To the Barricades!

With uncharacteristic elan, I am dashing on to the next little part of my project to complete the terrain elements I want for the Franco-Prussian War. This time it's three sections of barricade. As part of preparing a village for defence the roads in the enemy's direction would be blocked off, and cover created to fire from, by building improvised barriers like these. 

The barricades that perhaps spring most readily to mind are those built by revolutionary populations within cities, notably during the Paris Commune of 1870 and the Europe-wide revolutions of 1848. These were actually rather different in construction, because nineteenth-century cities generally had their roads paved with stone blocks. These were laid on sand rather than being cemented together and were the perfect thing  for pulling up and building into substantial stone barriers, from which to resist the forces of oppression!

Anyway, our more rustic barricades were built by sending soldiers into the houses and farms of the village to find what could be piled up to create an obstacle to an enemy charge. What they came back with was piled up higgledy-piggledy, but was enough to give cover from bullets and to give resolute defenders an advantage over anyone struggling to surmount or remove the obstacle. As always when I am building something new, I search online for images that will give information and inspiration, crop and assemble these into a Word document and print it off using the best quality available. This then sits in front of me as I plan and build the item in question. The single best image I found was that of  Le Bourget during the Siege of Paris, and a cropped version is below if you scroll down. Helpfully it is in colour, giving an idea of the different shades of wood involved.

Here's the three sections from the front. The most common materials were wagons/ carts, furniture and storage containers, mostly barrels. You might also see logs and cut timber, wheels, ladders and farm tools such as harrows and ploughs. Doors and shutters could be torn from their hinges for use. Mattresses could feature, usually at the back of the barricade, both for resisting bullets and as something for the defenders to lean against. Illustrators and modelmakers seem to think dead horses were also a component, but I am sceptical as these would quickly decay and produce a horrendous stink.

The same from the back. The pieces do have backs and fronts to a certain degree. I sort of imagined the defenders clambering onto something to fire over the higher parts.

Here is one barricade, defended by Prussian infantry. As with the earthworks these pieces are useful for other periods as improvised barricades must have been built from ancient times onwards, and remained in use notably in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930's, or even street-fighting in World War Two. Strictly, the available material would change; the piece here uses a lot of "bentwood" chairs, which were only around from the mid nineteenth century. But few wargamers will be very picky on such details.

This time the French defend a barrier based on a farm wagon. This wagon was a plastic item from Rubicon Models. It works OK here, but probably a metal wagon from one of the Perry Napoleonic range would have been better detailed and cheaper. Boxes and barrels are available from any number of traders.

The third one is based mostly on furniture, and here the Rubicon Domestic Furniture set is ideal. Building the pieces on bases helps hold everything together. I painted them as the bare earth of the roads. By the way, each piece has some metal barrels or whatever within it, just to give it enough weight not to float out of place on the table. The defenders here are French chasseurs a pied, painted by my friend Garry Broom.

From the defending side. A bit more of an action scene than I usually get around to arranging. That line from the 1964 Zulu film springs to mind here: "thousands of 'em"!

Finally, the best image I could find for reference, the Prussian Guard Grenadiers storming the village of Le Bourget in October 1870 during the siege of Paris. I used a lot of elements from this, but as ever "condensed" to fit the scale of my wargames villages.

The next stage of this project is going to be some sections of "abbatis". I'm still at the planning stage with this, but hopefully will have something to show you in a few weeks time.