On the moor

In the course of our recent week in Devon, we did a reasonable amount of walking out of our cottage, over the cattle grid and on into Holne Moor. Either on the unfenced road which ran northwest to the reservoir and then onto Hexworthy, or on the track which ran west, to the south of the road.

The cows illustrated had gathered, either for shelter or for lunch, just on the moor side of the cattle grid. Rather larger and better looking that I was expecting for cows running loose. Road visible middle right, with the track branching off to the left after a hundred yards or so.

The track was muddy, fairly churned up by passing animals, and sometimes took quite a hold of one's shoes - although I should say that my everyday Morrells - Moab Ventilator - did very well for the sort of light walking that we were doing. Would have scarcely counted at all fifty years ago.

From where I associated to a bit in reference 1 where Barrès is marching to Austerlitz or some such place, in the middle of thousands of men strung out along the one road, and has to drop out of line because one of his leather stirrups has come adrift - this being the leather strap which holds the shoe to the trousers - rather like the stirrups on ladies' slacks now. The point being, that without the straps, one would lose one's shoes in the mud. The overall impression was that infantrymen and their officers had a hard time with their feet, even when they had had years of service.

I share some other snippets. First, promotion in Napoleon's army seemed to be much more merit organised than was the case in our army. With, inter alia, there being regular promotions to officer of batches of deserving men from the ranks, with this being how Barrès got started up the ladder. OK, so there was all the pushing and shoving you get in all large organisations, but it still looked better than our army looked at that time. See also reference 3.

Second, there was more room for common courtesies between opposing armies than I think was the case in either of the two world wars. So the French army, in his part of the lines of Torres Vedras (near Lisbon), had a comfortable arrangement with the British army opposite, an arrangement which included things like swapping post, newspapers and comestibles. And not shooting at each other without fair warning.

Third, given that officers and men were required to take oaths of allegiance to their sovereigns, given that most officers at least took these oaths very seriously, there was some awkwardness when there was a change of sovereign. A proper sovereign, when the game was up, summoned his men and released them from their oaths - with not all the sovereigns in his case playing the game.

While back at Holne Moor the following day, it was odd how different it seemed walking on the road. Very much a ribbon of something alien laid over the moor. The track had somehow seemed much less intrusive.

Reference 1: Souvenirs d'un Officier de la Grande Armée - Maurice Barrès - 1922. Being the memoirs of one of Napoleon's infantry officers, published by his grandson some 100 years after they were written - by a chap who served from 1804 to 1832, going through most of Napoleon's big battles, more or less unscathed. An easy read. Originally noticed at reference 2. But this was only found by flicking through the camera roll archive until I found the right picture, then flicking through the blog archive for that month to find the name of the post. Not unreasonable since the post included nothing for a word search to bite on.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/the-blade.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/trafalgar-day.html.