Soldiers

by Richard Holmes

  Most of the Chasseurs disappear from history after their discharge from the regiment, but Lewis Foghell, a musician born in Palermo, immediately enlisted into the 40th Foot and fought at Waterloo. After a stint in the 66th Foot he slipped into that green-coated refuge of foreigners, the 60th Rifles, being promoted sergeant in 1835 and taking his discharge in 1842 – far from the Piazza Pretoria. His long service in the British army underlines an important point. At a time when notions of nationality were less rigid than they became as the nineteenth century wore on, there were many soldiers who served their paymaster loyally, whoever he happened to be. Corporal James Aldenrath of the 24th Foot died in March 1804, having served the Dutch, French, and Austrian monarchs before completing more than twenty-eight years service in the British army.16 Before 1789 most European armies maintained foreign corps of one sort or another, and Napoleon’s army was indeed multinational. Napoleon’s Polish lancers gained undying glory in a desperate charge at Somosierra in 1808 and a crueller reputation for finishing off British wounded at Albuhera in 1811. He also had some 35,000 Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine serving in almost every corner of the Iberian peninsula apart from Andalucia.17 There were inevitably family tragedies: one German soldier in British service found ‘mine own broder’ amongst the enemy dead.

  In 1812–13 the British, hard pressed to sustain units in the Peninsula at workable strength, actually recruited a small number of Spaniards directly into British regiments. Recruits swore a modified version of the usual oath of attestation – they were bound to serve only ‘during the existing war in the Peninsula’ – and regiments were authorised to take on up to a hundred men apiece. Recruits were not to be under 5ft 6ins tall, ‘strongly made’, and 19–27 years old. They were to be allowed ‘to attend divine service according to the tenets of the Roman Catholic religion’, and to receive normal pay and allowances, though no bounty.18 Harry Smith of the 95th had a high opinion of the Spanish soldiers in his regiment. Many became ‘the most daring sharpshooters of our corps’, and ‘I never saw better, more orderly, perfectly sober soldiers in my life, and as vedettes the old German Hussars did not exceed them.’19 Ned Costello thought them ‘generally brave’, adding that Rifleman Blanco was ‘one of the most skilful and daring skirmishers we had in the battalion’. But a French foraging party had murdered his father and brother, and he responded by ‘mercilessly stabbing and mangling’ wounded Frenchmen until a comrade knocked him down with the butt of his rifle. When the Spanish contingent was discharged in May 1814 there was regret on both sides, and ‘even Blanco, the sanguinary Blanco, actually shed tears.’20

  More homogeneous than the Chasseurs Britanniques but sharing some of their polyglot characteristics was the Brunswick Oels Corps. In 1806 Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, was mortally wounded commanding the Prussian army in its catastrophic defeat at Jena–Auerstadt, and his duchy was incorporated in the new kingdom of Westphalia, ruled by Napoleon’s brother Jerôme. When the fifth coalition against the French was formed in 1809 the new duke, Frederick William, mortgaged his little principality of Oels to raise a ‘free corps’ of 2,300 horse and foot. The corps wore black uniforms with a white metal skull and crossbones badge – arguably in mourning for Charles William Ferdinand – and was known as the Schwarze Schar (Black Horde) in German and the Black Brunswickers in English. Frederick William briefly regained control of Brunswick in 1809 but soon found himself in exile in England. His corps, its infantry component now called the Brunswick Oels Jaeger and the cavalry the Brunswick Oels Hussars, came under British command, and the jaegers arrived in Portugal in 1811. Like the Chasseurs Britanniques they were compelled to take recruits as they found them, and their German component was soon diluted by the addition of prisoners of war and deserters from across Europe. Some of the jaegers served as light companies in Wellington’s 4th and 5th Divisions, while the remainder were grouped together in the 7th Division.

