Epost ENS

Dette er eposter ifra Martin Degiorgio (ENS representant)
Han beskriver ENS' (og vår!) rolle under Leipzig.

(Innleggene her er ordnet kronologisk, men det ferskeste øverst. Det er også noe info ifra andre...)

Dear All,

Most of you are aware that I travelled from Malta to Leipzig for a meeting held yestarday by the organisers of the event. This is the info I managed to bring back and I hope that this is accurate because I was the only non-German speaking person among 20 (almost exclusively German-speaking
persons present).

CAMP
We acheieved what we wanted which is having our own Camp where we can keep our precious authenticity and discipline. We will stay at Markleeberg which in turn is divided into 3 areas:
a) a small area for the 127e and a couple of East German groups (French) with around 80 men
b) a small area for the 9e leger and a few FLG germans with around 80 men
c) a large area (by me split into two) for the ENS Coalition Force where our Allies and the French will camp seperately but next to eachother with around 400 to 450 men

Toilets, drinking water, hay, wood and powder (for all non-Germans) will be provided. We will slighty inflate figures of our own non-German troops in order to get more powder which we can give free to our German comrades.

TOP IMPORTANCE: Please note that the terrain in the camp site is hard and that it will most probably be impossible to hammer wooden pegs into the ground, so you must bring metal pegs with which to secure your tents!!!!!!!!

Very important we will take care of our own camp which wil host 400 to 450 men, we will have our own discipline and we will also do "battalion" size drill on Saturday morning - so we will practically be independent within Markleeberg.

ARMY
All the troops taking part at Leipzig will number around 1200 out of which some 400 to 450 will be provided by the ENS Coalition (which is supported by CENS and SV). As is seems the forces will be split 50/50 between French and Allies.

BATTLE
The most important result in the negotiations came in connection to the battle itself where there is no doubt that we heavily influenced important changes in order to make the battle much more interesting and that we have won the best part of the field for both our French and Allied Forces who
will befacing eachother and will control the left flank of the Allies and the Right and Centre of the French.

Facing our own troops is a very important aspect in the safety considerations because at ENS we have learnt to attain a very high standard in this regard.

The side of the field we will control is the side where there really needs to be a plenty of movement and so it will be the most enjoyable part of the field. For the French part we secured the full control (with the 27e Div and its 220 men) of two thirds of the battlefront, with one third going to the 4e Brigade (127e plus some East Germans). There will be the 5e Brigade which is full of guards and all sorts of inexperienced units will safely remain behind the lines in reserve. There will be the 6th Light Brigade made up by our Saxons and Lancasters' 9eme. Halfway through the battle the Saxons will change sides and cross over to the Allies which means that they will join the Belle Alliance Division commanded by David.

David will infact start with an initial force of around 140 men and including our own Austrians and Russians that will form a Line Brigade and our own Scandinavians who will be joined by the KGL
and some Prussian Jaegers to form a weak Light Brigade. To this force one must add the Saxons which will change sides and join David's Division and also almost certainly another top quality Allied formation of around 50 men on which Ondrej is currently working. So potentially David's Belle Allience
Division willinitially have around 190 men going up to around 240 when joined by the Saxons. With this force, it will be up to David to push back the French right wing and turn the flank and eventually force the Frenchto surrender and for this tough attacking task I think that David is one of the few people on the Allied side that has the skill and experience needed in this action.

On the Allied side, apart from the 2 brigade forming La Belle Alliance Division, there will be a 3rd brigade of Germans (Prussian Line and Landwher) and the 4th brigade of Russians.

The above is provisional information and subject to change. I am in contact with the organisers regarding the military aspect and planning of the battle and if there are changes I will let you know and as soon as I know that everyting is prettyy fixed, I will send you a sketch of the battle with the initial deployment o of the forces with hopefully a list of units per brigade for the whole army (not just the ENS coalition forces) - this will certainly be interesting for general information.

INVITATIONS
These will be sent out further ahead to all units which request them.

POWDER
ENS (in collaboration with FLG) will take care of this and we will be doing the distribution.

FOOD
The closest food stores are located some 3 ro 5 km from the Camp, so it is wise that you either bring your own food or you have a car to go and buy it. The will however be a small canteen selling drinks and hopefully snacks.

