Marching to the Beat of a 9 Bars KGL MGS Medal

[Guest Rick Research]

Shared courtesy of the Traveling Museum from a gathering back in 2011 when I was offline. In honor of the bicentennial of the siege of St. Sebastian beginning 17 July 1813-2013, meet

Drummer Ludwig GOHLISCH of the 2nd Line Battalion, King's German Legion. Please note and correct in Mullen's transcription of the MGS Rolls that there is no final -e in Gohlisch's name.

Bars--

Talavera,

Busaco,

Fuentes d'Onor,

Ciudad Rodrigo,

Salamanca,

Vittoria,

St. Sebastian,

Nivelle, and

Nive

By the usual reckoning, there were 161 9 bars KGL MGS medals--144 other ranks/17 officers. But this battalion received 47/3--of which 6/1 are known to exist. You've previously been treated to the medal of Frederick Bode here at GMIC--made famous from the von heyden collection. With Gohlisch's medal, you will now have been treated to 30% of all 9 bars medals to this unit known to still exist.

As a further point--of the 1,216 MGS Medals to former members of the KGL--only 11 went to drummers!

Edited July 8, 2013 by Rick Research

[paul wood]

Very nice indeed. What would be probably even rarer is to find a KGL medal where the name on the roll is identical to that on the medal.

PAul

[Bernhard H.Holst]

Hello Rick and Paul.

Thanks for showing this incl. the name. I believe drummers in the British Army and consequently the Hanoverian Army were of a rather tender age. The KGL being more or less the successor of the Hanoverian Army probably carried on with that tradition.

As to the spelling of names , Anglo clerks coping with those strange names in the 18oo's?? BTW: to get both my first and last names spelled right nowadays here in the USA ...

Bernhard H. (Hermann) Holst

[Chris Boonzaier]

Having just watched all the Sharp Series onYoutube, I find these to be really interesting!

Nice medal indeed.

What kind of fighting reputation did the KGL have?

[Guest Rick Research]

That depends who you ask. The British-British considered the German-British "expendable," from the looks of things.

Bear in mind, these guys were in almost every particular the equivalents of the WW2 Resistance. They had to escape (French) occupied territory with a puppet regime over them, get across the North Sea... and then hoped for the best after years of Napoleon's ascendancy.

When they returned after Waterloo, the KGL veterans were badly treated due to political malfeasance and most of the self-same collaborators remained in situ.

Then Prussia annexed Hanover for the final time, and after all that, these guys' homeland ceased to be independent in their old age.

[paul wood]

You only have to look at the biography of Baron von Ompteda (commander 5th Line battalion) who died at Waterloo at La Haye Sainte after being ordered to make a suicidal counter attack by that numbskull the Prince of Orange to see the reckless bravery of the KGL.

Paul

[Bernhard H.Holst]

Hello:

I am of course prejudiced being from the former Kingdom of Hanover but believe as Rick already pointed out that those former members of the Army of Hanover then disbanded by Napoleon and new volunteers from Hanover of which the majority of the KGL consisted were patriotic men who braved some considerable obstacles and risked life and limbs to reach England to join the KGL.

The KGL earned a number of battle honors later incorporated by the Hanoverian Army and later still restored by Emperor Wilhelm II.

Here is a picture of the headgear of three Hanoverian formations so distinguished :

second Tschapka is that of Hanover Koenigs Ulanen, Pickelhaube of Fus.Regt. 73 (Hann.) and lastly Tschako of Jg.Batl.10 (Hann.)

All three have the Bandeau inscription Peninsula , Ulanen , Fuselier and Jaeger additional, different inscriptions referring to certain battles.

Bernhard H. Holst

[Bernhard H.Holst]

Hello readers:

Here are the battle inscriptions for the pictured head gear:

- Ulanen 13 Koenigs Ulanen (Hann)): Peninsula, Waterloo and Garcia Hernandez.

- Fus.73 (Hann.) Peninsula and Waterloo, (also Gibraltar cuff title);

- Jg.10 (Hann.) : Peninsula,Waterloo and Venta des Pozo, (also Gibraltar cufftitle);

Nearly all the other Hanoverian and also Brunswick formations had distinctions similar to these, otherwise battle or campaign bandeau inscriptions were rarely seen.

Bernhard H. Holst

Edited July 9, 2013 by Bernhard H.Holst

[peter monahan]

I can't speak to the reutation of the KGL Infantry much, though I believe they were considered good troops - the Prince of Orange was an aberration no army should have had to deal with - but the KGL cavalry regiments were considered superior troops because of their discipline.

Other mounted troops, including British, seemed to have made a habit of losing control during charges on enemy formations. British heavy cavalry, for example, got badly cut up by Polish Lancers at Waterloo after charging French troops and routing them but pursuing until their own horses were badly blown and then getting bogged in soft ground where the Poles speared them like sausages. The Heavies simply ignored the 'Halt' and 'Rally'. The Colonel of the Scots Greys was killed by a Pole as his horse bogged belly deep in mud and the unit took heavy casualties. The problem, as Napoleon famously says in the movie "Waterloo" was that they were 'the finest cavalry in Europe' and the worst led - 'hell for leather and devil take the hindmost' - while units like the KGL charged boot to boot and used the mass of the formation to do the work. You can see the action here, though it cuts off before the Colonel's death:

[Bernhard H.Holst]

Hello readers:

Peter pointed out the combat of Garcia Hernandez in some details , for which I thank him). Besides the Koenigs-Ulanen Regt.(1.Hann.) Nr. 13 wearing the battle distinction "Garcia Hernandez" in their Tschapka bandeau, the 2. Hannoversches Ulanen Regt. Nr.14 also wore this distinction as well as "Peninsula" and "Waterloo".

BTW: to this day the Hanover region ( now called Lower Saxony) has a well deserved reputation of raising excellent horses and good riders.

Bernhard H. Holst

[Paul_1957]

On ‎08‎/‎07‎/‎2013 at 01:58, Rick Research said:

Shared courtesy of the Traveling Museum from a gathering back in 2011 when I was offline. In honor of the bicentennial of the siege of St. Sebastian beginning 17 July 1813-2013, meet

Drummer Ludwig GOHLISCH of the 2nd Line Battalion, King's German Legion. Please note and correct in Mullen's transcription of the MGS Rolls that there is no final -e in Gohlisch's name.

I have Gohlisch's Waterloo Medal in my collection.  He was then still serving in the 2nd Line Battalion KGL but he had been promoted to Corporal.

Does anyone have contact with the person who owns his 9-bar MGS medal?  Back in 2011 when Rick saw the medal I imagine that it was located somewhere in North America.

Regards

Paul

[Jaybo]

I really miss Rick Research. RIP.