New Ferdinand of Brunswick & Croat Mounted Officer Pictures

Croat Officer (left) and Ferdinand of Brunswick (right)

CLICK ON ALL PICTURES TO ENLARGE

The latest batch of new Minden Miniatures SYW figures includes two personality figures: Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick (commander of the Allied army fighting the French in western Germany) and a dashing looking Croat officer. The new product codes for each figure are PER-017 for Ferdinand and PER-018 for Mr. Croat. The links to the figures in the Fife and Drum Miniatures web store are given below:

Austrians

Prussians

The inspiration for the mounted Croat officer came from a picture in one of the Osprey books that had an image of the Croat wearing his fancy, fur-lined cape. I knew that I really wanted to add this figure to the Minden range. I also felt that I needed a figure to command my Austrian light infantry forces. I could have painted him in the regimental uniform of one of the Croat regiments (red coat, blue coat, brown coat or white coat), but I felt that his station as a brigadier in my army merited the coat of a general Austrian officer.

Rear view showing the Croat's cape.

Ferdinand of Brunswick was already available as a dismounted figure in the Minden figure range (PER-001 Prussian Staff Officers). However, as the commander of the Allied army of Hanoverian, Hessian, British and Brunswick troops, I felt that Ferdinand should be available as a mounted figure too. I painted Ferdinand in his regimental uniform of the IR5 Prussian regiment.

Next Up: Russian Horse Grenadiers. I will post painted samples of the Russian Horse Grenadiers within the next couple of days. Here is a taster:

Left to Right: trooper in Summer waistcoat, trooper in regular coat, musician, officer, and  standard bearer.

Croat Samples Painted

A hoard of Croats from Minden Miniatures.

I've been painting samples of Minden product codes so that every item in the Fife and Drum Miniatures web store has a picture of the product. This project has been ongoing and it will keep going for quite awhile as there are hundreds of different figures to paint.

I finished all of the Prussian Jagers last week and so now it is on to the Croats, of which three of the four codes have been painted during the holiday weekend.

Croat command pack

Croats standing pack of firing and loading poses.

Croats advancing pack.

I have the Croats kneeling pack on the painting table right now and expect to finish them today. The four Croat figure packs give me 21 figures already painted, so 3 more rankers and one officer will complete my first Team Austria unit. Later, I will paint a second Croat unit in blue coats, followed by 2 x 12 dismounted Austrian Hussars.

I have been basing the figures singlely on round bases with the idea that I can photograph them and then re-employ them in small skirmish game scenarios. Units will have two companies of 12 figures plus one overall officer. Thus each player will control no more than 25 figures in the game. A game will likely have three players per side, so that works out to about 75 figures per side.

I've been searching for a good set of period skirmish rules and after playing several published rules sets, they not being to my liking, I remembered that I had my own Croat Terror skirmish rules. I haven't used the CT rules in quite awhile, but after thumbing through them, I decided that these would work just fine and that I could easily make a few modifications for the game that I have in mind for next year's Seven Years War Association convention in March 2020.

Austrian Reinforcements Are On Their Way

Arenberg Regiment (IR21) - Click all pix to enlarge.

The latest additions to my Minden SYW Austrian army are arriving in time to participate in the refight of the Battle of Kolin at the Seven Years War Association convention in South Bend, IN on March 31 and April 1st.

Alex Akers painted the two 30-figure battalions comprising the IR21 Arenberg Regiment in Austrian service. Please click on any picture to enlarge your viewing pleasure and sometimes a double click enlarges the pix even more.

The inhaber of the regiment was Karl Raymond, Duke von Arenberg as of 1754, so it was his regiment throughout the entire SYW. The regiment's garrison was in Slovenia since 1755, but later changed to Koniggratz in 1763. The regiment was recruited from across the Holy Roman Empire. A report in 1755 stated that the regiment suffered from a high desertion rate due to harsh discipline and drunkeness. [from Stephen Summerfield's book, "Austrian Army of the SYW"]. Despite that record, it was apparently considered a good fighting regiment.

The regiment participated in most of the major battles of the SYW in Silesia-Bohemia including Leuthen, Breslau, Hochkirch, Kunersdorf, Torgau and Freiberg. This is a good regiment to have in any SYW Austrian wargaming army.

Front view of the Arenberg Regiment, painted by Alex Akers.

