King's German Legion @nline -> The KGL's Formation 1803 (2)

On the 13th of May, therefore, about two months after the king’s message to parliament was known in Hannover, the government of that country decided upon taking the first step of any value towards its defence, and the manner in which this was attempted to be put in execution was singularly unhappy.

The belief implied in marshal Wallmoden’s note of the 11th of May, that no subject of the electorate would withhold his personal exertions from the defence of the country, if proper means were adopted for calling them into action, which opinion was afterwards supported by his verbal expressions to the same effect, was adopted by the ministry to such an extent as to induce them to issue a proclamation on the 16th of May, which set forth, "that, although the king, as elector and member of the German empire, had determined to observe the most strict neutrality with regard to the points of difference between the governments of England and France, yet as the movement of troops in Holland made evident the possibility of the existing negotiations not terminating pacifically, it was, therefore, necessary to ascertain, without delay, the number of inhabitants capable of bearing arms; that, merely with this view, the magistrates were required to make out a complete list of all subjects of the government, and solemnly to bind them to place themselves, in case of necessity, at its disposition, for the defence and deliverance of the country, for so long a period as the necessity may exist and the defence of the land require."

"Any one avoiding this engagement by removing himself out of the country, should," it was added, "forfeit his property and patrimony without hope of pardon."

This proclamation, which was naturally interpreted to be a requisition for a levée en masse of the inhabitants, was received with marked dissatisfaction throughout the country; whole districts (amts bezirke) formally refused to comply with its demands; others required time to think, and employed that time in sending all their sons out of the country who were capable of bearing arms. The reports which poured in to the ministry from the authorities charged with the execution of their orders, soon communicated to them these fatal consequences of their incipient measure, and impressed them with the necessity of speedily interposing some preventative; another proclamation was, therefore, issued on the 24th, which explicitly declared that "the views of the government had never been directed to a levée en masse, and that in requiring a list of all subjects capable of bearing arms, they did so merely for the purpose of being able to call out the number of men necessary to complete the regular army, in which it was intended they should serve in the capacity of regular soldiers for so long a period as the defence of the country required."

This contradictory document served only to confirm the people in the opinion that a levée en masse was originally intended, and impressed them with no favourable opinion of the candour or firmness of their ministry.

Meantime, another communication from London added to the difficulties and discouragement which now seemed daily to present new impediments to the adoption of any vigorous or decided measures. This note, which was addressed to general Wallmoden in reply to his statement of the 27th of April, acknowledged the painful feelings with which his representations had been received, and rendered justice to the zeal for the troops entrusted to his charge, by which these representations had been dictated; with regard; however, to that point on which it was so necessary that he should be precisely instructed, namely, whether, in case of invasion, an actual resistance was or was not to be made, it merely informed him that "the decision of this question must entirely depend upon the degree of utility which, under the circumstances, such a measure might be expected to afford; and it would be superfluous to add that, if there was a probability of repulsing the enemy, and really defending the country, they should not hesitate in employing all possible resources to obtain this essential object. If, on the contrary, the too superior force of the enemy, and other too disadvantageous circumstances, should reduce them to feel satisfied with saving the most valuable effects, and that it should be necessary to limit themselves to withdrawing the corps into a position where there might be some probability of its receiving assistance, or effecting its embarkation, or, in fine, obtaining a less unfavourable capitulation, then the means to be employed should only be proportionate to these objects."

"However warm an interest," it continued, "his majesty may take in the safety and honour of his brave troops, the paramount attention which should be paid to the good of the country in general, and that of the subject, ought to prevent the adoption of measures, the weight of which would, without producing any general benefit, only augment those evils which are already inevitable. It is under this point of view that the ministry and the field-marshal should consider the subject; it is impossible, in consequence of the great distance, and the uncertainty respecting the events which may arise, to give here more precise orders. It is confidently felt that, if the troops be called upon, they will give new proofs of their bravery, and of their attachment to the king and his house, whose benevolent participation will be always insured to them," &c.

Discouraging and indefinite as these instructions were, they yet gave to marshal Wallmoden and the ministry a power of deciding upon the course to be pursued; and although this latitude was coupled with a responsibility which gave every reason to apprehend that the result, and not the motive, of their measures would influence the public judgement upon them, they yet ventured to persevere in the preparations for defence, which had now been earnestly commenced. An augmentation of each infantry regiment to twelve hundred men, and a general enlistment for this supply were ordered and entered upon; the organization of a rifle corps, to be formed out of the game-keepers (jagd-bedienten) and other good marksmen, was authorized; conscriptions of horses were levied throughout the country; incessant exertions made to place Hameln in a state of defence; conspicuous endeavours shown by the officers of artillery to render that arm effective; in short, all that activity which a union of zeal, patriotism, and courage could give, was exhibited throughout the several military departments.