  The Brunswickers fought in most of the major battles in the Peninsula, and although they were looked on with the same suspicion as the Chasseurs Britanniques their desertion rate was never quite as high. Sergeant Edward Costello of the 95th Rifles thought them good soldiers, but lamented that they were ‘gifted with a canine appetite that induced them to kill and eat all the dogs they could get hold of’. The 95th had a pet dog named Rifle that rather enjoyed battles, barking at passing cannon-balls, but eventually it fell victim to ‘the insatiable jaws of the Brunswickers’.21

  Frederick William was able to reclaim his duchy in 1813, and he placed his corps under allied command when Napoleon escaped from Elba in 1815. On the eve of Waterloo it numbered 5,376 infantry, 912 cavalry, and 16 guns. Wellington grouped it with Thomas Picton’s 5th Division and Lowry Cole’s 6th, in his own reserve. On 16 June Napoleon attacked the Prussians at Ligny and sent Marshal Ney to deal with Wellington at Quatre Bras. Thanks largely to the ‘intelligent disobedience’ of an allied staff officer, Ney’s first attack was checked, and Wellington was just able to shuffle enough troops into position astride this crucial crossroads to win the day. When the Brunswickers arrived, about mid-afternoon, Wellington sent their infantry forward to support his own, and Brunswick led his hussars in a charge against the advancing French. As his horsemen swirled back, Brunswick rallied them south of the crossroads, but was hit by a stray musket ball and died within minutes. When Wellington deployed his army on the Waterloo position he put the Brunswickers to his right rear, but as the long and terrible day of 18 June wore on, he sent them forward piecemeal to buttress his line.

  Some Brunswick battalions were visibly shaky. Captain Cavalié Mercer, commanding a troop of horse artillery in Wellingon’s right centre, thought that the battalions on either side of his guns were ‘perfect children’ and so decided not to pull back when the French cavalry prepared to charge. The steadiness of his own men gave him confidence, and: ‘The Brunswickers partook of this feeling, and with their squares much reduced in size – well closed, stood firmly, with arms at the recover, and eyes fixed on us, ready to commence their fire with our first discharge.’22 As darkness fell, the Brunswick cavalry, with their own scores to settle, joined the Prussian cavalry in its pursuit of the French. At Quatre Bras and Waterloo the Brunswickers lost 1,556 officers and men, 27 per cent of their strength, a proportion that put them narrowly behind the 31 per cent casualties sustained by British troops and the 28 per cent suffered by that other idiosyncratic organisation, the King’s German Legion.

  The death’s head was not new in German military iconography, for it had been used by Prussian hussars from the 1740s. In 1914, though, little Brunswick supplied the 92nd Infantry Regiment, the 17th Hussars and an artillery battery to the Imperial army. The infantry’s spiked helmet bore an eagle with outstretched wings, had the Brunswick death’s head and the battle honour ‘Peninsula’ superimposed upon it: the hussar busby’s honours included both Peninsula and Waterloo. The ironies of former friendship ran deeper still. When the British army went to war in 1914, three of its infantry regiments – the Essex, Devonshires, and Northamptons – bore a representation of the castle of Gibraltar on their cap-badges. The Suffolks went even further by adding Gibraltar’s motto, ‘Montis Insignia Calpe’. There were to be times when they found themselves facing Hanoverian soldiers of the 73rd and 79th Infantry Regiments and the 10th Jäger battalion, all of whom wore a ‘Gibraltar’ band around their right cuffs, commemorating their service, under British command, in the Great Siege of the 1770s. From 1714 to 1837 British monarchs were also electors of Hanover, so there was good reason for British and Hanoverian soldiers to fight side by side on so many battlefields of the eighteenth century.

  In July 1803 the Convention of the Elbe surrendered the electorate of Hanover to Napoleon. The treaty was never ratified by George III and so many Hanoverians, who might otherwise have been prohibited from taking up arms against France, felt justified in fleeing to Britain. Major Johann Friedrich von der Decken of the 60th Foot was ordered to raise a corps o
f light infantry called the King’s German Regiment, with a lieutenant colonelcy as his reward for success. Major Colin Halkett, then in the Dutch service, was to raise a unit styled the Foreign Levies.