I thought that Alex Akers did an excellent job of painting this unit for me. He uses a cream undercoat color with white highlights that is very effective. My photographs probably do no justice to Alex's talents. The flags are from GMB Designs and the bases are finished in the usual static grass and tufts.

Ground level view of the Arenberg Regiment. I really like these ground level views.

I am also working on adding a regiment of the Baranyai Hussars to my Austrian army. The WIP picture of the first of two 12-figure squadrons is shown below:

1st Squadron of the Baranyai Hussars.

This is probably one of my favorite Austrian regiments of any kind because I like the combination of the green pelisse and dolman with red lace and trim, plus the sky blue breeches, which really stand out. You will notice that the hussar trumpeter wears a tricorn hat instead of a busby and a long uniform coat rather than the pelisse. My very first painted unit of wargame figures was the Baranyai Hussars, using the old RSM figures. That unit has long passed on to another inhaber, but I remember it fondly.

Finally, Alex painted a regiment of Croats or Grenz Infantry Regiment Peterwardeiner. We selected this regiment because I already had one unit with red coats and one unit with dark blue coats. Alex did not want to paint any of the white coated Croats, so we selected the Peterwardeiner regiment. I will probably paint one of the white coated Croat regiments in the future. This makes identifying the units easy in a game: simple call them the Red Grenzers, Blue Grenzers or Brown Greasers and anyone will know what I'm talking about.

I have yet to base the unit, but they do look rather spiffy so I lined them up for a photo shoot for you to see.

Peterwardeiner Grenze Regiment

Close up view of the Peterwardeiner Grenzers, painted by Alex Akers.

Minden Austrian Pictures

Austrian Musketeer Regiment with GMB Designs Flags. (click picture to enlarge)

I have been taking a lot of new pictures of the Minden SYW figure range in order to add pictures to the new Fife & Drum website. I sort of stumbled onto the concept of flipping my iPad camera upside down so that the lens is on the ground level. This leads to a better looking picture in terms of assessing the height of the figures and I can easily crop out any of the foreground turf in order to focus on the figures.

Please visit the new Fife & Drum Miniatures web site at the link below:

Fife & Drum Minis Web Site

Please note that the Fife & Drum website illustrates figures for both the Fife & Drum AWI range as well as the Minden SYW range. I have decided that the term "Fife & Drum Miniatures" will apply to the entire company as a form of product branding, but within that brand, one can find the separate AWI and SYW figure ranges.

Closer view of the Austrian Musketeers - Minden Miniatures

Croats skirmishing. This picture depicts all of the different Croat variants in the range.

A Mass of Croats Ready To Cause Some Trouble

I have grown to really like the Croat figures in the Minden range. Their animation really lends themselves to creating little dioramas on each stand, such as having the kneeling figures crouching down behind rocks and trees.

Converged Austrian (German) and Hungarian Grenadiers. The mounted officer  is the musketeer colonel with a grenadier head swap. I hope to add such a figure to the Minden range eventually, sculptor's time permitting.

Cuirassier Officer, Austrian Officer and a Hungarian Officer.

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More Croats Pix

Minden Croats painted as the Karlstadter Oguliner regiment. Click once or twice for the enlargement of the pix.

I have been working on another regiment of Croats to add to my own Austrian army. This is what happens when one contracts a case of Croat Fever. This will be the second of three regiments that I will have painted recently, one for myself and two painted on commission. (a red and a white coated unit, each).

As usual with all of my light infantry, I base the figures on a 30mm by 60mm base placing only three figures on each stand, so as to give the appearance of men in an irregular looking open order formation. In my rules, when you see a stand like this, then you know that the unit can not operate as a "formed" unit. (which is really bad if the unformed is charged by a formed unit).

I then terrain the heck out of the stands, building little stone walls from pebbles that I find when I walk the royal hounds, or add bits of twigs cut down to size to represent logs or tree stumps. I don't want the muskets to break off from use, so I pose the firing figures at nearly 45 degree angles so that very little of the musket extends beyond the edge of the base. I also like to have some of the muskets resting on tree branches or stumps, or even rocks, which look like boulders at this scale.

Next on the list: a Croat command stand using a Minden Austrian Hussar Officer and a dismounted Croat officer. Both appear to be pointing off in some direction (I don't know what it is that they see). They should make for a nice little vignette.