INSURANCE
I was told (but I cannot take responsibility on this) that the organisers have an insurance that covers ONLY cases where a person is injured and it is not possible to catch the person that caused the injury or kill, so as usual make sure that you are covered by your own insurance.

RESPONSIBILITY
ENS, any ENS officials and myself are giving you this information and future information on the understanding that we take absolutely no responsibility in case we give you wrong information or in case organisers do not deliver anything from their side and therfore we cannot in any way be held legally or financialy responsible for anything that goes wrong.

I hope that this information is adequate, at least for the moment, but should you need more information, please, do not hesitate to come back to me.

Thank you for your co-operation and a big thanks to all organisations supporting us as well as the independent groups.Together we will for the first time in such a force take part in an eventin that part of Europe and there we will make sure that our experience and excellent military co-ordination will make of ENS, CENS, SV and our Scandinavian friends household names in the region and that our shining
example will be followed by other groups. Democracy at our camps will ensure maximum co-operation by all units and our discipline will help us to work like a real army and make of this event certainly one to remember!!

best regards,

Martin
on behalf of the ENS steering committee for Leipzig

ENS ARMIES – LEIPZIG 2003:

ENS COALITION FORCES – LEIPZIG 2003
Total troops and camp followers – approximately 450 men

FRENCH (27e Division Militaire)

Etat Major: Commandant-en-Chef: Alfred Umhey. Chef d’Etat Major: Michael Jaeger

1er Brigade de ligne (Commandant Ivan Vystrcil)
1er Rgmt de la Garde
Grenadiers de la Garde Moyenne
2e Equip de Marins de la Garde
8e db ligne (Czech)
18e db ligne
5e artillerie a pied
6e artillerie a pied
10 battalion Service Sante (Czech)
(5 artillery pieces)

2e Brigade de ligne (Commandant: to be agreed upon at Leipzig)
Tirailleurs du Po
8e db ligne (Belgian)
19e db ligne
22e db ligne
46e ligne
48e ligne*
51e db ligne
59e db ligne*
111e db ligne*
113e db ligne

6e Brigade leger
1o leggiero d’infanteria*
Churfurstliche Sachsiche IR - Churfurst Obestleutenants-Companie
Churfurstliche Sachsiche IR – Bevilaqua
(2 artillery pieces)
(This light brigade also incorporates the 9e leger* and is a “joint venture” between the ENS, FLG, the 9e and 1o leggiero)

Cavalry (will be attached to other non-ENS units and will camp at the cavalry camp)
4e Hussards / Red Lancers

LA BELLE ALLIANCE DIVISION

Commander: David Banks

Line Brigade
KKIR “Kaunitz-Rietberg” no. 20 Fusilier Coy (Novi-Jicin)
KKIR “Kaunitz-Rietberg” no. 20 Grenadier Coy (Ostrava)
KKIR “Wenzel-Colloredo” no. 56 Grenadier Coy
KK Jager Battalion “Lutz” no 1 / 2 Coy
Narva (Czarist) Infantry Regiment
Artillery Battery “Dimitri Donskoi” (Czarist)
(2 artillery pieces)

Light Brigade
Kungliga Warmlands Faldtjagare (Swedish)
Det Sondenfieldske Frivillige Muskueteer Coprs (Norwegian)
Sondenfieldske Skielober Battalion Elvermunske Compagnie (Norwegian)
Trondhiemske Inf. Reg. – Nordenfieldske Grenadier Compagnie (Norwegian)
King’s German Legion*
Prussian Jaeger Detachment*

Notes:
1. All units marked with an asterisk (*) are not ENS members.
2. The “ENS coalition forces” are mostly ENS troops, but almost all units are also affiliated with their regional associations like CENS and SV and for this reason we thank them for their sincere partnership in this project and also for their continued support without which it would be impossible to put together such large and fine quality French and Allied forces.
3. All above forces except for the KGL and the Prussian Jaegers will be camped at Markleeberg Camp.
4. Apart from the above-mentioned 3 French brigades, there will be also the 4e Brigade also based at Markleeberg and made up of German units, and the 5e brigade (made up of East Germans, Polish and Russians) which will camp at the Doelitz Camp.
5. Apart from the 2 Belle Alliance Brigades, there will be a German and a Russian Brigade that will be based at Doelitz Camp.
6. This list might contain errors, so please advise if you find any!!

