This little scene is the whole machinery of command. Before radio or telegraph, an army was directed entirely by written orders carried on horseback: a staff officer, like the colonel at the table, took down the commander's intentions in ink, and an aide-de-camp — the standing officer, booted and ready — galloped the paper across the battlefield to the general who had to act on it. It was a fragile system. The aide had to survive a ride through shot and smoke, find the right commander in the chaos, and deliver the order intact and in time. Battles were lost when an aide was killed, took a wrong turn, or arrived too late. The men who moved the paper moved the army.

The two-figure set is a headquarters vignette — a staff colonel seated at a camp table, quill in hand and dispatches before him, writing out the Emperor's orders, while a hussar aide-de-camp stands ready, booted and spurred, to carry them off. It is built to extend a command diorama. Set it beside Planning the Battle (NA448), the companion scene it was designed to sit near, and ride the mounted Napoleon Bonaparte up as the source of the orders being written.

King & Country model NA449. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Two-figure set — a seated staff colonel with writing table and a standing aide-de-camp. Boxed.