Since it was Fathers Day, I spent a lot of time with Lady Emma Cuddlestone-Smythe and simply enjoying being a Dad on a day like this. We were going to play catch in the front yard, but then one of Lady Emma's friends came along and wanted to play. Oh well, we can play catch some other time.

Oguliner Croats

Karlstadter Oguliner regiment of Croats. Click once or twice to see them in all of their glory!

Update: I may have found a way of posting the 'adjusted pictures' to this blog. I copied the actual picture in iPhotos and placed it in a folder that already exists on the desktop. This seems to work as you can see from the above picture (adjusted) versus a similar picture, below, that is 'unadjusted' and underexposed. It's a bit clunky to do it this way, but if it works...


While we are at it, here is an adjusted picture of the Josef Esterhazy regiment of Minden Hungarians that I recently completed, save for the basing. Double click please.

Here is a picture of some of the Minden Croats that I have been working on recently. This is the Karlstadter Oguliner regiment, sporting blue coats and waist coats and red breeches. Uniform piping is in yellow and the barrel sash around the waist is red and green. They were part of the Karlstadter border region which included the Liccaner, Ottochaner, Oguliner and Szuliner regiments.

I'm still having problems with the new iPhotos software, but at least this version can be expanded by clicking once or twice on the photo. This version is a little bit underexposed, but when it is enlarged, the details of the Minden figures become clearer.

If I don't find out how to upload my adjusted photos into Blogger, I might have to resort to posting entries without pictures (worst case) or temporarily use the old iMac that we have. At least I can upload the pix from that computer, clunky though it is.

Update in Hesse Seewald

I've been off-line for a couple of days now, as we bought a new Apple iMac for Mrs. Fritz and we had to leave the old computer at the Apple store so that they could migrate all of our files to the new computer. We just picked it up this afternoon and have just set it up a few minutes ago.

At any rate, you are probably wondering what is going on in Hesse Seewald these days, especially since yours truly had a long four day holiday weekend.

Well, for starters, I have been busy painting some Minden SYW Hungarian figures for the Josef Esterhazy Regiment. The first battalion is nearly completed and I hope to have some piccies up within a couple of days. It really pains me to be painting more units for the Austrian army, but in all fairness, I did need to build up the Austrian army. With the completion of this battalion, I will ahve 7 line battalions (of which 2 are converged grenadier battalions) and one battalion of Croats (plus 10 more Oguliner Croats in nifty blue coats). This compares to 8 battalions of Prussians, so the forces are nearly even at this stage.

Next on the docket: more Oguliner Croats for me and 24 Warasdiner Croats (white coats) for a painting commission. Then, it is on to some dismounted Austrian hussars for yet another commission. Somewhere down the road, I will need to paint a regiment (32 figures) of Austrian dragoons for my own army. Hmm, should I use red coats or blue coats? What do you think.

Croat Fever Continues Unabated

Karlstadter Liccaner Croats painted on commission by der Alte Fritz. Minden Croats and Peco scenic backdrop. (click pix to enlarge the view)

It has been a busy week at Schloss Seewald as I've been searching for a cure for my case of Croat Fever. The only prescription is to paint a bunch of the little fellows, but they have to be Minden Croats. I had enough extra Minden Croats in the Closet O' Lead to start work on a unit of Croats that I was painting on commission for someone in the Imaginations universe of the blogosphere. I must say that I was a little bit jealous, as I had wanted to paint these fellows for my own army, but nevertheless, I proceeded to whip them out within a couple of days.

I have also posted some pictures of the other items that I have been painting for the same client and thought that you would enjoy viewing the pictures. Now that the order backlog has been cleared out (pending the arrival of a new shipment of Minden figures for other orders), I plan to work on some Minden figures for my own collection of Austrians. You guessed it: Croats! I'm working on some Oguliner Croats in Blue coats/vest with red trousers. And some Hungarian infantry too. I am starting a long 4 day weekend, so the prospects of increasing the ranks of my Austrian army look very, very good.


Another view of the same unit, from the front.


Some command stands, painted on commission, using RSM mounted officers and Minden drummers and standard bearers. As you can see, the two ranges are very compatible. The customer plans on adding his own "imaginations" flags to the units. Thus, he can flag the unit as an Austrian regiment, or by changing command stands, the unit becomes one of the regiments in his fictional country. Kind of clever, don't you think.


