STEED'S STATION ALL THE WARS A STAGE A history of toy and model soldiers, and wargaming Those of my readers who have watched early Avengers episodes such as ��The Murder Market,�� know that I not only collect and display model soldiers, but that I also use them to assist me to think, when the occasion warrants it. Children play with toy soldiers. As they grow older they become more interested in model soldiers - soldiers which are represented accurately when it comes to uniform style and color, etc., and put them into dioramas which they create - scenes where time stands still and death, destruction and suffering, or triumphant victory, are always frozen at their penultimate moment. And then comes wargaming, where the elements of a battle are distilled and two or more players set out to recreate, and perhaps change, history. It�s all about history, about a fascination for the past. Nostalgia. For oneself as a child receiving these toys and feeling that joy again, or wondering how one would behave if one were under fire in one of those long ago armies. This series of articles will trace the history of the soldier, as represented by the toys, models and wargames which have been derived from his experiences at war. One place where all the wars were a stage was in Tangier, Morocco, that most international of cities. There is the Palais Mendoub, a magnificent Moorish palace overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar, �where east meets west at the Pillars of Hercules.� It�s on the Rue Shakespeare, just beyond Tangier�s Kasbah. It was once the residence of the Moroccan Sultan�s representative in the heyday of Tangier�s life as an international port. Here, from the early 1970s until the death of Malcolm Forbes in 1990, there was stationed the Forbes Museum of Military Miniatures, the largest collection of military miniatures in the world, numbering over 70,000 figures at its height. The accent was on pageantry rather than war. History was told, not only of the events which inspired the making of these miniature soldiers, but of the toys themselves. The constant aim of the displays was to delight the eye and �recapture the pleasure invoked by toy soldiers for children of all ages and through the ages. Malcolm S. Forbes, an American of Scottish ancestry, was Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes, the American magazine of business. He was a keen balloon and motorcycle enthusiast, and �collector extraordinaire.� His collections were housed in locations around the world. In the early seventies, Forbes acquired the Palais Mendoub in preparation for the launch of an Arabic edition of Forbes. It seemed an innovative gesture of goodwill to open to the public the Forbes Magazine Collection of soldiers, which at that time numbered around 5,000. Forbes employed Robert Gerofi, a brilliant Belgian architect, designer, and Tangier resident, to restore the somewhat run-down palace to its former Islamic glory. Only a part of it was devoted to the toy soldier museum - it occupied three spacious ground-floor salons in the main building and a large extension at the corner of the Palais grounds, which had five chambers including a 120-foot gallery overhanging the beach. Modern glazed cabinets, with concealed lighting for maximum viewing effect, were skilfully juxtaposed with moorish arches and windows of Moroccan leaded glass. The Forbes museum was remarkable in its scope. Most collectors, or museums with collections of toy and model soldiers, are limitedto a certain make, period or nationality of figures. The Forbes collection cut across practically all the frontiers of toy and model armies. The collection spanned early German flats to modern connoisseur models correct in every detail. It included the nineteenth and twentieth century solids and semi-solids by makers such as Heyde and Mignot, and hollow-cast Britains. There was a rare collection of leading Spanish makers covering the nineteenth century and periods leading up to, and including, the Spanish Civil War. These thousands of tiny soldiers aer given �relief - employing various degrees of landscaping, differnt levels and types of cabinets, a complement of paintings, prints and posters on military subjects, and the interspersing of dioramas among the ranks of parading and fighting soldiers. There were even separate 12-foot long cases for model ships such as the British battleshiop Rodney and the Japanese Asahi. The Forbes Museum was also unique in tht it had a large component of toys and models representing Muslim fighting men and scenes of Moorish life. In respect for the host country, efforts were made to build up the Islamic content of the museum - for example in 1978 Edward Suren�s diorama battle of the Battle of the Three Kings was unveiled. There were extensive sand-table scnes of charging Bedouin horsemen, camel riders and Arabs on foot - many of them the familiar Bitains figures. There were desert caravans, Arab street scenes, a school of boys receiving the wisdom of the Koran from an elder, dancing girls, whilrlign Dervishes besetting an English lancer, Saharan encampments, and traders bargaining for carpets. It was open free to the public every day between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Written guides to the exhibits were in English, French and Arabic. Bilbliography Toy Armies, Peter Johnson, Doubleday & Co., 1982. Continued next issue. .