me.

So check out my feed on Gadling. You'll even see a scientific explanation of why airline food sucks and some advice on what to do in a Muslim country during Ramadan!

And if you want adventure travel, check out Don George's series on Peru.

Websites for Writers: Castles of Britain

Everybody loves castles, especially writers. They make a fine backdrop for vampires, romance, or just some good old fashioned medieval bloodletting. There are a wealth of castle websites out there but one of my favorites is Castles of Britain by castle expert Lise Hull.

Lise has put her years of study to good use in this well-organized site. It provides a complete run-down of the basics of castle history and architecture with numerous examples of individual castles in the British Isles. There are literally hours of reading here. If you're more of a visual writer go to the castle photo gallery for lots of inspiring photos. The Castle Learning Center has plenty of good information about castle construction, development, personnel, and daily life, and there's even an online course if you want to learn more.

So check it out if you want to add to the ever-growing body of literature of, about, or including castles. I recently added my own fuel to the fire with an article on castles in Yorkshire.

In case you're wondering, the lovely little island fort pictured above was built by Alexander Stewart, the infamous "Wolf of Badenoch ", on Loch Gamhna near Aviemore, Scotland. I talk more about that in my last article in my series on hiking the East Highland Way.

My latest book released today!

Osprey Publishing has released my latest book, Medieval Handgonnes: The First Black Powder Infantry Weapons.

This was a fascinating and difficult book to write. I've always been interested in the early origins of the firearm and was frustrated by the total lack of any book on the subject. I had to sift through a mountain of archaeological and historical journals and crisscross Europe visiting museums to complete this project. While I'm proud of all my books, I'm especially proud of this one because it's the first book in English on the subject. As far as I can tell, it's the first book on medieval firearms in any language!

Here's a bit of background.

In the early 14th century, cannons entered the arsenals of European armies. This first generation of black powder weapons put fear into the heart of the enemy and in 1453 Ottoman artillery succeeded in breaching the once-impregnable walls of Constantinople. But cannons were slow and cumbersome and difficult to use against infantry. The first handgonnes were the answer. Dismissed by later historians as nothing more than crude tubes that shot wildly inaccurate lead balls, more recent research has revealed the true accuracy of the medieval handgonne together with its penetrative power. The handgonne was a viable weapon from its inception.

This volume, complete with detailed illustrations and color photographs, tells the story of one of the most revolutionary weapons in history. Readers will be treated to a lush collection of rare photographs and artwork from such far-flung locales as Danish National Museum and the Bayerisches Armeemuseum. Original artwork from Gerry and Sam Embleton illustrate how these weapons were used on the battlefield and reenactor photos demonstrate step-by-step how they were loaded and fired. The firing sequences were provided by The Company of the Wolf Argent and really let you see how the weapons were used in the field.

[Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons. I'd have to pay twice to reuse the museum photos I ordered for the book!]

Writers are like opera singers

Last weekend I went to a housewarming party here in Madrid. One of the hostesses is a big opera fan and knows many important people in the opera community. I'd never met anyone associated with opera so it was interesting to talk with not just one but two professional opera singers and an aspiring singer.

I got into a long conversation with a woman who was on her third Madrid show and had worked in other cities as well. She isn't famous, but she's earning a living. Sort of a midlist opera singer! We compared our professions and found them to be remarkably similar. Despite having proven her worth time and again she still has to deal with getting turned down for shows, or even having her correspondence ignored. Finances are also precarious.

So don't think you're alone, struggling writers, because the singers, musicians, and painters are all in the same boat. Making it doesn't mean making it big, yet this woman loves her work and doesn't want to do anything else. I guess all the silly professions have to deal with the same troubles, and reap the same rewards.

[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Words of wisdom from an old writer

As I mentioned before during Rome Week here on Midlist Writer, Italian military historian Piero Crociani was a huge help during my research trip. He's written numerous books on the uniforms of the Italian army and the various states that existed before unification and is considered one of the foremost authorities on the subject.

He's also an authority on Rome, and I was lucky to be able to tap into his font of knowledge. For example, this strange building near the Colosseum caught my eye. It has a medieval look but had obviously been turned into apartments at one time before becoming derelict. Now it's under restoration. I mentioned the building to Crociani and he told me it was a medieval tower owned by one of the many rich families of Rome, who often had bloody power struggles with one another. A few decades ago it was home to a society of military collectors. How appropriate!
Here's another view of the same building.

