I don’t understand why identifying with the German side would be disapproved of. Are Germans supposed to be ashamed of the Franco-Prussian war?
Re-enactment of the Irish Civil War would be pretty much unthinkable. It is far too recent (my grandparents’ generation); families were divided and grudges were held well into my parents’ generation; its legacy is very much alive in present-day party politics.
Also, as a conflict, it doesn’t really lend itself to dramatic re-enactment, lacking in large-scale engagements in open country.
There are people who re-enact the Battle of the Boyne; although it took place over 300 years ago it is a huge part of the Unionist identity and is still celebrated as a major holiday every year.
Its not much further back for the US civil war, there were a handful of civil war vets around still when my parents were small children, my grandparents who were born in the 20’s would have probably crossed paths with plenty of veterans who were still around then, although I am sure most of them were pretty old by then like in their 70’s. My great grandparents would have probably known plenty of them.
So the US civil war is really only about 70-80 years out of living memory if that.
I think that us outside the US have seen many many movies of the US civil war battles, so people know them. Though I would suggest that it is a bit like Americans playing Australian Rule Football, some expats with a few locals having fun.
We used to reenact the Boer War in honour of Baden Powell at scouts,
Sorry for the mis-attributed quote in my post #41 above. The comment I quoted was originally posted by Mops, not Mahaloth. I noticed the mistake too late to edit it.
He really enjoys it, but it looks boring as tears to me. The cool part is that they very often get film gigs for the History Channel. More than once I’ve been channel-surfing and gone “Hey! That’s Ron!!!”
A splinter group of the Confederacy fled to Brazil towards war’s end and made a go of harvesting cotton there. Their descendants held lavish cotillion balls until well into the 90s (but probably no re-enactments). A girl from one of these families was interviewed by an American magazine (either Time or Newsweek) and said something to the effect of “We’ve been here for seven generations now, and we’re mainstream Brazilians.”
Times were there were two companies that made replica Brown Bess muskets. Italy and, you guessed it, Japan. Japan started making them when their economy was along the lines that China is now. The people there have stopped making them recently.
I suspect military re-enacting per se is more dominant in the US because the requisite firearms are more readily obtainable than elsewhere in the world as a result of the relevant laws and culture.
And I suspect the ACW is popular for reasons mentioned in posts above and also because it was the last war that involved battles where the combatants were pretty much massed within line of sight of each other, creating visual spectacle for reenactors. (Yes, there were obviously battles in WW2 that involved soldiers being able to see each other, but the point was to keep your head down, not stand about in serried ranks. And anyway, any reenactment of D-Day or the like is just not possible.)
That last point (about soldiers being massed within line of sight) is a consequence of the fact that it was the last war fought without hugely expensive industrial killing machines like tanks, planes, long range artillery and machine guns. It is difficult to credibly reenact any interesting WW1 and WW2 battles without them, and the numbers necessary are really beyond the finances of any group of amateur enthusiasts. I can’t help but be reminded of Monty Python’s Batley Townswomen’s Guild’s reenactment of the Battle of Pearl Harbor.
All that said, other countries love dressing up. There is a substantial RenFaire near where I live held every year which attracts lots of people who are into recreating clothes etc with maximum authenticity from various eras. They even wheel out a replica of an early cannon and fire it. But battles? Not so much. Staged swordfights and a bit of jousting, but not actual battles. The historical battles which engage the imaginations of my countrymen and women do not readily lend themselves to reenactment.
As it happens, my Enfield .58 rifled musket was made in India.
Another friend of mine who did WWI reenacting told me that there’s a private farm in Western Pennsylvania which has a major trench network for like-minded hobbyists. Never saw it myself, though.
My ACW infantry unit was once in a public park for an event which had reenactors from various eras. There were five or six guys uniformed and equipped as Wehrmacht mountain troops - looked pretty authentic to me. I talked to one of them and he said they have to spend a lot of time explaining to people that no, they’re not Nazis. What I didn’t say to him was, “Um, did you maybe think about that before choosing that particular war and country…?”