  The royal proclamation authorising the raising of the King’s Germans was circulated in Hanover and, despite French occupation of the electorate, large numbers of recruits travelled to Britain by way of Denmark. That December von der Decken’s and Halkett’s commands were reconstituted into an all-arms force known as the King’s German Legion. The Germans were initially based in the Foreign Depot at Lymington, but the infantry soon moved on to Hilsea Barracks in Portsmouth. They then moved to Bexhill on Sea, which remained the KGL’s depot for the rest of its existence, though the cavalry was often stationed at Weymouth in Dorset, one of George III’s favourite spots for royal visits. The KGL eventually included two regiments of dragoons, both converted into light dragoons in 1812; three of hussars; two light battalions, both dressed and equipped as Rifles; and eight battalions of line infantry. The King’s German Artillery comprised two Horse and three Foot batteries, and there was a small all-officer engineer detachment. The KGL peaked at 14,000 in 1813, but over its lifetime perhaps 28,000 men served in its ranks.

  The KGL was qualitatively different from other foreign units raised during the period. Its combat record was consistently first-rate. It took part in an expedition to Hanover in 1805–6, and served in Pomerania, at Copenhagen and on Walcheren. The KGL not only fought in Sir John Moore’s Corunna campaign, but in most of the major actions of the Peninsular War. Its hussars helped redeem a difficult battle at El Bodon on 25 September 1811, and Hanoverian hussars bore it as a battle honour until 1918. On 23 July the following year – the day after Wellington’s great victory at Salamanca – Major General George von Bocks’ brigade, 1st and 2nd KGL Dragoons, came round a shoulder of high ground above Garcia Hernandez at a cracking pace to find the infantry of the French rearguard forming up in squares on rough terrain above the village. The leading squadron commander saw that if he carried on as ordered he would be exposed to heavy fire from a flank, and decided to charge the nearest infantry without delay. Two companies of the French 6th Light Infantry, bravely buying time for their comrades to get into square, held their fire till the last moment. German casualties of 54 killed and 62 wounded were attributed to the ‘deadly effect of musketry at the closest possible quarters’. A horse was brought down right onto the French, and Captain von Uslar Gleichen, one of the troop leaders, immediately forced his way into the gap it made: troopers spurred in after him, laying about with their sabres. The first of the 6th’s proper squares, shaken by the sight, gave way almost at once, and a second followed suit. Around 1,600 French prisoners were taken, amongst them Colonel Molard of the 6th Light Infantry. Count Maximilien Foy, the defeated French commander, thought it ‘the boldest charge of cavalry in the whole war’.

  Edward Costello of the 95th Rifles saw some of the French wounded from the action, shockingly cut about. ‘The escort consisted chiefly of the Germans that had taken them prisoners,’ he wrote, ‘and it was pleasing to behold these gallant fellows, in the true spirit of glory, paying the greatest attention to the wants of the wounded.’23 British officers reckoned that German cavalry was so good because of the quality of its horsemastership. The KGL trooper, thought Lieutenant George Gleig of the 85th Foot, ‘dreams not, under any circumstances, of attending to his own comfort till after he has provided for the comfort of his steed.’24 Captain Mercer agreed, saying that while the German trooper ‘would sell everything to feed his horse’, his British comrade ‘would sell his horse for spirits, or for the means of obtaining them’.25

  Although the KGL was in the early stages of disbandment when the campaign of the Hundred Days began in 1815, it fought at Waterloo, where the defence of the farm complex of La Haie Sainte by Major Guy Baring’s 2nd Light Battalion KGL was one of the most remarkable exploits of the entire day. The buildings, alongside the main Brussels road, stood like the cutwater of a bridge dividing the French torrent. Baring, reinforced as that long day ground on, by elements of other KGL units, steadily repulsed repeated attacks. But his men’s Baker rifles used ammunition not readily available, and although Baring repeatedly asked for more, none ever arrived. ‘He would be a scoundrel that deserted you, so long as his head is on his shoulders’, a twice-wounded rifleman assured him. Eventually ammunition ran out, but even then the Germans would not give up, hurling bricks and tiles at the French and fighting with butt and bayonet when their enemies came within reach. Eventually Baring’s battalion lost 16 officers and 132 men who were killed, wounded, or captured – from an original total of 33 and 398; a loss rate of 47 per cent.26