Some RSM grenadiers to fill out the client's battalions. He uses 4 stands of musketeers and 1 stand of grenadiers. The grenadiers can be converged to form a grenadier battalion or they can remain with the parent unit.

I've Got Croat Fever...

A finished unit of Carlstadter Croats - Minden Miniatures




Minden Miniatures Croats get prepared for priming and painting.


... and the only cure is: More Mindens!

I recently received a commission to paint some Minden Croats for one of my regular clients, I and have to say that I am really stoked to get going on this project. The unit will have 16 assorted figures based 4 per stand, in a random manner. Of course, I will embellish the bases with lots of terrain effects (rocks, logs trees, grass etc) to make them look like mini dioramas.

I have enough extra Minden Croats to paint two additional units of 16 figures. One shall be painted in red coats and the other in blue. The price for a unit, fully painted and terrained is $160.00. So if you want to buy one of these units, then send me an e-mail at altefritz1740@yahoo.com. These will go fast, so don't delay.

Last evening I walked the dogs early, while there was still daylight, so that I could hunt for small rocks and pebbles to use for terraining the bases. These will be terrained similar to the Croat unit that I painted for myself. You can find piccies in the blog archives.

Greek Ruins Turn Up In The Oddest Places




I found this little gem at Petco, when I was taking the dogs in for a bath. As usual, I made a point of perusing the offerings in the acquarium section and found this beauty for only $15.00. It would have easily cost twice as much had I bought a similar terrain piece from a wargame supplier of resin buildings. They also had two other Greek ruins available. I plan to use these in my Late Roman period games. Highly recommended, as Hal Thinglum would say!

The "Minden" Austrian Army, So Far...

Regiment Kollowrat - 2 battalions (5 musketier stands and 1 grenadier stand per battalion). Minden Miniatures painted by Der Alte Fritz. Click the pix twice to enlarge the view.

It occured to me that I had not previously posted pictures of the Austrian infantry that I had painted for my Minden Project. Today's pictures will remedy that short sight. In my army organization, the Austrians will have a two-battalion regiment with a stand of grenadiers detached from each battalion. Two regiments will comprise a brigade and have a separate brigadier general command stand, a brigade ammo wagon, two 3-pdr battalion guns and two regimental command figures. The grenadier stands from each battalion will be converged into one battalion of 24 figures, so each regiment donates two stands of grenadiers to the converged grenadier battalion.

Austrian artillery battery (12-pdr on the left and 6-pdr on the right). Note drag ropes attached to the 6-pdr. Guns & limbers from Berliner Zinnfiguren and limber horses and rider from RSM.

The picture above depicts two sections of a four section Austrian artillery battery. Each section will have the artillery piece (from Berliner Zinnfiguren), four Minden artillery crew, two artillery fusiliers converted with paint from the Minden pioneer figures, one supply wagon per section, one limber (4 horses and 1 rider - from RSM). Later, I might add extra artillery figures in marching poses so that when I limber a gun, I can remove the artillerist that are glued onto the artillery stand and just attach the gun model to the limber. Then, while the limber is moving, I can set down a stand of 4 gunners walking behind the limbered cannon model.

Detached grenadiers - two stands per regiment. These will be converged with two stands from another regiment to form a 24-figure unit. I might add a fifth stand of a completely different regiment in order to build the converged grenadier battalion up to 30 figures, same as the musketier battalions.



What is an Austrian army without its Croat light infantry?

Eventually, I will have two brigades of Austrian infantry with each brigade comprised of two regiments, each regiment comprised of two battalions. The converged grenadiers might be brigaded with the Croat light infantry and the artillery battery.

As for the cavalry, so far, I've painted only a dozen Austrian cuirassiers. My plan is to have one cuirassier regiment (32 to 40 figures), one dragoon regiment (same number of figures), perhaps one hussar regiment and maybe one more dragoon or cuirassier regiment to keep an even number of cavalry units in the brigade. I happen to like symmetry. :)

Croats Are Completed

Minden Croats representing the Karlstadter Liccaner regiment. Building by Ian Weekley and tall trees by Herb Gundt. You can see some RSM Croats in the background to the right. click pix to enlarge the view. Double click pix to really, really enlarge the view. 8^)

I finished basing my unit of Minden SYW Croats this evening and set up a few photo shots to post on the blog this evening. I hope that everyone likes them (well, everyone except der Alter Fritz himself, no doubt).


