Colonial German Army in Sudwest Afrika

Military history has always been a fascination with me and especially when it comes to campaigning in faraway places. One such place is German Southwest Africa (today known as Namibia) where the German Colonial Army campaigned against the various local tribes during the early 20th Century from about 1893 through 1914.

The climate of Southwest Africa is arid and warm with most of it being composed of desert. To effectively campaign, the German forces were organized mostly as mounted infantry around 1904, consisting of 9 companies of mounted infantry, along with three artillery batteries, and the 7th Company being mounted on camels.

Below are two pictures of the 7th Company:

Hitting the Trail...

Lately, my wife has been taking up riding again so she's been riding Max and I've been riding anything else I can find in the barn... :-) I've been doing a lot of riding with Thor, a 4-year old Fjord Pony and it's been interesting,to say the least. Thor stands about 14-3 hands and it built like a linebacker so he definitely can support me. Thor tends to move at a leisurely pace, which sometimes annoys Max and he's definitely got mountain goat in him, the way he picks his way through rock areas and handles mountain trails. Thor is pretty steady for a 4-year old and there's very little that seems to bother him (he even rides at night with no issue) although he is a bit herd-bound in not wanting to be separated from Max.

This weekend, on both Saturday and Sunday, my wife and I rode a leisurely loop up to the sheep pens and back, about a 4-mile ride round trip. My wife got in some good saddle time with Max and I was able to get the "Fjord experience" riding. :-) Overall, they're very sturdy and mild-mannered horses (although Thor can be stubborn pony when he wants to be). I only wish that he was a bit more energetic.

It was definitely excellent riding weather- not too hot and it was a welcome relief to what we've been getting in the past few weeks. More later! :-)

KTLA Promo Spot - Part II

A friend of mine finally emailed me some still pictures from the KTLA promo shoot that our group did on September 16. Unfortunately, the actual filmed footage really didn't do justice to us but the pictures help tell a better story. I was portraying a Prussian Death's Head Hussar from the Napoleonic Era- this uniform is more about show than anything else. :-) Enjoy!

Max and I as Hussars...





Warming up Max a bit- all the standing around bored him. :-)

Fritz Bronner and his wife Margie, the founders of the group Warhorse.

Another group display.

6th Cavalry - China - 1900

I've been doing some research in regard to the China Relief Expedition/Boxer Rebellion and in particular, the role of the 6th US Cavalry. Here's a picture from National Archives I came across. This is Company L, 6th US Cavalry at the Ming Tombs, located north of Peking.

Practice Practice Practice...Sometimes

Today, Max and I went to do our usual practice with Warhorse. After the PR event we did yesterday, things were relatively low-key and we primarily worked on some more multiple figure eights, only this time with four sets of two riders. If if was tough before, it was tougher with the extra people and it all comes down to everyone has to pay attention and keep in synch- nobody can get ahead of the others.

Moreover, for the two people on each end of the line, they have to make sure that their outer circles are sufficient enough keep time with everyone else- since they do not have a another rider to deal with when moving in circles to the outside, the tendency is to speed up and this in turn will throw the other riders off. I probably should get a diagram because this no doubt, confusing people.

Basically each pair is making figure eights with each other but the thing is that each of the circles needs to integrate with the paid next to them. Each outside pair has it a little easier because they only have to pass one rider on one of their circles but for reasons mentioned above, they need to avoid the tendency to cut in close and fast when making the outside circles. When doing the circles, everyone passes each other left shoulder-to-left shoulder.

We worked at this for about an hour, each pair changing position in the line and each individual in the pair switching sides- the left rider always leads.

Think of the whole thing as an equine version of Busby Berkley swim follies... :-)

Afterwards, I took a leisurely ride home with Max and that was pretty much it. Not a lot of hard riding but it did force everyone to use their heads. :-)

PR Event for Warhorse & Militaria Heritage Foundation

Today Max and I participated in a PR event put on by a local TV station for the Warhorse and Militaria Heritage Foundation, the equestrian group that I regularly practice with. This was arrange was to promote the group in general and in particular for the Tournament of Roses Parade, which the group will be participating in on New Year's Day.

The basic format was that they would film a series of live segments that would feed into their ongoing news broadcasts. Basically, I was part of the background and Max and I were part of a formation maneuvering in the background. They wanted to start filming around 4:45 am so that required me to get up at 3 am, quickly dress in my uniform, and then head to the stables to saddle up Max. I arrived at 3:30 am and Max gave me the look of "what the hell are you doing here?" and promptly nickered for food. I threw him a flake of alfalfa to keep him occupied while I got everything together. It was difficult because a lot of this was being done in the dark (I was hoping that nobody would mistake me for a horse thief and call the cops :-).

I managed to get Max groomed and tacked up and by 4:15 am we were heading down the wash- it was going to be filmed in a field not too far away from the stables so the ride wasn't very far and most of it was in the wash so I didn't have to deal with streets. Since I was wearing a black Hussar uniform, it would have been bad to have met up with any half-asleep drivers...

I arrived on time and was soon joined by the rest of the group. Initially, they filmed us using very bright lights and combined with the dust we were kicking up, it made for an interesting situation, especially since we were being asked to work withing a confined area due to the cameras.

Max was completely on his game and once he got used to the situation, he completely got into the game and was doing maneuvers with the rest of the group just like it was a typical Saturday practice. We took turns calling out the commands for the maneuvers and the dust didn't make it easy.

We did a pretty good job and things even got better once it began to get light. The weather was nice and cool and by this time, the horses were working together as a group- they actually know a lot of the maneuvers and it doesn't take much to cue them to do what's required. A couple of the other horses were initially a bit nervous but Max seemed to calm them down by his presence and he just did his job. He's really come a long way in the past year. Now if we could only get him to be that way with a crowd and all the energy from a big event... :-)

We finished up about 8:30am and we headed back to the stables. Max got a nice bucket and the rest of the day off. I went home and took a long nap... :-)

Click here for some television footage.

Cooling Off...

This past weekend, Max and I were actually able to get in some nice riding since the temperatures finally dropped to a more moderate 80-something range. :-)

On Saturday, Max and I put in some time drilling with Warhorse. We spend most of our time learning to do a couple of new manuevers that are actually quite complex, even at the walk (we were definitely NOT ready to do them at a trot). Basically, the figure consists of line, dvidied into three pairs (with about 15 feet of space between each pair). The basic idea was for the rider in each pair to execute figure eights with their partners. In practice, it the middle pair have to choreorgraph their moves with the inside riders of each outside pair.

In the process of working out the spacing, several of us managed to cut too close to each other and we wound up banging knees- THAT hurts!

It was an interesting sesson and we'll probably be doing more work on this in the future. Max was definitely cooperative, even when one of the horses didn't want to cooperate and wound up crashing into his haunches- I thought for a moment he was going to kick out but he didn't. He just gave the other horse a dirty look. :-)

On Sunday, we did our usual lesson and we worked more on our flying lead changes. We're both slowly "getting" them although we have a ways to go- sometimes he understands the cues, sometimes not. We also worked on half-passes and those went pretty good although Max tends to trail his hanuches a bit- feels like a fish-tailing car. We'll need to work on that a bit. :-)

Afterwards, since it was still pretty (a pleasant surprise), Max and I did a quick ride around the Hansen Dam Basin- he wsa definitely energenic (more so as we headed home...). It was nice not frying in the sun for a change.