But what years have destroyed cannot be made good in days; and a painful conviction was soon afforded that the decision of the ministry had been formed too late.

Major von der Decken, who, early in May, had been sent to Berlin for the purpose of endeavouring to obtain assistance from Prussia, returned from thence on the 30th of the same month, having been entirely unsuccessful in the object of his mission. Diplomatic intrigues, terminating in a strong note of Russia, which stated that the occupation of Hanover by Prussian troops would be considered by the autocrat as a declaration of war, were the immediate causes of this result; the duke of Brunswick also, who, it was proposed, should have the command of the allied army, declined the offer; and thus was the electorate, notwithstanding the boasted benefits of the Germanic confederation, the protecting solemnity of the imperial decree (In the imperial decree, addressed to the Reichs Versammlung, September 1, 1792, it is said, "If an individual state or province of the empire be attacked by a foreign power, the whole of Germany is thereby attacked, and the confederation of the empire being thus involved, powerful assistance, from the united means of the empire, shall be afforded to the state attacked."), and her expected guardianship by the British government, thrown, finally, upon her own limited resources, and left single-handed to cope with the armies of France.

It was on this occasion that his royal highness the duke of Cambridge, in a letter addressed to baron von Lenthe, expressed those noble sentiments which will ever stand a bright example of princely feeling and patriotic devotion. "Rest assured," wrote his royal highness, "that I will sacrifice my blood and life for a country to which I am so much attached."

But no sacrifice, however exalted, could repair the evils which misgovernment had brought on, or overcome the difficulties which, augmenting as the danger approached, now rose on every side around the measures of the ministry. The most effective young men, and those with whom their families could best dispense, having been prepared, by the proclamation of the 16th, for the enforcement of a levée en masse, and experience having taught them to regard with little apprehension the threatened consequences of evading the requisition, took advantage of the time which elapsed before the execution of the professed spirit of that proclamation was entered upon, to leave the country; the consequence of which abstraction from the number of eligible recruits, was, that, when the conscription absolutely began, the magistrates were in most places obliged to enrol only sons of farmers, boys of fourteen, nay, in many cases, fathers of families, and even them were unable to furnish their prescribed quota.

The severity of this alternative, also, produced universal dissatisfaction, and in some places absolute insurrection; the magistrates were personally insulted, and the new conscripts forcibly liberated. To quell these disorders it was necessary to send military detachments from the nearest garrisons, and thus was time lost, and the troops, instead of being occupied in preparations for active service in the field, were driven about the country to enforce compliance with the laws. To this cause of delay was added that produced by the apathy of individual magistrates, who treated a measure, on the expeditious effecting of which the preservation of the country might have depended, with the same phlegmatic tranquillity that they would observe towards an ordinary judicial proceeding, and considered the delay of a few days quite as unimportant in the one case as in the other.

The supply of horses was attended with equal difficulty; no general returns of the horses of the country were in possession of the government, and a protracted examination and selection of them was, therefore, ordered. This alone was an operation which required some weeks; then came petitions from individual bauers, to be exempted from the proposed levy; these had to be considered and reported upon, (for none of the usual forms and delays of office could be dispensed with;) and thus, when hours were of value, whole days were uselessly sacrificed. At length, horses were taken from the plough wherever they could be procured, and distributed among the cavalry, artillery, and train.

A most unaccountable ignorance, both of the force and position, as well as of the designs of the enemy, existed among the authorities in Hanover. The French troops on the Yssel, which did not exceed twelve thousand ill-appointed combatants, without artillery, and having but a few squadrons of badly-mounted cavalry, were magnified into an army of thirty thousand men; these, it was supposed, would not pass the Ems before the Hanoverian ministry had been allowed time and opportunity to negotiate, or should any hostile movement be commenced by them, that it would be confined to occupying the mouths of the Elbe and Weser, taking possession of Hamburgh and Bremen, and, perhaps, that part of the electorate situated near these places; the ministry, therefore, judged it prudent to abstain from any offensive measure, and decided that, even if it were positively ascertained that the French were advancing towards the frontier, their movements should be met by a deputation, having for its object the obtaining, by negotiation, favourable terms for the electorate.

The former suppositions were soon found to be fallacious, and the rapid advance of the French army rendered the execution of the measure with which it had been decided to meet that event, immediately necessary; two deputies, M. von Bremer, chief of the tribunal of justice, and lieutenant-colonel von Bock, of the regiment of life-guards, were, therefore, selected, and commissioned to proceed forthwith towards the frontier, and endeavour to meet the French head-quarters either there or on their entrance into the country. At the request of Messrs. von Bremer and Bock, privy counsellor Brandes was permitted to accompany them; and, supposing the march of the French army to be directed upon Quakenbrück, Wildeshausen, and, perhaps, Osnabrück, these three gentlemen left Hanover.

