submitted by Eman M. Vovsi

(the author is thankful to all Napoleon-Series contributors who mentioned in their posts, in different time, various paper soldiers’ collection discussed below)

Once upon a time, in a little town of Strasbourg, there was a baker/flour merchant named Christian Boersch (around 1780-1824) who painted charming little soldiers…

The story, which begins as a fairy tale, is not only true but enables us today to know the uniform worn by the thousands of men who passed through Strasbourg – France’s principal fortress facing Prussia – on their way to the battlefields of Europe. It was time when the streets of Strasbourg almost continuously resounded to the tramps of infantry shoes, the jingling of infantry harness, and the rumbling of iron-bound wheels of artillery batteries and supplies wagons. With the town population around 30,000 inhabitants, the permanent garrison ranged between 6,000 to10,000 men, above and beyond units constantly passing through the city. Not surprisingly, therefore, that some local armature artists, editors and book dealers, were inspired to try to capture this military pageantry and military drama in graphic form. When they were successful in so doing, their product found a ready market.

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