Closer view of the Croats. Take a good look at that "standing firing" pose and standing loading pose. I think that these are two of the best figures ever sculpted. Kudos to Richard Ansell, a most talented sculptor who has designed this range of figures.

I really like the animation and sense of action that sculptor Richard Ansell put into these Croats. These may well be the best figures in the whole Minden range. Croats have a little more detail on them in terms of hussar style lace, put they are a dream to paint and I really whistled through them over the course of several days.

They seem to demand some creative basing, so I obliged by placing rocks and scrub brush tall grass and few logs here and there. Then I positioned the figures so that they appear to be hiding or taking cover behind the little terrain items that I placed on each base.

Another view of the Croats out in the open. I'm sure that they can't wait to find some cover, because you never know when some Prussian cavalry might come bursting on the scene.

I give these figures my highest recommendation because they have it all: realistic and elegant poses, correct anatomical proportions, accurate equipment, a sense of "action" to them, and finally, they are just simply fun to paint and look fantastic when they are completed.

On the Austrian front, I grey primed a regiment of fusiliers in tricorn and hope to get a good start on painting them over the upcoming holiday weekend (July 4th) in the United States. My Austrian regiments will have two battalions of 30 figures, the same as my Prussians, and will also have six figures on five stands measuring 60mm wide by 40mm deep. I will eventually have one each of red facing, dark blue facing, green facing, pink facing and one Hungarian regiment. So that's five regiments or 10 battalions plus one or two Croat battalions and one or two converged grenadier battalions. I will paint the grenadiers as if they were part of the other five line regiments and simply converge them into a couple of battalions.

Croat Terror Has Begun

I completed my first unit of Minden Austrians for the SYW Project -- a battalion of 30 Croats painted as the Carlstadter Liccaner regiment. I based the figures this evening and will let the spackle compound dry over night before applying the brown ink, dry brushing and the static grass that I use to complete the terraining of the bases. I will post a picture of the full regiment, bases completed, on Monday night.

Since the Croats are light infantry, I have based them three figures per stand, instead of the six figures used in a line battalion of figures. The bases measure 30mm deep by 60mm wide. The lesser number of figures per stand allows me room for creating mini-dioramas with the Croats hiding behind rock walls, trees, boulders and tall grass. You can really let your imagination go wild with these figures.

This evening, I also glued 30 Austrian musketeers to cardboard bases in preparation to prime the figures tomorrow night. Thus, July 2010 will be Austrian Painting Month in Hesse Seewald. I have enough Prussians to fill my 12 foot long wargame table, so common sense decrees that it is time for me to switch over to the painting of Austrians. The Croats were the first step.

More tomorrow - it's off to bed for me now.

Those Pesky Croats

Minden SYW Croats "in situ" where they are most likely to be found: in cover.

I started on my Austrian army today by painting six Minden Croats from the Ottokaner Liccaner regiment. I had been painting the Prussian hussars and getting a little bit bleary eyed painting the shabraque Van Dyking, so I thought that I would take a short break and paint one Minden Croat. It was the fellow standing firing and I liked him so much, that I painted the officer with the cane and the kneeling loading fellow as well. That was enough for one stand, but wouldn't two stands look even better? Well, yes - so now I have six Croats in my Austrian army.


A view of the Minden Croats from the rear - click the pix to enlarge the view.


A side view of the Croats so that you can see the fellow behind the tree.


A close up view of the Croats.

I plan to return to the Black Hussars tomorrow, now that I've sort of gotten the Croat bug out of my system. However, I am really looking forward to finishing this battalion with 30 figures.

As for painting, I used a grey primer this time because the uniforms are predominantly red, and red doesn't cover black primer very easily. Once the figures were primed, I slapped on a coat of Reaper Paints "Blood Red" for the uniform color. Then I blocked in all of the equipment with black paint as this makes things like muskets and cross belts stand out better. This takes a little longer than if I had black primed everything, but then I would have needed two or three coats of red to cover the black.

Thankfully, Richard Ansell has strategically covered over most of the frogging and detail on these Croats with careful placement of things like the rolled up cape or the arm position and the musket, etc. Thus you don't have to paint much of the frogging at all. This is terrific! For the little frogging that you do paint, I black lined the areas first and then carefully painted a thin line of Dun Yellow from IWM/Ral Partha to finish off the figure.

