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Praetorium Honoris

Friday, April 14, 2023

The Germans ...

(Source)
Private Georg Schmidt (who had been born in the Electorate of Hanover on the 17th of February 1791) was gazing off into the fields. This country reminded him more of home than did England or Spain. The architecture, the way the farmers tended their fields, it all made him very homesick.

Schmidt had been with the King's German Legion (KGL) since 1807, He had managed to escape his homeland when it fell to the French along with his father, mother, two brothers, and one sister. His father was a soldier, an officer in the Hanoverian Army, as George III of England was also the Elector of Hanover, Schmidt's father decided that they would go to England, where a unit of Hanoverians was being formed.

He had been too young to enlist when the unit was formed in 1803. When he turned 16 years of age, he had managed to join up. The recruiting sergeant was glad to have him, Schmidt had been honest with the man and told him that he was only 16. The sergeant had told him "That will be our little secret lad. You're big for your age, I think you'll make a fine soldier."

By the time he completed training and been shipped off to Portugal as a replacement with twenty-seven other men, his oldest brother Wilhelm had already been killed in action. He had heard that his next oldest brother, Klaus, still lived and was serving with the 1st Line Battalion of the KGL, he himself was assigned to the 1st Light Battalion. Both brothers wore uniforms indistinguishable from those of their British comrades. Being in a light infantry unit, Georg wore a green tunic, Klaus wore a red one.

The other difference was that Georg carried the Baker Rifle and could hit a man-sized target with great consistency up to 300 yards. His brother's smoothbore "Brown Bess" (more formally the India Pattern Musket) would find it difficult to hit a man at 50 yards with any consistency at all.

"Schmidt!"

When he heard his name, Schmidt turned to see his sergeant approaching, he thought, "I wonder what nasty job Sergeant Klein has for me now? Yesterday mucking out the stable, today, who knows what?"

"Sergeant?" he said, coming to attention.

"Relax boy, I'm going over to the 1st's bivouac, thought you'd like to come along, perhaps see your brother."

"Yes Sergeant, I would like that."

"Come along then, I want to be back before sunset."


Not many miles away, another group of Hanoverian soldiers were being drilled. Unlike the KGL, many of these men were newly recruited and were still being trained. They were officially part of the army of the Kingdom of Hanover. (George III was their titular ruler though a more junior member of the royal family generally acted as the administrator of the Kingdom.)

Though drill at the individual level and up to company level was satisfactory, finding space enough to hold exercises at brigade level and higher was nearly impossible.

Soldat Hermann Schweitzer though was an older man, a veteran of the Prussian Army. He had fought at both Jena and in Russia, as part of the Prussian Corps attached to Napoléon's invading force.

With the collapse of the French Empire, Schweitzer had deserted. He thought to make his way to Austria, enlist there for the bounty, serve for a while, then move on.

He hadn't factored in the fact that with the abdication and exile of Bonaparte, armies just weren't looking for recruits. But he had been in Hanover, involved in a certain criminal scheme involving smuggling, when Bonaparte landed in France.

The Hanoverians were hiring, so he signed up.

Now he was in the Low Countries assigned to a battalion with very inexperienced younger men. His captain was threatening to make him a sergeant due to his experience. He had been fighting the idea until one of the battalion senior sergeants mentioned the hike in pay the promotion would bring.

While it wouldn't make him rich, it would certainly increase the time he got to spend in the local cafés. He liked that idea.

Now if only the French would move, then he could get this war over with and move on to more lucrative pastimes. An Englishman he knew from his short time in Hanover had pointed out that smuggling along the English coast was still active, and very profitable for someone of few scruples.

Like Hermann Schweitzer.




38 comments:

  1. Plans and plans, life rolls on. Thanks for letting us revisit the past Sarge.

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    1. It's where I am comfortable, ya know, the past. The here and now is just too confusing.

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  2. A lot of work went into that farm house wall, there are a lot of places in the world where big walls have been put up. I don't live in a place where a wall like that is "needed".

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    1. There were a lot of those in Europe in areas subject to unrest. Like armies passing through constantly. Armies have stragglers, armies have deserters, those kinds of folks respected nothing and had no problem killing and maiming to take what they wanted. Walled farm complexes were of great utility in dissuading that sort of behavior from small bands of ne'er-do-wells.

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    2. I didn't really appreciate the value of a solid wall around the place until I read Selco's tales from the Balkan wars.

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    3. Helps keep the riff-raff out, as long as the occupants are armed!

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    4. There was a reason why Belgium was known as 'The Cockpit of Europe'. I've noticed not a few farmhouses in Belgium and Northern France designed on similar sturdy lines.
      Retired

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    5. Good farming earth always has rocks and stones show up in spring from frost heaves. All that beautiful, healthy, glacially created and plowed dirt. Gotta do something with all those rocks.

      It's why there's stone walls everywhere in New England (or used to be.)

      As for how quickly dry or limed stone walls can be built, check out the youtube channel Chateau du Theil, where a bunch of hommes are rebuilding a chateau in order to turn it into a hotel. Here's a timelapse of them building retaining walls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-CyYdTuZrM&t=16s. Home channel is https://www.youtube.com/@chateaudutheil

      Another channel is Les Jeromes, two guys named 'Jerome' rebuilding a chateau. https://www.youtube.com/@LesJeromes

      For some reason, moving to rural France and rebuilding old chateaus is a thing amongst Frenchmen and Englishmen. Then there's the Scandinavians and Americans who are moving to rural Italy and rebuilding old abandoned stone houses.

