Monday 14 October 2019

Oh, the Ruritanity...!


I'm re-reading Rupert of Hentzau (RoH) and making notes on things that seem appropriate.

On the general topic of uniforms in Ruritania, there are a few references, but with little detail. In Prisoner of Zenda (PoZ), we know that Rudolf Rassendyll wore the white uniform of the regiment of Cuirassiers, and that Fritz was similarly attired later. This is about the only direct information we have as to uniforms in PoZ (except to the odd reference to individual items of clothing such as caps or jackets, without giving further detail). I have written a little on the subject of Ruritanian uniforms before, most recently in talking about Cuirassiers here a few months ago.

Slightly later painting of Nicholas II of Russia in Cuirassier uniform -
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuirassier#/media/File:Nicholas_II_of_Russia_in_the_uniform_of_His_Majesty's_Cuirassier_Guards_Regiment_1896.jpg

Painting of French Cuirassiers, 1887, approximately contemporary with events of PoZ and RoH as I reconstruct the timeline - source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuirassier#/media/File:6e_r%C3%A9giment_de_cuirassiers_1887.jpg
The first reference to uniforms in RoH is that, when Colonel Sapt, as Constable of Zenda, turns out the company of Guards garrisoned at the castle (p.79), they are described as having "gay uniforms" that might make the women employed at the castle forget about their menfolk (p.83). Hope could have called the uniforms 'sober' or 'sombre' or 'dull', 'dashing', or any number of other adjectives. I'd contend that by "gay", he was trying to suggest bright, colourful, showy and maybe a bit frivolous. They aren't I think 'serious' uniforms. There is no other detail, but it does rather speak to my contention that uniforms in Ruritania should be chocolate-boxey, colourful rather than particularly practical.

It is not clear whether they are foot guards or horse guards. I don't have any miniatures for Ruritanian Guards (foot or mounted). I should possibly get some, at some point. If and when I do, I shall try to remember that their uniforms need to be 'gay'. What I think at the moment is that if they are indeed foot guards, they will not be in yellow (this will be the standard colour for Line Infantry), purple (which I intend to use for Artillery), pale blue (the tunic-colour for my Hussars), dark green (which I will probably end up using for a Jaeger regiment) or white (Cuirassiers). Perhaps pale green jackets (the one colour I definitely want to stay away from is red, because red tunics look British to me, even if they people in them are Danes... who also wore red tunics). What kind of miniatures I will purchase, I don't know, but Northstar (who have some great choices for minis of 1850-1900) do Danish Life Guards ('Livgarde' - infantry here and command figures here) that might serve. They wear bearskins (like British Guards, but with prominent crown badges) and greatcoats. They might make excellent Ruritanian Royal Guards. However, other Guards units are available - Ironclad's Grenadier Guards are pretty fine (infantry here and command figures here) and, if painted in some very different colours, might not look so British.

The second reference, that occurs twice, is to the uniforms of the huntsmen of Zenda. "One of them, the King's chief huntsman, Simon, gorgeous in his uniform of green and gold..." (p.99) delivers a message from the King to Sapt and the Queen. The context, and the fact that Hope does not capitalise 'huntsmen', unlike the 'Guard' at Zenda, is because they are as they seem - liveried servants, actual huntsmen, not for example Jägers. Later (p.216), Simon is again described, with a companion, as wearing "... the green and gold of the King's huntsmen". So we can conclude that this was a 'uniform' in the strict sense of a livery worn by all the huntsmen, rather than being a specific set of official clothing for Simon, as 'chief' huntsman. Again, though green is a perfectly practical colour for huntsmen, gold is not, so it may be suspected that the huntsmen were also decked out in slightly showy dress uniforms.

Though I've just said that these are real huntsmen and not part of a regiment of Jaegers, there's no reason not to posit a unit of 'Jägers of Zenda' or even 'King's Jägers', with a uniform of (probably dark) green, perhaps with gold frogging (or as it's called in German, ,,Husarentressen'', Hussar-bindings, a very Ruritanian word I feel). From the very beginning of the project to build some Ruritanian units, I have intended to have Jägers. They're a quintessentially ,,Mitteleuropa'' unit I think. However, I'm not going to find heavily-frogged Jäger miniatures, Austrian or Prussian, from either Northstar or Ironclad, as by the latter half of the 19th century frogging was not so much in evidence. For my purposes, I think I'll go with Prussian Jägers, though the Austrian ones do have natty hats (here). The 'gold' will then have to be accessories I think - cap-badges and the like (the Prussian Jägers wear shakos - some Ironclad here and some Northstar here). It's likely that I'll be able to find more VSF choice with the Prussian Jägers. I know for sure that Northstar do some zombie Jäger models (here) and generally I think the chances are higher with Prussians of being able to pick up VSF equivalents.