My Enfield was made in Italy. My Brown Bess (1st model, long land pattern) was made in India.
There do seem to be a lot of folks in India making them these days. It’s ironic when you think about it. Back in the old days, when Indians started copying European muskets the Indian versions were considered to be cheap and inferior. Now some of the best reproduction muskets come out of India. To be fair, though, some of the worst reproduction muskets come out of India too.
I agree with everything said here, the Irish Civil War re-enacted itself in Irish politics for decades thereafter. As** hibernicus** says there weren’t many signature battles of Ireland’s Civil War. I’ll also add that re-enactment in general isn’t that big an activity in Ireland as compared to the US.
Wrong on both counts. First, the ACW guys always have more CSA than needed. Few want to play the Yanks.
Next, the WWII Germans I have seen are a cool bunch of guys, none with anything even vaguely like Nazi tendencies.
Once in a while us SCA dudes share a site with other re-enactors. You ain’t seen nothing 'til you have seen a armored car full of Vikings pass by… see, our swords are real, their guns only shoot blanks…
This is not war reenactment as we understand it in North America, but many popular festivals in Spain are based on a theme of “moros y cristianos,” with large sculpted puppets to represent Moorish and Christian knights participating in mock battles. (One odd variant I heard of once featured the men of the town playing the Christians, and the women of the town playing the Moors, who naturally end up defeated.)
Maybe maybe not, anyone can get a license for a bolt action or musket in Australia as long as you don’t have a criminal record. Now if you want to reenact with an UZI then you woud have some issues
Reenactments are starting to pick up in Spain; there were some in my hometown last year celebrating 200 years of a Napoleonic battle; “Medieval markets” are also picking up and may have some jousts or duels. A lot of the people involved got bitten by that particular bug while in the US and/or are involved in LARP as well.
The “moros y cristianos” matt_mcl mentions take all kinds of forms, from trying to look like a melee to highly ritualized forms, to places where there is no fighting but just people dressed in the two kinds of uniforms in religious parades. Those are a lot older than the “reenactment” kind, having been around since the Middle Ages.
In El Salvador, the civil war is still a very sore item as it was a very recent thing; however, both sides do some small re-enactments in front of memorials to remember past battles and their fallen comrades, and they do it mostly to remember the end of the conflict.
A really funny thing did happen in the last presidential election when the right wing ARENA party released to the media a video of a parade of former guerrillas celebrating a notable battle. The scandalous thing was that it appeared that they were carrying a mess of AK-47’s and other weapons, so the right wing media tried to scare the people into not voting for the now at peace FLMN (the former guerrillas) party because “You see?!? They are still armed and they are prepared to kill their enemies”
It turned into a huge fiasco for the right wing party when the ex-guerrilla groups filmed called the press to make them take a close look at the guns… All plastic. Indeed, looking at better resolution video and photos of the event made clear that the weapons were made out of plastic all along.
A very desperate move from the right wing anyhow, the ARENA party lost the election.
It was fun for a few weeks to see the message boards from the old country filled with sigs with images of plastic army men and ugly dioramas with captions like “the latest photographic evidence from xx (insert yellow journalism media name here) showing the revolting guerrillas.”
Someday, maybe, the recreations will stop opening old wounds.
Well, we have some of the toughest firearm laws anywhere, yet military re-enactment is hugely popular in the UK, mainly, I guess, because so much of our significant history is based on wars/battles. Without even looking out for them, I’ve seen re-enactments of Roman battles, the Battle of Hastings, the Battle of Bosworth (War of the Roses), the Battle of Edgehill (ECW) and something to do with WWII.
There’s a reasonably healthy airsoftsubculture who re-enact WW2 battles in the UK, as well as all sorts of more modern combat scenarios (Vietnam, Gulf war, N. Ireland etc).
