Some more decorations for the wargaming room

Last weekend, there was a militaria fair at Fort Liezele, the best preserved fortress of the forts around Antwerp. I am a volunteer of te organization that keeps Fort Liezele in good condition, and regularly act as guide for visitors. So if you're ever in the neighbourhood, you should think about visiting!

But anyway, collecting militaria is not really my hobby, but I was present anyway to lend some helping hands to the organization.Militaria fairs in this part of Europe are mostly dealing in WW2 artefacts. This is quite natural if you think about it ... lots of stuff from WW2 hasn't desintegrated yet, as opposed to WW1 or earlier conflicts. And there's simply heaps of it to be found. One should not visit such fairs in the hopes of finding an original Waterloo piece of equipment :-)

Nevertheless, I bought 2 items.

The first is a poster that was produced for the Belgian army pre-WW1, and was meant as a memento for conscripts who had served. This poster is for infantry line regiments, and from the drawings one can see the life of the soldiers: leaving the homestead and returning (watch the dog!). There is also room for writing down the names of the officers of the regiment one served in, as well as the dates of some exercises. The middle portion contains some battle honours of various infantry line regiments. Interestingly, some regiments have honours for Waterloo in 1815, while Belgium only gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1830 (according to Belgian lore, for the Dutch it's 1839 :-)).

This poster will be framed, and will be a nice addition to my wargaming room.

A second purchase is a cigarette-pictures album, from Waldorf Astoria (not the hotel, but the cigarette factory, although there is an obvious connection between both). This one is about the "Alten Armee", the German army pre-WW1.

Next year, I might go for an original pickelhaube!

Wehrschach

Last weekend there was a militaria fair/show/gathering in my home village, which took place at Fort Liezele, one of the forts that was built at the start of the 20th century as part of a belt of forts around Antwerp. The fort since long does not have a military function anymore, but is used to host all sorts of events, and is open to the public.

Such a fair is always a curious affair. Traders try to sell all sort of militaria, ranging from rusty old equipment, all sorts of insignia, uniform items, books on military history, to boxes full of what one can only describe as "assorted junk". Being in Belgium, there's an abundance of WW1 and WW2 items, and within the latter category a sometimes unhealthy fascination with all things German, if you get what I'm hinting at.

But such an event is always an opportunity to look for some new decorations for the wargaming room. Preferably nothing too big or bulky. I am definitely not a collector of militaria, but I do have an interest in toy soldiers and the history of wargaming. That's a very niche aspect of militaria (if it even belongs to that category), but you never know what you will find.

So what did I get? An original edition of Wehrschach (German wikipedia link, Boardgamegeek link), a game published in Germany in 1938, and which is basically a chess variant. I have no immediate intention of playing it, but I thought it would be a nice addition for my "history of wargaming" collection. The board is somewhat damaged, but the game is otherwise complete.

Here's my own not-so-good photo, but you'll find other photos through the links above.