Later, we learn some details of the uniform of Bernenstein. On the steps of the royal palace, he waves his "helmet" (p.264) while whipping a crowd into a chant of "God save the King!", and later that night comes a reference to his "heavy cavalry sword that belonged to his uniform of Cuirassiers of the Guard" (p. 297). This unit, I think we can assume, is the same as the Cuirassier unit whose white uniform Rudolf and Fritz wore in PoZ, and which is later referred to as being worn by Rudolf - "the white uniform in which he had been crowned" (p. 303). If the identification of the two Cuirassier units is accepted, then we know that they are a white-uniformed unit of horse guards.

I'm therefore sure that Rudolf, Fritz and Bernenstein are all at various times dressed in the white uniforms of 'Cuirassiers of the Guard', and I will definitely get some of those at some point, possibly from Northstar but I would definitely prefer my cuirassiers to wear a breastplate (as it's my understanding that this what makes them cuirassiers).

The only other mention of uniforms I can find in RoH concerns the police in Strelsau. Here, Rudolf notes, on encountering a mounted policeman, that "...the star on his collar and the lace on his cuff..."  marked him out as a sergeant (p. 159). It is not at all certain that these rank badges apply to anything other than the mounted police in Strelsau; Rudolf may know them from his previous visit when he spent some months there. But it is more likely that these badges pertain to all police (foot and mounted) for the whole country, and it may be that these rank markers apply to the army too, so a sergeant is perhaps marked out by (for example) three bands of braid or cord on his cuff and a star on his collar, or some such. This needs further consideration I think.

Anyway, the list of current and projected (ie, ones I have minis for and ones I want to buy minis for!) units for my Ruritanian army is:

Line Infantry - Northstar and Ironclad Prussian infantry, Westwind Zendarians: Yellow tunics, black trousers; ensign: gold eagle on black.
Hussars - Northstar Prussian Hussars (these I think should perhaps be 'Queen Flavia's Own'): Pale blue tunics, maybe blue trousers: ensign: red rose on gold.
Artillery - Northstar Prussian Artillery: Purple tunics, black trousers. I haven't decided on an ensign yet, possibly a crown (they may be 'royal' artillery), possibly gold on black, but I shall check the crew to make sure they don't have any badges (thinking about it, they may have eagles, in which case I shall have to make them some other colour than gold eagle on black, maybe black eagle on white).
Cuirassiers of the Guard - haven't decided which models yet, I really want breastplates. White tunics and trousers; ensign: as yet undecided.
Foot Guard - probably Grenadier Guard models, maybe from Ironclad. No decision on the tunic-colour yet but possibly pale green, as I'm running out of options; they may have a castle on their ensign as they could possibly be actual 'Zendarian' guard (as opposed to Strelsau or Modenstein or Hentzau or any other location, or the 'King's Guard' or anything else).
Jägers - probably Ironclad and Northstar Prussian Jäger models: dark green tunics with gold trim (possibly, yellow trousers); ensign: will depend on whether they have eagle badges, if so gold eagle on dark green looks about right.

The units I don't have are the ones based on things from the books. The units I do have are based on nothing. This is not really how this should work! The actual 'historically-attested' units will probably have to wait until I sort out the existing line infantry, Hussars and artillery I already have in my lead mountain. Only then will I get on to the units that we can be fairly sure (perhaps not the Jägers to be fair) actually existed in the Ruritania of Rudolf and his companions.

Tuesday 8 October 2019

Return to Zenda (again...)


Sadly I have to report a crime - against history no less. A chunk of the Wikipedia entry on Ruritania has been removed. I shall of course argue for it to be re-instated, as soon as I can remember what my Wikipedia log-in details are.