      I can watch people build stone walls and buildings and roofs all day long....

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    6. Stone walls are ubiquitous in New England. (Can't swing a pick without hitting rock, DAMHIK!)

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    7. And the future too disquieting.

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    8. It rather is these days, innit?

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  3. European Architecture is often influenced by the many skirmishes and wars that fought over all of it. Even today shops typically have steel roll downs to cover doors and windows. The American style 2x4 construction and brick veneer walls are from a high trust society. Our last war ended in 1865. The Civil War.

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    1. True. Which is why many businesses are fleeing "blue" cities. Cheaper than building a fortress I suppose. Gee, the US of A is getting kind of like medieval Europe ...

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    2. Especially with a certaing group pushing neo-feudalism. Grrrr.

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    3. Yup, the writing is on the wall. So to speak ...

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    4. Another reason for American light construction was the lack of suitable stone and local wood as the west was settled. There was plenty of wood (enough lumber was logged in Michigan to plank the whole state over). The availability resulted in what was "balloon construction" like barns - no massive heavy timbers and stone painstakingly built by craftsmen, but a wooden erector set.

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    5. You didn't see much of that in the East, at least not until after the Civil War. Lots of stone available, lots of trees. Our architecture tended to be a little "heavy" in the old days. (Many of those buildings are still around!)

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    6. Exactly, construction tends to follow function. If you live in an area where recent wars have occurred, you build for that.

      Almost nothing in an American home will stop even a 22LR or pistol round. As half my family is in law enforcement, the stories they would tell of using yellow #2 pencils to stick in found bullet holes to help find the next hole in home shootings. Often even 22LR would go through an exterior wall, through a interior wall or two before being found lodged in the carpet or such. They told stories of finding 9mm bullets lodged in a freezer full of food.

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  4. Crusty Old TV Tech here. Bravo Sarge, another excellent vignette. Had no idea there were Hanoverian German units in the British Army back in the 19th century. Even an old fart can learn something, keep 'em coming please.

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    1. The British Royals have deep roots in Germany.

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    2. Especially since the last of the French-rooted royalty died without issue after that line brutally wiped out all the other lines of French-rooted royalty that had any potential claims to the English Crown (Tudor was a wanker and won using French troops, the bastard!)(which is a funny statement considering that the lines of French-rooted royalty was started by an actual bastard using 'French' troops.)

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  5. "His captain was threatening to make him a sergeant due to his experience. "

    I can hear it now, "Schweitzer! I order you to become a sergeant!"

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    1. Might well happen. Schweitzer is kind of a "bad boy," he might see the promotion as an opportunity, or he could see it as a responsibility he'd rather avoid. I haven't really decided where I'm going with this character yet.

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    2. Unless adroit, responsibility also comes with blame when things go wrong.

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    3. Rank has its privileges AND it's responsibilities, which means having to sometimes take the hit for a bad decision.

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  6. The accidental discovery of "Hey, you know more than we thought. We can use you in...". I am familiar with it.

    The muddle of German states post Holy Roman Empire and pre- German Empire is yet another-another thing I know precisely zero about.

    As always, excellent storytelling Sarge!

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    1. Most folks don't know that the founding of Germany, as a nation-state (and not just a concept), occurred nearly one hundred years after our Revolution. Before that it was Prussia and a bunch of smaller states ...

      Like principalities, bishoprics, duchies, and so forth. Bavaria was fairly big and retained it's king, and some autonomy, through the end of WWI.

      The study of how Germany came to be is endlessly fascinating, at least to me it is.

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    2. At least the last time I visited the Nymphenburg Palace circa 2004, the head of the Wittelsbach family, the former ruling family, still had living quarters there.

      It is endlessly fascinating.

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    3. The Wittelsbachs, yes the royalty of Bavaria! I haven't heard that name in a while.

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    4. That whole unification of Germany caused a lot of people living in the new Germany to say "Screw it" and bail on the place. One of my dad's grandparents, the progenitor of our last name, came from Germany after said unification. Why he decided to go to New Orleans and not the MidWest like all the others of his last name, I have no idea.

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    5. Well, go to America for a new life or fight in the seemingly endless series of wars fought für Kaiser und Kõnig.

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  7. Things I did not know. Perhaps that's actually "things I thought I knew that were at best extreme distortions of reality and the history thereof!" Thank you for the enlightenment.

    There's so much I know that is not so.

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    1. I re-learn lots of things, damn near everyday. An open mind reveals much!

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  8. Europe used to be a lot more fractured and 'tribal' than a lot of people know or remember. And we're beginning to see that tribalism and fracture showing up big time.

    I got a rash of poop from one German student when I was working at the local college one summer. "You Americans with your American Flag obsession, blah blah blah." He shut up when I pointed out that in Germany, everyone flies either their town/city or province or region or other land unit flag. Kind of like football team supporters, except worse.

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    1. Germany, as I mentioned above, is a very new construct. With a not-so-great track record of getting along with their neighbors.

      Then again, France wasn't much better under the Sun King and Napoléon. Constant war, very European back in the day.

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Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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