In order to gain further information respecting the enemy’s line of march, the deputies took the road by Nienburg, Suhlingen and Diepholtz, on which they soon ascertained that, instead of the French being, as was supposed, in march for Wildeshausen, they were moving upon Quakenbrück, at which place the head-quarters had absolutely arrived, the advanced guard being on the road to Diepholtz.

The departure of the deputies did not cause any relaxation in the defensive measures which had been commenced. On the 30th of May, the footguards left Hanover for Nienburg, and on the same day prince Schwartzburg’s regiment repaired to Neustadt; a number of undrilled recruits, great part of whom had not yet been clothed, a few chasseurs, and one battery of horse-artillery, followed these regiments, marshal Wallmoden’s intention being to unite the whole on the right bank of the Weser, and form a line of defence extending from the junction of that river with the Aller to Stoltzenau.

Meantime accounts of the enemy’s continued advance towards the frontier followed each other with rapidity, and every succeeding hour rendered the situation of the electorate more critical; the reports made to marshal Wallmoden by the different colonels of regiments, and from the employés of the army in general, as well respecting the measures which were in progress as those which could only have been commenced, determined him to order the transport of recruits to be discontinued; a mass of undisciplined men would, he conceived, prove rather an incumbrance than an acquisition to the army; it was, also, impossible to furnish them with ammunition and appointments, and he therefore felt justified in taking a step apparently inconsistent with his former suggestions.

On the 1st of June his royal highness the duke of Cambridge took the command of the troops which had been brought together at Nienburg, amounting to about four thousand men; and his royal highness made immediate dispositions for surprising the enemy’s advanced posts on the night of the 2d.

But, on the 2d of June, the deputies returned to Hanover with the appalling intelligence that the French commander, general Mortier, had been instructed to require the surrender of the whole Hanoverian army as prisoners of war, the object of the first consul being, as he informed them, to procure as many prisoners as possible, in order that he might be provided with the means of regaining, by exchange, those French troops which the English might capture during the approaching war.

In not insisting upon the troops becoming prisoners of war, general Mortier stated that he would be departing from his instructions, and suffering himself to be guided by the advice and opinion of the generals whom he had consulted, and who thought with him that the advantage of avoiding considerable losses on both sides, and the sacrifice of so many brave men, would justify him in thus departing from the express orders of the first consul.

The deputies were pressed to give a final answer, and were forewarned that the march of the French troops would not be discontinued, and that if the least resistance was made to them, and the French general had once crossed the Weser, he should no longer feel himself bound by any offer which he had previously made.

The whole effective force at general Wallmoden’s disposal might, at this moment, be confidently calculated at two thousand seven hundred cavalry and six thousand three hundred infantry; and the regiments coming from the Göttingen country were already in march, and would have reached the Weser in a few days; neither marshal Wallmoden, however, nor the ministry felt sufficient confidence in this force to trust to it either for the defence of the country against the invading army, or for the obtaining, by the success with which its first offensive efforts were almost sure to be attended, more favourable conditions than those which Mortier had already proposed; and they therefore decided that the deputies should be sent back to the French head-quarters fully empowered to conclude a convention on those terms, at the same time endeavouring to moderate Mortier’s demand if possible; which negotiation having been decided upon, his royal highness the duke of Cambridge was recalled from Nienburg. Between this place and Neustadt the prince was met by the deputies, now proceeding with their final instructions to the French head-quarters; and having learned from them that they were empowered to concede to that proposition of general Mortier which rendered it obligatory on the Hanoverian army not to serve against the French during the war, his royal highness, in accordance with a previous declaration which he had made, "never to become a party to such an engagement," placed his commission, on the following morning, at the disposal of the ministry, and the same day left the country for England.

Notwithstanding the disposition with the government exhibited to terminate their labours by negotiation, and the preliminaries which had absolutely commenced, the invading army continued to advance; and this determination to take advantage of the forbearance imposed upon the Hanoverians, led at length to an affair of outposts, in which the intruders received a just correction.