The section removed is as follows:

Hope depicts Ruritania as a German-speaking, Roman Catholic country under an absolute monarchy, with deep social, but not ethnic, divisions reflected in the conflicts of the first novel.

Geographically, it is usually considered to be located between Saxony and Bohemia; the author indicates that the capital city, Strelsau, is reached by railway from Dresden. The distance and direction are not clearly stated, but to reach Strelsau from Paris the hero must pass through Dresden then cross the border and travel some 60 miles to the capital. It is probable that Hope had Prague in mind for Strelsau, described in the novel as second only to Paris in terms of desirability for an ambassadorship. In The Heart of Princess Osra, set in the 18th century, Hope refers to a palace "which stood...where the public gardens now are (for the Palace itself was sacked and burnt by the people in the rising of 1848)". In this novel, it emerges in passing that Jews were not then allowed to hold an interest in land in the capital.

Other, more recent authors have created homages set in Ruritania, such as Simon Hawke's science fiction re-working The Zenda Vendetta (Time Wars Book 4) (1985), John Spurling's After Zenda (1995) and John Haythorne's The Strelsau Dimension (1981).

Neither Hawke nor Spurling adheres to the Hope canon; their works show influences from the film adaptations. Hawke relocates Ruritania to the Balkans, and makes it smaller and more socially cohesive; Spurling, who places the country in the Carpathians, thus hinting at its being in fact the former Habsburg province of Transylvania—today part of Romania—introduces ethnic and linguistic divisions; Haythorne puts Ruritania on the Northern side of Czechoslovakia to Spurling's setting, in approximately the same location as Hope's original.

Hope's novels resulted in "Ruritania" becoming a generic term for any small, imaginary, Victorian or Edwardian Era, European kingdom used as the setting for romance, intrigue and the plots of adventure novels. It lent its name to a whole genre of writing, the Ruritanian romance, including the Graustark novels by George Barr McCutcheon. An early reference in a non-canonical story is the mention in "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client", a Sherlock Holmes short story from 1924, of an ocean liner named the Ruritania. In Evelyn Waugh's 1930 comedic novel Vile Bodies, one character is a deposed and maudlin "ex-King of Ruritania"; he is presumably the same figure who appears in several witty P. G. Wodehouse stories, mostly as the doorman of Barribault's Hotel.

Later authors develop the idea further. Ruritania inspired other fictional countries, such as Ixania in Eric Ambler's The Dark Frontier, Riechtenburg in Dornford Yates' Blood Royal and Fire Below, and Evallonia in John Buchan's Castle Gay and The House of the Four Winds, which share with the original the depiction of complex power struggles in which a visiting protagonist from a real country becomes deeply involved.

In 1970 Neiman-Marcus selected Ruritania as the subject of its annual fortnight, in which the arts, culture, and goods of a country are highlighted both in the store and through special events. Previous subjects included real countries including England, France, Italy and Denmark.

In the 1974 novel Royal Flash by George MacDonald Fraser, Ruritania is claimed to be a fictional country based on the (equally fictional) Duchy of Strackenz that borders Germany and Denmark, and the events of The Prisoner of Zenda were simply imitations of the adventures of Harry Flashman whilst in Strackenz.

In Uncanny X-Men #204 (April 1986), Nightcrawler rescued a New York businesswoman, Judith Rassendyll, from the X-Men's enemy Arcade; she subsequently learned that she was the hereditary queen of Ruritania and relocated there to claim her crown.

In 2006, Ignacio Padilla published La Gruta del Toscano (ISBN 84-204-7072-4), a novel in which Ruritanians discover a cavern in the Himalayas, somewhere on the border between China and Nepal. The cavern seems to be an earthly replica of Dante's inferno, and several expeditions try to reach its ninth circle, including one directed by "La cofradía de Zenda", a group of Ruritanian mountaineers. Part of the action is set in Strelsau, capital of Ruritania.

Ruritania is featured in the animated series Count Duckula, in which it is depicted as a popular ski resort, with competitions in winter sports held in the Ruritanian town of Danglegoggle.

Ruritania is mentioned in "The New Traveller's Almanac". In Back in the USSA, Princess Flavia of Ruritania marries into an alternate history Romanov dynasty.

Saturday 21 September 2019

A rare Rurtanian find

Nearly 10 years into my Ruritanian research, I have discovered a map!

