Thursday, February 11, 2016

Siege of Plevna on Film

OK not film footage of the original, a movie. I was keeping the hounds company this afternoon and trolling the net on my tablet for things related to wargaming the 3rd qtr of the 19th C  and stumbled on this 1912 Romanian silent film of "The War of Romanian Independence:  (click on the following link.)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Independance_of_Romania.webm

It begins with a village dance then mobilization, the declaration, some preliminary Russo Turkish action and then settles into Plevna and shows the Romanians tipping the balance and ends with a 30th anniversay parade. The acting and cinematography is what you would expect or better for 1912 and someone has kindly translated the captions. There are scads of soldiers in period uniforms who seem to know what they are about, I suspect they were either serving soldiers on loan or else included a lot of veterans and reservists. The film also included shots of field hospitals and at least 1 band, reminding me that those rules need to be ported over fron Hearts of Tin.

If you have any interest in the late 19thC its well  worth an hour and a half. Pity its not in colour!

2 comments:

  1. Interesting history, Ross. Something I'd never heard of before. BTW, your short bio is very, very interesting! From your military service to your menagerie - 10 Greyhounds! You must have quite a spread.

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    1. We often pay little heed to Turkey and the Balkans but not only is there a rich history but events of the last 2 centuries still effect our current world.

      oh and Italian Greyhounds, they are an ancient miniature breed, lapdogs rather than hunting/racing ones. One can easily fit 10 of them
      plus 2 people on a couch, once they've raced around a bit.

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