(Dette er en litt eldre epost, sikker ennå av interesse...)

Dear All,

Please find attached the list of troops for Leipzig. Strictly speaking (as far as I know) from the over 30 military units taking part only 3 are not ENS members, but have a long tradition of excellent co-operation with us. With 450 to 500 men on the field, I can only call this a great success and a victory for our friendship.

We are trying to make the list of units within our armies bigger by agreeing with other good quality groups to work together in fact here I want to stop speaking about ENS, because what we are trying to establish is a wide alliance of good quality groups whose members are nice people to work with. This means that really and truely we do not care if units are members of ENS or not, becuase it is not formal associations which makes our union a
success but our common standards and friendship.

So forget about politics. Our units will be divided in to:-
La Grande Armee
and La Belle Alliance

At Leipzig we will be fully using the "ENS BattleSystem" which was already successfully implemented at Austerlitz 2002 and Waterloo 2003. This involves 3 simple concepts:-

1. The creation of companies

2. The creation of brigades

3. A proper army style chain of command

COMPANIES
Because it is difficult to control and unrealistic (and looks idiotic) to have units of 6, 10 or 15 men running on a large battlefield such as Leipzig, we want all units under our command to form themselves into "companies" of 30 to 50 men. In line with full democratic principles, we will allow all units to choose their own partners with which to create their company (for the Leipzig event). The officer or NCO to lead such companies will be chosen by the company itself. Exceptions will only be made in special cases.\

BRIGADES
In order to have a realistic army organisation, companies will be formed into "brigades" and each brigade will have 2 to 4 companies. As many of you already know, many ENS units have already been organised in permanent brigades. Units that do not form part of a brigade will be put into some brigade or other with the full consensus of the commanders of that unit. Again, in a democratic manner, the brigade commander will be chosen / approved by the units of the brigade. He will not be a "super-dictator" - his role will be just to co-ordinate the units under his command in battle while all "his" unoits will retain full identity and "his" subordinates' ranks (officers and NCOs) will be fully respected.

CHAIN COMMAND
The chain of command will be clear an simple (something very unusual in re-enactment). On the top there is the commander in chief (one for La Belle Alliance and one for La Grande Armee) who will have staff officers that will act as ADCs, then there will be the brigade commander, the company commander (and if the company is made up by squades - the squade commander). This chain will be clrearly defined and even off the battlefield, when in the bivuac, this chain of command MUST serve to have the most efficient system of conveying orders from the top to the bottom, from the commander in chief to the simple soldier or thr drummer-boy. This way everyone will be aware of whatever goes on and the biggest benefit will be to the poor troops in the line who are frequently mobilised in haste only to end up waiting for two hours before they see any action. Again this system will help (as in Plancenoit) to have an efficient system of guard duties which will work with a very small number of men and at the same time will be fairly distributed to all units. What we want to do is while having a wide amount of democracy, in our camp we want discipline, authenticity and no waste of time, so units who wish can availe themselves of the opportunity to drill at brigade (technically it is "battalion") level with the other units.

Of course our 500 men will not be the only ones at Leipzig - in all we should be around 1200 to 1500 re-enactors. There will be various camps, but as usual our camp / bivouac, will be the place where authenticity will be most stressed upon. We have an open door policy, so if you know about other groups that would be willing to join they are welcome as long as they share our idea of discipline and authenticity and are nice people. I am not yet sure but I believe that sharing the same bivouac, the will also the the 9e leger and the 127e which for us is of course both a pleasure and honour.

It ia important to be elitist, but I would like to stress that we do not want to make other groups not sharing our camp, feel that we do not respect them or that we are snobs. We have our system of re-enctment and they have theirs (that is why we will not be in the same camp) but we are still friends with everyone and we will all have one big battle together!!!

I will be flying to Leipzig for a meeting on the 16th August with the organisers of the event. As the official ENS representative I will be there to work for your interests and will discuss about the event, organisation, time-table, our camp, and the battle, so please if you have an questions, suggestions or whatever, please send me an e-mail and I promise to do my
best, but do not expect too much from the material point of view becasue funds are very, very, very limited!!! Of course upon my return I will give you full details of what has been arranged.