I found it in a scan of the first two chapters of a French edition of 'Rupert of Hentzau', but the annotations are all in English. It seems that the map was produced for use in one of the English editions but was then used for the French edition.

There is a small amount of information available, along with some illustrations from the various books, at the Ruritanian Resistance website. I visited this several times many years ago (it's one of the sites in the Links section in the bottom left) but I've never come across the map before. However, it is there (a colourised version). Perhaps it has been added fairly recently, or maybe I just never noticed it.

According to the info from the Ruritanian Resistance, it seems to be a map from 1923, prepared for the Grosset & Dunlap edition of 'Prisoner...'.  I haven't been able to find out anything about Howard Ince yet, nor have I been able to decipher whatever is written under the signature.
Illustration by Howard Ince, possibly 1923
The text is not so easy to read, so I have transcribed it:

Reference to Plan

I The Old Castle
II The Keep
III The Chateau
A The Moat
B The Drawbridge
C Gateway where de Gautet was Killed
D Stair to the King’s Cell
E Guard-room
F The King’s Cell
G Jacob’s Ladder
H Hall of the Chateau
K Door which Johann was to open
L Black Michael’s Apartment
M Apartment of M. de Maubin
N Window from which Hentzau leaped into the Moat
O Tree to which the rope was made fast
P Road to Tarlenheim
Q The Avenue


The map is the first I have come across for the Castle of Zenda, and doesn't make me feel so bad about my own attempts to map it. These are my sketches of the castle. I have left the drawings pretty much as is but changed my captions. I think my representations of trees are clear enough, but there is no way I would make anyone try to read my handwriting.

Preliminary sketch

Second more detailed sketch: The boxed area around the tree (on the 'southern' bank) required moving to the west, as being on the opposite side to the drawbridge

Upper and lower floors of the 'King's Cell' area, The door closest to the drawbridge in the first sketch is the same door as is shown in the second. Originally these were positioned to the south side but I realised that they needed to be on the right-hand side when looking from the new to the old portions of the castle.

Inset of chateau in second sketch
Apart from the fact that I have assumed that the avenue approaches the castle from the east (it is described as looping around the hill but no starting point is given), my sketches I think show the basics: there is an island in the moat, the castle is in three parts, there is an broad avenue and so on.

Composite sketch, mostly rotated through
90 degrees, annotated using Ince's key.

One thing I notice that I did do from the first to the second sketch of the whole castle was change the relationship of the 'Keep' and the 'Ruins/Another Portion'. This is probably an error, and in the second sketch the area marked 'Keep' is probably the 'Ruins' from the first. However, this part cannot be too ruined as the guardroom is above the King's Cell, and so on.

I have tried to rationalise all of the sketches into a single plan, and because I can, I've annotated it using Ince's key. The only thing that he has included that I do not is the window from which Rupert jumped in the moat. My 'Black Micheal's Apartments' and 'Mme. de Maubin's Apartments', however, are not shown on the ground-plan as they are on the first floor, which is why I've marked their locations (thus).

I shall of course, from now on, use Ince's map. Mine were only intended to help me visualise the place.

Wednesday 18 September 2019

Researching the fictional far-right in 1930s Britain...

This is my 100th post on this blog. Hurrah.

Now, I really don't want this blog to just be about fascist groups, but people write about them more than communists.

One thing I have been doing is watching 'Endeavour', the prequel series to 'Inspector Morse' and 'Lewis'. These I have found fascinating.

In an episode I saw earlier this year concerned, in part, an aristocratic family who had been Fascist sympathisers in the '30s, and included one of the police officers telling another character that her husband

'...should have hanged with Spode, Webley and the rest of them'.

As well as our old friend Roderick Spode, 'Webley' is surely a reference to Everard Webley, leader of the Brotherhood of British Freemen, a proto-fascist group from 'Point-Counterpoint' by Aldous Huxley (as mentioned in a post from 18 months ago, which co-incidentally also mentions this very episode of Endeavour). The aristocratic family (part of it at least, the family relationships are complicated) was called 'Creighton-Ward' - the name of Lady Penelope from the Thunderbirds, though the lady in question's title is 'Lady Bayswater'. I shall have to watch the episode again to find the name of her husband, and whether he died recently or some time ago. Anyway, I shall refer to him as 'Lord Bayswater' until I find out any different.

