Tag: giro d'Italia

The Giro (The Italian Pro Cycling Annual Event) started in Hungary this year and I had been wondering how to weave some music into this blog – more of that later – or you can rush to the end piece except you miss charging Hussars and cyclists.

Either way you get two sets of Hussars………one red and green and one in black.

First up was the stage 1 run from Budapest to Visegrad via Esztergom. A pretty flat stage across the rolling countryside west of the Visegrad Mountains with a 4km uphill finish at Visegrad just beneath the Castle that dominates the Danube Valley at this point.

Visegrad is located at the turn of the Danube where its easterly journey suddenly turns south for Budapest. This knuckle of the Danube, north of Budapest, has forever been militarily important. Esztergom slightly to the west of Visegrad was a Roman Fortress.

So what has a pro cycling race in Hungary got to do with this erratic wargamers military ramblings? Well of course I am erratic so sometimes my stories are a bit odd. In this case though its fairly straightforward. The Hungarians chose to race some Hussars with the cyclists!

In the middle of the race up pops some Hussars doing circles in a field

But they are by the road…………

These chaps are the black uniformed variety – no idea the unit or uniform era although with all that shako braiding it looks mid 19th century – the Hungarians revolted from Austria in 1848………

And then they start to form a column…….

and here come the cyclists…..

who wizz by………

but wait the horse gather pace……..

and one Hussar draws his sabre…….

and is joined by a colleague more interested in not falling off………

The sabrer is away……….

And he is now galloping faster than the cyclists can ride…….

a few Hussars have straggled……………….

And to finish this section a bit of live action………

The Giro and for that matter the Tour and Vuelta races all showcase a lot of castles and stage 1 of the Giro offered up some Hungarian gems…….

Now roll back to February 2019 and the castle hill in Buda for some different Hussars and a piece of music

Not sure which unit was taking part but back in 2019 I was in Budapest. As it happened Hungary was hosting a NATO discussion on Russian medium range missile developments – at the time that seemed rather boring. But what do you do when a few dignitaries rock up at your big castle on the hill in Buda?

Roll out some Hussars……

The man with the tash and a short handled broom was the collector of Horse muck……

A military band and the Hussars were paraded for the Dignitaries inspection……

Lay on some martial music, a band and some hussars. The music? well Hector Berlioz composed the choral music – “damnation of faust” which includes the same music as Liszt’s Rhapsody No15. Both probably drawn from the Nicolaus Scholl composition of 1820.

I will go with Berlioz as his piece was first performed in Paris in 1846 on the eve of the Revolutionary wars that exploded across Europe at the time Marx and Engels were publishing the Communist Manifesto (1848). The Italian Wars of Unification were spread between 1848 and 1870 and were replete with Hussars although it should be noted the kepi wearing horseman was to grow rapidly in popularity.

These Hussars wear a stove pipe or tapered shako popular from the 1820’s and a likely precursor to the kepi all courtesy of the French wars in North Africa.

The Hungarian March is a near contemporary of the Radetzky March composed for the great Austrian Victory in the Po valley against Piedmont and her various Italian allies. It was a period of some very famous military music even if the historians didn’t rate the armies of the day compared to those of Napoleon, Wellington and others.

Not sure whats up next… maybe some more on Budapest.