PLease find attached the recently ammended list of units until now attending Leipzig. If you have any corrections, please let me know.

On behalf of the ENS Council and the small ENS team taking care of the co-ordiantion for Leipzig (Alfred Umhey, Michael Jaeger, Ondrej Tupy and Uwe Meyer), I take this opportunity to thank you all for having channelled your participation through ENS and as in the past for having shown us so much support and co-operation. From our side we promise that we will do our very best to make Leipzig 2003 one of the best events ever!!!

best regards to all,

Martin Degiorgio
ENS Council Member

Thank you for your feedback.

1. The attachment I included in my original e-mail CLEARLY states which
units are ENS, so please refer to that. Having said that, there is a
possibility that my list is not 100% accurate and that is why I asked people
to correct it. Quite frankly I do not care who is in ENS and who is not
because I believe that it is freindship and respect what keep you together
and not membership in one association or the other.

2. Regarding your request to give you an exact breakdown of figures per
unit, I think that its would be unethical (on my part) to give you
confidential information about our units, but if the said units wish to give
you the information about their own units, then they are free to do so and
communicate their figures directly to you - I have nothing contrary to this.
Of course I will give the excat information of numbers of men, firearms,
cannon, tents etc to the organisers in due course. Regarding your
calculations I can only say that you are completely off the mark, and that
it will only take two months to prove that our calculations are correct as
it will be very easy for you to count the people for yourself while at
Leipzig. Having said that, I will add that we are not in a competition for
numbers with anyone so whether we will be 200, 300, 400, 500 or 1000 - this
is totally unimportant. What is important is that we are serious people, our
units are well organised and that when we go there we will have great fun
and as at Waterloo 2003, settle all the political issues BEFORE the event in
order to give all our men a relaxing and trouble-free event.

3. The Brigade commanders depend on the brigades themselves. For example,
the 2nd French Brigade has chosen to have its own permanent commander and
this will be Ivan Vystrcil. Same thing for the (Austro-Russian) Allied
Brigade where there is a permanent commander who is Libor Fojtu. For
example, in the case of the 3rd French Brigade, the units that form it have
chosen not to have a permanent commander and so it was agreed that at each
event a commander will be chosen for the particular event. So in short, each
brigade is formed by the units that want to be part of it and it is they who
have to agree on how to choose their commander - the commander-in-chief can
only propose a name, but only the units within the brigade will have the
last word about who will lead them - this is democracy at its fullest :-))

4. The commander-in-chief (C-in-C) of the Grand Armee is Stefan Roda, but
Stefan is taking some time off from the hobby and I believe because of other
committments, he will not be able to make it for Leipzig, in which case
Alfred Umhey will the the C-in-C and Michael Jaeger the chief of staff.
David Banks is the C-in-C of the Belle Alliance but is not yet sure if he
can make it for the event although chances are very good that he will make
it. David has made it clear that he will only accept the command if there is
an overwhelming support for this. As far as I know there is wide support for
this, but I am not very much up-to-date with the Allied affairs.

5. Regarding the ENS camp, I was made aware that there was going to be a
camp just for ENS troops, but this is not yet very clear as there could have
been a misunderstanding which I will clarify on Saturday. In any case ENS
has absolutely nothing against sharing the camp with any other groups whose
standards are similar to ourss. What we do not want is that we put in a lot
of effort to be as authentic as possible and then we find people running
around us (at the camp) in t-shirts, drinking beer out of beer-cans and
smoking cigarettes in public and not giving a damn about discipline. We have
no such groups in ENS and we do not want to have them in our camp although
we fully respect their choice of how to carry out their hobby and regard
them as friends and comrades.