The murder that sparks the police investigation had been committed at an Army base - that of the fictional South Oxfordshire (Light Infantry?) Regiment. While at the regimental HQ, Morse is involved in a conversation about regimental history when mention is made of '...the boy who saved the Colours at M'boto Gorge'. As every fan of Blackadder knows, the engagement at M'boto Gorge was fought c.1892, probably in West Africa, and included (as well as the South Oxfordshire Regiment featured in the episode) the 19/45th East African Rifles, which is Edmund Blackadder's former regiment, along with General Haig (who was presumably at that point a Lieutenant or Captain). There is reference in Blackadder to an attack with 'a particularly vicious piece of mango'. Haig at this point was a cavalry officer, which implies that along with regular and colonial infantry, some cavalry was also present.

This is one of the most astonishing things about 'Endeavour' - the depth and background that go into the writing and world-creation are the equal of anything we do as world-creators.

Anyway, this got me thinking about Mosley analogues, so I went to the Oswald Mosley wiki-page to see if I could find more.

From the wiki entry on Mosley (which also lists both Spode and Webley as fictional characters inspired by Mosley, though as Point-Counterpoint was published in 1928, before Mosley turned to Fascism, it is not in fact likely that he was the model for Webley):

"... In H. G. Wells's 1939 novel The Holy Terror, a Mosley-like character called Lord Horatio Bohun is the leader of an organisation called the Popular Socialist Party. The character is principally motivated by vanity and is removed from leadership and sent packing to Argentina...

In the 1993 The Remains of the Day film the character of Sir Geoffrey Wren is based loosely on that of Sir Oswald Mosley..."

So there seem to be three other fascist leaders of the 1920s-'30s. More names to flesh out the list of 'Spode, Webley and the rest of them'?

'Lord Horatio Bohun' has little information about him. 'The Holy Terror' follows the life of one Rud Whitlow, and seems to go from Wells' recent past (presumably around 1910) to the near future (perhaps around 1955). Bohun at any rate is the founder and leader of the Popular Socialist Party: he is successfully challenged for control of the party by Whitlow and his associates in 'The Group', who are the main characters of the novel. Presumably, this is around 1940. The post-1938 portions of the novel may then be regarded as merely plans or musings on the possibility of taking over the world, and perhaps Bohun is not sent to Argentina at all...

I can only find reference to 'Sir Geoffrey Wren' listed in the information on the film version of 'The Remains of the Day', rather than the book itself. All I know is that he attended at least one of Lord Darlington's parties and praised Nazi Germany's Racial Purity Laws, leading to the dismissal of two women from Lord Darlington's employ - they were German-Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. So, presumably some time after the Nazis began implementing the Racial Purity Laws, which were really put into effect from the Summer of 1936 onwards. Wren was also a vegetarian. However, Lord Darlington himself is also somewhat sympathetic to the Nazis (in both book and film - the incident of the dismissal of the German-Jewish women occurs in both). Like the husband of Lady Bayswater, Lord Darlington survives the war; 'The Remains of the Day' is a kind of memoir of Lord Darlington's butler from the viewpoint of the late 1950s, after Lord Darlington's recent death.

So these two references, combined with the information from 'Endeavour', allow a certain amount of speculation as to the fates of various Fascist leaders of the '20s and '30s.

Roderick Spode - The Saviours of Britain (The Blackshorts) - hanged c. 1943
Everard Welby - The Brotherhood of British Freemen (The Greenshirts) - hanged c. 1943
Lord Horatio Bohun - Popular Socialist Party - hanged c. 1943? Or exiled to Argentina c. 1939?
Rud Whitlow - Popular Socialist Party, 'The Group' - fate unknown, possibly hanged c. 1943?
Sir Geoffrey Wren - organisation unknown - hanged c. 1943?
Lord Darlington - organisation unknown - died c. 1955.
Lord Bayswater - organisation unknown - died before 1967.

These snippets then can be the framework on which the 'British League of Fascists' can take shape. If the Greenshirts, the Blackshorts and the Popular Socialist Party came together around 1936 (perhaps it is Bohun's refusal to do this that leads to some younger and more ideologically-committed members of his party, organised as 'The Group', to oust him from the leadership) then this could indeed be the 'British League of Fascists'.



