The scene is familiar from a thousand novels and films. Lines of soldiers, clad in brightly colored uniforms, march toward each other across a flat green field. Fifes and drums, perhaps a bagpipe, accompany them. Nearby, on well-groomed warhorses, sit cavalrymen, resplendent in gold-braided pelisses and plumed shakos. In response to shouted commands, the soldiers lift heavy muskets to their shoulders. Explosions drown out the fifes, and the magnificent colors vanish under clouds of thick gray gunpowder smoke.
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