About three o’clock in the afternoon of the 2d of June, the advanced vidette of a cavalry piquet of thirty-two men, under the command of lieutenant von Linsingen, which was stationed near the village of Borstel, on the high road between Nienburg and Suhlingen, gave notice that the enemy were advancing. Lieutenant von Linsingen, agreeable to the course which he had been ordered in such a case to adopt, rode forward with a trumpeter bearing a flag of truce, and stated to the officer in command of the enemy’s party, "that the French and Hanoverian authorities were already in treaty, and that the conference was likely to terminate in a capitulation on the part of the Hanoverians," adding a request that the officer in command of the detachment would suspend hostilities until the result of the negotiation had been made known. The French officer replied by taking lieutenant Linsingen and his trumpeter prisoners, and forthwith attacking the Hanoverian piquet, which, deprived of its commander, fell back upon a detachment of the same strength, that was stationed as reserve in the rear, under lieutenant Krauchenberg. This officer, ignorant of what had passed, but seeing enough to convince him that, as far as the outposts were concerned, it was no affair of diplomacy, quickly drew the united detachments behind a small bridge, and prepared to check the enemy’s advance. The French cavalry followed, and their advanced horsemen passed the bridge; but no further indulgence was shewn them by Krauchenberg, who, charging with impetuosity, drove the whole back on their support. The enemy were, however, too strong to admit of this attack being followed up with any chance of success, and, sending a few skirmishers after them, he retained his position. The French now re-assembled, and having brought off their wounded, again tried to force a passage; but in vain. Three several attempts were defeated, and seeing that no opening was likely to be effected by them across this part of the stream, they sent a detachment higher up to seek another passage. Krauchenberg, aware that this could be easily found, and his party thus surrounded, was about to retreat, when the brigade of the ninth and tenth dragoons, with two guns, and a light company of infantry, came up to his support. The Hanoverians now assumed the offensive, and the enemy as quickly commenced their retreat. Krauchenberg followed them to Borstel, where, apprehending an ambuscade, he drew off, and returned to his former position, having lost in the whole affair two men killed, and nine men and seventeen horses wounded. The casualties of the enemy could not be ascertained, in consequence of their wounded having been brought off, but it must have at least equalled that of the Hanoverians.

Thus terminated the only collision of military force which attended the entrance of the French army into the electorate; for general von Hammerstein, who commanded the advanced corps, finding that he could not maintain his position beyond the Weser, ordered the troops under his command to retire behind that river; and on the 3d of June the following convention was signed by the Hanoverian deputies, and the French commander at Suhlingen.

The electorate of Hanover, as well as the forts appertaining thereto, shall be occupied by the French army.
The Hanoverian troops shall retire behind the Elbe. They will engage themselves, upon word of honour, not to commit any hostility, or bear arms against France or her allies, for so long a time as the war between France and England shall last. They shall not be absolved from this engagement until after having been exchanged for as many general officers, officers, non-commissioned officers, soldiers, or sailors of France, as England may have at her disposition.
No individual of the Hanoverian troops shall leave the place in which his residence shall have been appointed, without the knowledge of the general-in-chief.
The Hanoverian army shall retire with the honours of war. The regiments shall take with them their field-pieces.
The artillery, powder, arms, and ammunition of all kinds, shall be placed at the disposition of the French army.
All effects whatever, belonging to the King of England, shall be placed at the disposition of the French army.
All the public chests shall be put under sequestration, with the exception of that of the university of Göttingen.
Every English military person or agent of whatever kind, in the pay of England, shall be arrested by the orders of the general commanding in chief, and sent to France.
The general commanding in chief will reserve to himself the power of making such changes in the government, and other authorities constituted by the lector, as he shall judge fitting.
All the French cavalry shall be remounted at the expense of Hanover. The electorate will provide alike for the pay, clothing, and subsistence of the French army.
The worship of different religions shall be maintained upon the same footing on which it is at present established.
All persons, all property, and the families of the Hanoverian officers, shall be placed under the protection of the French.
All the revenues of the country, as well the electoral domains as the public contributions, shall be placed at the disposition of the French government. Previous engagements will be respected.
The actual government of the electorate will abstain from exercising any kind of authority in the country occupied by the French troops.
The general commanding in chief will levy upon the electorate of Hanover such contributions as he shall deem necessary to supply the wants of the army.
Any article upon which doubts may arise shall be interpreted favourably to the inhabitants of the electorate.
The preceding articles shall not prejudice any stipulation which may be made in favour of the electorate between the first consul and any mediating power.

Done at the head quarters at Suhlingen, the (14 Prairial, an xi.) 3d June, 1803.

Provided the first consul approves (Sauf l’approbation du premier consul.)
(Signed.) The lieutenant-general commanding in chief, ED. MORTIER.

F. VON BREMER, judge of the electoral court of justice and provincial counsellor.
G. VON BOCK, lieutenant-colonel, commanding the regiment of Hanoverian life-guards.

from: History of the King's German Legion, Volume 1, London 1832 - 1837, Pages 13 - 30