Sunday 19 May 2019

Jolly updates...

On the VSF front: I have recently taken delivery of a large quantity of Prussians Ruritanians from Northstar - a pack of 24 Infantry, two cannon with crew, and 10 Hussars. These (along with the dozen or so Ruritanians, composed of Zendarian Troopers from Westwind, and some officers from various places, that I already posses) will form the basis of my long-delayed Ruritanian forces.

I have made a provisional decision on colour-schemes. A long time ago, I discussed on Lead Adventure the notion that Ruritania should look 'chocolate box-y'. As such, using Prussian minis from 25 years before the general setting will not be out of place. Also, for 'colourful medley' effect, each regiment will have its own tunic-colour. The now traditional 'Ruritanian Gold' jackets (which in themselves are a reference to Colonel Mustard, rather than anything in the Zenda books) will remain the uniform of the Ruritanian Infantry. Artillery will be dressed in purple tunics, I think. That will I believe look 'well natty'. The Hussars I'm thinking will be uniformed in pale blue; I'm not sure about their hats yet. Future additions to the force may include Uhlans or Cuirassiers, or both, if they aren't the same thing, I'm really not too knowledgeable about this stuff. Rudolf Rassendyl is definitely described in Zenda as wearing a white Cuirassier uniform, perhaps something like this rather natty illustration:

Image source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Anton_von_Werner_-_Garde-du-Corps-K%C3%BCrassier.jpg
This implies that Prussia at least had some! So maybe I just need to look harder for the minis. Should I source any, they will be dressed in white (a damn tricky colour to paint effectively, I'll agree). If I can't, then the Uhlans will have to stand in, though Northstar's Uhlans don't have breastplates, which is rather what defines 'Cuirassiers' as far as I'm concerned. Also in the pipeline, some Jaegers, as Commodore Lethbridge-Stewart (the mini is another Westwind Zendarian, one of the Vampire Slayers) has a lovely dark green jacket, and can lead them when they have been purchased. However, I spent my Christmas-and-birthday money on the latest batch, and can't really justify getting more toy soldiers at the moment.

In other news, I'm finally reading Vile Bodies and have a little more information on the 'ex-King of Ruritania' featured in its pages. Vile Bodies is set around 1928. The ex-King is a godson of the Archduke of Austria (he does not say which), was a reigning monarch, and refers to the end of the monarchy being occasioned by WWI. This means he is likely to have been an adult before 1918, so at absolute minimum he was born before the turn of the century. He has a wife, called Maria Christina, currently in a lunatic asylum somewhere in southern England; his Uncle Joseph was assassinated at the opera, by people throwing bombs (likely, Anarchists); his unnamed sister also foiled at least one assassination attempt on herself involving bombs; there was indeed a plague of political bombing in Ruritania before the War; there was a Liberal minister in Ruritania called 'Count Tampen' who stole the King's favourite pen (a gift from his godfather); and the Prime Minister at the end of the war (it is not stated whether this is Count Tampen or not) was thrown from a window by an angry, indeed rebellious, mob. That is as far as I can get at the moment, but it does provide some clues to the post-Rudolfian history of Ruritania which I am trying to tie together with the other info.

What I would like to be the case is that I can make the chronology fit with the ex-King being the eldest son of Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and Princess Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen of Scandinavia. This would tie the events of Zenda with those of Scandal in Bohemia... except, Wilhelm in this case is not King of Bohemia or even King of Ruritania... because Flavia is the reigning monarch. He may actually be King of Bohemia if this is not the same as Ruritania, and heir-apparent to Ruritania, perhaps, but I think I'll just demote him to Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein. Anyway, if their marriage was in 1888, as I think is perhaps the case, it is perfectly likely they had a son who was born in c. 1890, and was old enough to inherit the throne of Ruritania before the war. 'Uncle Joseph', perhaps Wilhelm's younger brother, was in this case probably assassinated around 1905-8.

The last thing I'm going to post today is a couple of newspaper clippings from the Strelsau English Gazette (Ruritania's only English paper!) that I made and then forgot about.



These are successive editions that relate to the projected beginning of the Ruritanian crisis. But perhaps nothing will come of it...