Piero was interested to hear of my writing. When I told him about the many different subjects write about he laughed and said, "You are wasting your life in the best possible way!" An odd compliment but I'll take it as it was intended. :-)

He laughed again when I told him on the last day of my trip that I hadn't gotten to do much sightseeing. "I've spent so much time in photo archives I haven't had much time for me."

He laughed and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Be honest, Sean! That time was for you too. Be honest!"

Well hey, it's true. I do like a good archive.
And I did get to do some sightseeing, including visits to lesser-known spots like the Arch of Janus shown here. Built in the fourth century either under the Emperor Constantine or his son Constantius II, it actually never was dedicated to Janus. That's a later embellishment. Like the tower above, it served as part of a family fortress during the Middle Ages.

Janus makes an appropriate symbol for my trip to Rome. The god of portals, gateways, and beginnings and endings is a perfect summary of any writer's career. With his two faces he looks back at past accomplishments and mistakes, and looks forward to the future. I'm looking back with pleasant memories at my time in Rome, and looking forward to visiting again!

Advantages of being a midlist author

The best thing about being a midlister is you get to write about a wide variety of subjects. These different jobs often support one another. For example, I was in Rome last week research a military history book for Osprey Publishing and at the same time wrote a travel series for Gadling. I didn't have a huge amount of time for sightseeing so I decided to focus on a single subject. The result is Vacation with the Dead: Exploring Rome's Sinister Side. I'm covering things like the Purgatory Museum, Renaissance tombs of Rome, and military museums in Rome. Upcoming posts will be on saints' relics, Christian catacombs, mummified monks, and more! My editor made a cool pinbox that I've added to the sidebar here.

Another advantage of writing about many different things is that you get into interesting conversations with all sorts of people. Staying at my hotel in Rome were two young Italian guys who looked like soldiers. I asked them if they were in the army and they said yes.

"What part of the army?" I asked.

"Army, yes," they answered in halting English, not understanding the question.

"No, I mean, Alpini, Bersaglieri, Caribinari?"

Their eyes lit up. Not only did this foreigner know something about the Italian army, but he actually gave a damn! Almost instantly a bottle of fine Sardinian lager was pressed into my hands and much drinking and conversation ensued. It turned out they're members of the Alpini, Italy's elite mountain infantry. We talked about their duties and Italian military history, like the grueling battles of Isonzo fought high in the Alps during World War One. They also talked about their frustration at not being able to serve in Afghanistan. You have to be in the army three years before you can apply to go. Imagine, these guys actually want to go to Afghanistan! I hope they get a chance to kick some Taliban butt.

That's what being a writer can do. Would these two guys, half my age and barely speaking my language, have gone on a bender with me if my research hadn't given us some common ground? It just goes to show you never know who you're going to meet in the business of writing.
[Top photo courtesy Eurocopter, bottom courtesy Italian Army, both via Wikimedia Commons]

Writing a book on Rome?

How can a writer not be inspired by Rome? Here's yours truly in a proud moment. I'm standing at one of the entrances to St. John Lateran, leaning against the giant bronze doors that once led into the Roman Senate. They were moved here in the 17th century to grace this massive church.

This poorly framed photo taken by some Italian kid reveals one of my original historical interests--the transition from pagan to Christian in the period of Late Antiquity. How did an empire that embraced a variety of gods and showed toleration to any religion that toed the line turn into a monotheistic force that changed the direction of faith forever? I covered this in my first solo book, Byzantium: An Illustrated History, and I'd like to get back into the subject.
Rome is a good place to study this because so many buildings from that period remain. Here's Santa Maria Maggiore, a fourth century Roman basilica converted into a church at a time when Christianity had only become the state religion within living memory. Some of the mosaics date back to 440! This was the first sight I saw in Rome and my biggest thrill. I've seen plenty of Roman sights, even hiked Hadrian's Wall, but all the ruins I had seen had been just that--ruins. Now I was actually standing inside a Roman building!
Not far away is Santa Pudenziana, with this beautiful fourth century apse mosaic. Within a century the Romans had gone from sacrificing to Jupiter, Mithras, and the emperor, to building churches.

This period is often overlooked in tours and guidebooks, and I'm thinking of doing a history/guidebook that would tell the story of the city's transformation from pagan stronghold to Christian capital. I'd tell it in straight historical narrative, but anytime a sight in Rome fits into the story, I'll switch into guidebook mode. Thus the visitor could follow the struggle between paganism and Christianity through Rome's buildings, while the armchair traveler could simply read it as a history book.

I've done a bit of research and I haven't seen any book that does exactly what I'm proposing. I'll have to look more before making a pitch to an editor and agent, though. There's a lot of books about Rome out there!