All in all, these Croats are very dynamic and animated and are a simple joy to paint. I had always steered clear of painting Croats in the past, thinking that they would be hard to paint. But with these Minden figures, the details are a snap to paint. I give the figures my highest recommendation.

Some Thoughts About Croats

RSM Croats skirmishing out in front of the Austrian battle line, taking advantage of the cover provided by the trees and the village. Terrain boards and figures by Der Alte Fritz. Buildings by Herb Gundt.

There was some recent discussion on the Old School Wargamers Yahoo group about the use of Croats in Seven Years War battles. Did the Croats engage only in kleine krieg style actions, or were they trained to fight as formed infantry during the SYW?

The Croats were a force of light infantry recruited from the border areas of the Habsburg Empire. During the War of the Austrian Succession, they excelled in the small wars and skirmishes and neither the Prussians in the Silesian theatre of operations, nor the combined Franco-Bavarian armies operating in the Danube, had any effective means of countering the wild and aggressive Croat light infantry. As Frederick said to his generals:

"But it is a different question in the woods and mountains. In that kind of terrain the Croats throw themselves to the ground and hide behind rocks and trees. This means that you cannot see where they are firing from, and you have no means of repaying them for the casualties that they inflict on you." [Duffy, "Army of Maria Theresa", pg 82].

The Croats were transformed from roving bands of freebooters, in the manner of the infamous Baron von Trenck, into an organized establishment of regiments under the direction of Prince Joseph Saxe-Hildburghausen: two Warasdiner regiments, four of Carlstadter, and three of Slavonians. At the outbreak of the SYW, the Croats could field 34,000 infantry and 6,000 hussars. Duffy states that altogether 88,000 Croats saw service over the course of the SYW. They played major roles at Prague and Kolin, especially in the latter battle where they served as the tripwire against the Prussian attack. Over 7,000 Croats screened the Austrian columns of attack at Hochkirch in 1758, provided the blocking force at Maxen in 1758 and they were the first to storm into the fortress of Schweidnitz in 1761.

Perhaps the one major problem with respect to the Croats was the tendency of Austrian commanders to disperse them in penny packets throughout the army. This reduced their effectiveness and also made them more vulnerable to Prussian attacks, especially as the Prussian freikorps regiments began to master kleine krieg tactics. Loudon recognized this problem and proposed adding grenadier companies to the Croat regiments. Taking this idea a step further, Loudon proposed the formation of Austrian freikorps regiments to counter the Prussian ascendency in the kleine krieg, thus nearly dispensing with the Croats altogether.

"No general believed he could exist away from the main army unless he had several hundred or upwards of a thousand of the redcloaks scattered about him to see to his safety. Hence we had some of these brave men almost everywhere, but never had them in a united corps." [Cognazzo, per Christopher Duffy]

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My belief is that the Croats were not used as formed infantry on the battlefield, but rather, they stuck with their natural inclination to fight from cover where they had protection from the Prussian formed infantry and cavalry units. Croat infantry can be used in two manners: first, as small parties of raiders causing havoc in the little conflicts and skirmishes that occured frequently along the supply routes and rear areas of the enemy lines; and secondly, on the perifery of the battlefield in areas where they could seek cover.

As evidence of this claim, I would point to their use at Kolin, where they were deployed in a number of small villages in front of the Austrian lines, as well as in the tall cereal grass near the Kaiser-strasse. From these vantage points, the Croats were able to pepper the Prussian march and distract them into losing sight of their battle plan and turning the attack into a frontal assault of the high ground at Kolin. At Lobositz in 1756, the Croats occupy the Lobosch Hill and provide considerable discomfort to the Prussian infantry which had the unenviable task of rooting them out of this difficult terrain. Again at Hochkirch and Maxen in 1758, the Croats operated in the covered wooded areas of the battlefield.

I would direct everyone to take a close look at Christopher Duffy's book Instrument of War (Emperor's Press, 2000), which provides an excellent study of the Austrian army organization and its tactics on the battlefield. Pages 394 to 398 provide some valuable insights into how the Croats fought during the SYW.

"The honour of the army resides in our 60,000 Croats. They never desert. They are sober, obedient, easy to lead, tireless, and as splendid-looking as they are proficient" -- Prince de Ligne,