The wargames played in the garden by Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, in 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy' are one of the first recorded descriptions of the wargaming hobby-horse and obsession. And this is all the more poignant as it the means by which Uncle Toby comes to terms with his own wounding and trauma. By doing this the experience of war is over-written by the pastoral pleasure of building fortifications and playing with toy soldiers in the garden.
However, Toby and Trim become so obsessed that they re-fight every siege of Marlborough's Wars in the War of the Spanish Succession! And how crestfallen they are when the news from the continent is delayed by storms, and dismayed by news that the war has ended.
"And I think that that's one of the secrets behind English gardens actually, that all the siege architecture that so fascinates Toby a lot of it was deployed for gardens, it was used and was adapted for pastoral purposes, and I think that that's intriguing. I think that some of the great poems of English Literature, Andrew Marvell's Upon Appleton House, is a kind of hymn to this connection between war and gardens, and I think that, at the heart of Uncle Toby's campaigns, that's what lies there, is some kind of metamorphosis of war into a scene that is utterly pleasant.." {1}
These battles are also played in the garden, using proper toy soldiers of the 'Lace Wars' era and the reader is invited to reply to the cry of the recruiting Serjeant;
'Will ye go to Flanders'
and follow the drum and take a sentimental journey in the footsteps of Toby and Trim and their wargame, brought to life so beautifully by the Reverend Laurence Sterne.