A few days ago our President David Banks, made it clear that many exciting
changes are going on ENS and that through the election of its Council, ENS
will become more democratic than ever. This trend will be clearly seen at
Leipzig at practically every level. Of course it is clear that democracy is
not anarchy and that we have all the intention of maintaining the same level
of discipline we had in the past.
The "ENS Balltesystem" is another example of this these new exciting
changes. We would like to see all units and all associations in Europe
adapting this system of brigades and organised chain of command. We do not
want to have an "exclusivity" to the Brigades!!! Any number of units can
agree together to create their own brigade and select their leadership as
long as they can muster a decent amount of men to make this viable and
"realistic" - a good example of this is the ENS / CENS 2e Brigade who have
done an excellent job and are in fact giving us all an example!

The Brigadesystem will realy be successful if "exported" and by persuasion
we would like to see all other associations adopting this. For example, the
9e leger can pool up with the other French groups in the UK and together you
could form your own TOTALLY independent brigade. Politics in this hobby are
our biggest enemy and if the Brigadesystem will function properly, the
function of associations will greatly diminish - perhaps in a few years'
time there will no longer be the need for associations as their role will be
taken over by a dozen or so brigades that will exist throughout Europe. Of
course this is just a dream, but unless you dream and work hard, you never
achieve anything in life!

I hope that this has answered your questions and do come back if you need
more information.

Best regards,
Martin

ENS ARMIES – LEIPZIG 2003

Total troops and camp followers – approximately 500

LA GRAND ARMEE:

Etat Major (International)

FRENCH (27e Division Militaire)
1er Rgmt de la Garde (Czech)
Grenadiers de la Garde Moyenne (Czech)
2e Equip de Marins de la Garde (Czech)
Tirailleurs du Po (Italian)
8e db ligne (Belgian)
8e db ligne (Czech)
18e db ligne (Czech)
19e db ligne (Maltese)
22e db ligne (German)
51e db ligne (Italian)
59e db ligbe (Italian)*
111e db ligne (Italian)*
113e db ligne (Italian)
5e artillerie a pied (Czech)
6e artillerie a pied (Czech)
4e Hussards (French)
10 battalion Service Sante (Czech)

ITALIAN
1o leggiero d’infanteria – (Italian)*

SAXON
Churfurstliche Sachsiche Inf - Brigade 1806 (German)
Churfurstliche Sachsiche IR - Churfurst Obestleutenants-Companie (German)
Churfurstliche Sachsiche IR – Bevilaqua (German)

LA BELLE ALLIANCE:

General Staff (International)

AUSTRIAN
KKIR “Kaunitz-Rietberg” no. 20 Fusilier Coy (Novi-Jicin) (Czech)
KKIR “Kaunitz-Rietberg” no. 20 Grenadier Coy (Ostrava) (Czech)
KKIR “Wenzel-Colloredo” no. 56 Grenadier Coy (Austrian)
KK Jager Battalion “Lutz” no 1 / 2 Coy (Czech)

RUSSIAN
Narva Infantry Regiment (Czech)
Artillery Battery “Dimitri Donskoi” (Czech)

PRUSSIAN
IR “Prinz Ludwig Ferdinand” No. 20 (German)

SCANDINAVIAN
Kungliga Warmlands Faldtjagare (Swedish)
Det Sondenfieldske Frivillige Muskueteer Coprs (Norwegian)
Sondenfieldske Skielober Battalion Elvermunske Compagnie (Norwegian)
Trondhiemske Inf. Reg. – Nordenfieldske Grenadier Compagnie (Norwegian)

* the 3 units marked with an asterisk are not official members of ENS – the rest according to my knowledge are ENS units (but I stand to be corrected, so please let me know). Apart from ENS, other associations (especially CENS & SV) are giving their logistic and “political” support and for this we thank them.

<< Do we get black powder for the muskets when we arrive, or do we need to
arrange for it ourself?
>>
Dear Erik,
unfortunately this is part of the organisation on which we have no direct
influence. In principle it is planned to provide blackpowder for foreign
participants, but from my experience of similar promises in past years, it is better
if you make your own arrangement. If then, by luck and proper organisation,
powder is available on the spot, it will certainly be no problem to use it. In
the worst case it could be shared with some less fortunate comrades (which will
be plenty of, believe me...:-))

Anyway, good to have you with us.If I have more news after the next
organisers meeting on 16 august, I will let you know.

have a good time
best regards
Alfred Umhey

Dette er en mail til meg fra en kopis i Praha (som skal være med...) Han skaffer oss krutt hvis vi vil.