Fnurban #35: Bringing the Good News from Ghent.. and Croydon

Having not ventured outside the UK since 2019, I'm glad to say that earlier this month my partner and I enjoyed a short break in Belgium, travelling by Eurostar train from London and staying at Ghent, which is a susprisingly pleasant city and full of historical interest. Amongst all that, of course there was a smattering of military history to be found, and  I hope you may find the following of some interest too. 

Looming over the centre of the city, as it had been designed to since the 12th Century was the impressive Gravensteen, or Castle of the Counts of Flanders.  This is the view from the canal which effectively forms a moat: 

We visited the castle, and were rewarded with a room full of arms and armour, including this 16th/17th Century 'Three-Quarter' / Cuirassier armour 

 

and a range of pole-arms of about the same time, 

 

In fact I think most of the display was from a similar period, incuding some very highly decorated crosssbows and muskets, which looked more like  status symbols than practical weapons (perhaps this explains their survival ). 

The City Museum, STAM 'Tells the story of Ghent from the Middle Ages to the present day', and does a pretty good job of that - well worth a visit if you are in town. Ghent was a seriously important place - one of the largest cities North of the Alps in the 14th Century, home to Burgundian rulers such as Charles the Bold ( the man with the trendiest  Army List in medieval Europe, though it didn't save him against the Swiss!), birthplace of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the most powerful man in the world in his day.  Of course there were quite a few paintings depicting the city, and these are always worth a look.  Here is one of them : 

The Inauguration of Charles II, King of Spain, as Count of Flanders in 1666 in Ghent. Look closely at the bottom right corner: 

A nice Troop of horse -  I reckon about to 50-60 troopers, in 4 ranks, with buff coat, 'back and breast' armour, a mix of soft hats and 'Lobster Tail' helmets ( the latter dominating the front rank ).  Would they still be called Harquebusiers, or would this be 'Cuirassier' rig by 1666? 

Move forward a century or so, and the same museum has Engelbert van Siclers 1780 painting, Louis XV reviews the French troops in front of Ghent    

 

 This depicts Lousi XV reviewing the French troops who would take possession of Ghent on 11th July 1745, holding it for 3 years before handing it back to the Austrians.  As before, I zoomed in to see some of the the actual troops: 

A body of cavalry clearly shown,  with two coat colours in evidence (green, or is it greyish blue? and red ), so presumably representing  two different units. By counting hats in the main group I'd say about 20 of each unit, and I assume the figures in the foreground riding behind the two gents on white horses would be from the same units.  Is the  leading gentlemen  Louis XV, or a  commander of the troops - would Maurice de Saxe have been there?     There is a group of grandees to the left of the picture, which may represent Louis and his entourage. I will leave it to the experts to decide who is who, maybe even which units are shown?  An interesting image though, showing a moment from the victorious French campaign in the Low Countries during the War of Austrian Succession, two months to the day after de Saxe's victory over the British and Dutch at Fontenoy. 

Finally in the history paintings department, we also visited the Fine Arts Museum of Ghent (MSK), which has a rather fine picture 

  This is Titus' Conquest of Jerusalem, painted c.1475-1500 by a painter described as 'Viennese Master of Mary of Burgundy'.  Mary was the daughter of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, who inherited his lands aged 19, on Charles' death in battle at Nancy in 1477. I can't help feeling that the numerous soldiers represented as besieging 'Jerusalem' would very likely have been based on contemporary troops which the painter could have had access to. So is this in effect a representation of Charles the Bold's army?  Of course it also shows siege operations in progress, with a rather splendid 'engine' battering the walls of the city.  I don't see any cannon, however, which may undermine my theory about the painter showing a contemporary army!  All the same, it's a splendid picture, full of incident. I managed to get a few close-up pictures of some of the details, which I show here. 

Coming much closer to the present day, we also took a day at the seaside - sadly it wasn;t seaside weather, but there we are -  specifically at Ostend. We went there mainly to see 'The Longest Tram Line in the World' , the Belgian Coastal Tram, which extends for 67km along the coast. We didn't cover the whole line, but by chance we dismounted just outside Ostend on a quiet stretch of the sea front, and were confronted by a section of Hitler's Atlantic Wall defenses.  Sadly not open when we were there, but it clearly is open as a tourist attraction some of the time.  Walking back along the promenade, I coulnd't resist a few photos : 

   

As you can see, there are original concrete exmplacements, and a selection of period weapons have been either restored in place or imported to add a bit more 'flavour' to the setup.  I think it looks worth a visit if you happen to be there at the right time! 

And now for something completely different, as the saying goes: as well as Ghent, I have recently been to - Croydon.  I went to see an exhibition, organised by the Artangel group, named Come as You Really Are, which showed off the weird, wonderful and varied world of people's hobbies. As you may be aware, blogger  Mark Man of Tin has contributed a selection of his classic Toy Soldiers to the exhibition - he has put up several posts on his blog showing them.  Here are some of Mark's figures (I don't think the Spitfire model is his, however ? ) 

 

I can'r resist one or two more pictures from the show, which it has to be said is, in the nicest possible way, utterly bonkers and gives an insight into the crazy variety of hobbies and collections that all sorts of people pursue 

D&D / Warhammer meets Barbie..

a whole battle fleet of Star Wars

The exhibition also featured work by artist Hetain Patel, including a rather splendid piece whereby he has transformed  his old Ford Fiesta car into - well, a Transformer. It is posed appropriately with a large collection of model cars - and a mannequin in a Spiderman costume.I think maybe this gives an idea of the spirit of the exhibtion...

My pictures can't possibly sum up the whole exhibit, it is utterly mad, and somewhat heartwarming - though to be honest I was not sure it was actually art. And if you thought collecting and gaming with toy soldiers is pretty niche, how about collecting plastic carrier bags? Or used pencil erasers?  Or painting pebbles with copies of designs from chocolate bar wrappers? All of which were in the show.  It is a free exhibition, so if you happen to be in Croydon before 20th October with some time to spare, you may enjoy it - not sure if I would recommend you travel any great distance, and I can't say Croydon was as attractive a destination as Ghent!  But certainly a 'different' experience.

I seem to have wandered far from wargaming - I hope to get back to that soon. Meanwhile, welcome to Autumn ( in the Northern Hemisphere at least ) and keep well, everyone.