  The brothers Charles and Victor von Alten, who anglicised when they wore King George’s scarlet, were ex-Hanoverian officers who had served in the KGL from the outset, and both became major generals in British service. Wellington described the former as ‘the best of the Hanoverians’, though he had a very literal – some maintained Germanic – cast of mind. He commanded the Light Division in the Peninsula after Robert Craufurd was killed in the great breach at Ciudad Rodrigo, and then led the 3rd Division at Waterloo, where he was severely wounded. Fighting under him that day was Major General Sir Colin Halkett, promoted to command 2nd Light Battalion KGL in 1803 and a brigade commander in the Peninsula. At Waterloo, Halkett had already been hit twice when he was shot in the face by a ball that broke his teeth and palate, which took three years to heal. The Altens went back to Hanover at the war’s end. Charles became minister of war and foreign affairs and was made a field-marshal. Colin Halkett stayed on in Britain. He was lieutenant governor of Jersey from 1821 to 1830, and served as governor of the Royal Hospital Chelsea from 1849 until his death in 1856.

  Most KGL officers were upper-or middle-class Hanoverians who would have held commissions in the elector’s service. There were also several military dynasties, with fourteen von der Deckens, ten each of von Dürings and von Brandis, nine von Linsingens, and Guy Baring’s nephew Lewis served as an ensign at La Haye Sainte. When Colonel Friedrich Wihelm von Ompteda, commanding one of Charles Alten’s brigades, was ordered by the inexperienced Prince of Orange to launch an immediate counter-attack on the farm, he agreed to carry out what he rightly knew to be a suicide mission, but he asked Colonel von Linsingen ‘try and save my two nephews’ who were serving in his old battalion.

  The original warrant for the raising of the King’s Germans had specified that no French, Spanish, Italians or British were to be recruited. Although this might have applied to soldiers it certainly did not limit the appointment of officers. By 1815 there were 689 KGL officers with German-sounding names, 81 apparently British, 31 French, and 7 Italian. There are cases when a name gives little real clue as to origin. What are we to make of Ensign F. von Robertson, killed at Waterloo? Lieutenant Thomas Cary was certainly British, though Ensign George Frank was Hanoverian. And then there is Ole Lindam, who had joined the Legion as an NCO in 1810, was commissioned, went on to become a brevet major, and retired to Devon.

  Most British officers appointed to the KGL were, like their countrymen commissioned into the Chasseurs Britanniques, given free ensigncies. Edmund Wheatley, a Hammersmith man of modest means, was gazetted without purchase to 5th Line Battalion KGL, commanded by Colonel Ompteda, in 1813. Ensign Llewellyn was his only real friend in his battalion, but he soon came to admire the men he commanded. Although they spent so much of their time ‘cooking, smoking, eating and drinking’, they also

  bear excessive fatigues wonderfully well, and a German will march over six leagues [eighteen miles] while an Englishman pants and expires before a labour of twelve miles; but before the enemy a German moves on silent but mechanically, while an Englishman is all sarcasm, laughter and indifference.

  German officers ‘do not hesitate to accompany a reproof with a blow’, but Wheatley could not ‘imagine any man so dejected in situation as to patiently bear corporal chastisement’. The first time he came un
der fire, hearing the ‘hissing and plaintive whistling’ of roundshot about his ears, he jumped back ‘against a tall Polack who, good natured and smiling, pushed me back saying, “Don’t flinch, Ensign”.’ Captain Lucas Bacmeister, his company commander, at once demanded

  ‘Vall, Veatley, how you like dat?’

  ‘Bad for the kidneys,’ I said.

  That very moment another volley came and cut a fellow to pieces before my face.