The drums are beating!

Here is the first page of my blog devoted to the campaigns of the Landgraf of Mendelstadt, as documented by myself, Major Wittering.

Perhaps it's appropriate to say a little about myself, the Major, by way of a small preface to the Herculean task of recording the wisdom, exploits, achievements and ambitions of the Landgraf.

What you may have heard of me from the court of King George is vile calumny. "Exile" is such a loaded word. On the contrary, I am here in the palace of the Landgraf, deep in the heart of beautiful Mendelstadt, by personal invitation of the Langraf himself, who, chancing across one of my three volume novels in a used bookstand in the market town of Trunkenzordli (it was "Sadie and the Arabian Prince", I believe) determined there and then I should become his biographer.

I am new to the forests and mountains of central Europe. Mendelstadt, in the Landgraf's own words, is "somewhat unstable" (his laughter is unlike any I've ever heard) but attractive in a stark and desperate way. His task is first to unify the quarrelling provinces of the Landgraviate, then to organise their disparate and, there's no better word for it - ragamuffin, militias into a proper military force in order to fufil his ambition: no less than the reproduction of the campaigns of Alexander across Europe. He has been persuaded that his calling is for once and all to quell the squabbling nations of western Europe under the firm but unified benevolence of one man. Him.

I have commissioned my portrait and hope to hang it here, in honour of the impending military endeavours of my patron. A draft sketch can be observed on the right, my good self modelling the uniform of the 2nd regiment of Mendelstadt, the Fusiliers, in which I now hold a commission. Meanwhile, he has asked that I begin the tortuous and complex task of reviewing his splendid armed forces, before the campaign begins, a task I propose to engage in the moment I conclude lunch.