Death
of a Battalion
By
Dominic Fielder
“When
sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!”
There was no sorrow when I first saw the ledger; opening
it in the National Archive at Kew felt reverential. I had dreamt of such a
document but now here it was. A time capsule of the dates when Major Gunn, a
British commissary officer had signed Hanoverian and Hessian troops into the
service of George III.
I look at the images I have of those documents now and
still find a new detail in them. They remind me of both the joy and necessity
of research and how I need to find the time to return to Kew and study these
documents afresh.
The research trip to Kew had been in search of a story
and by chance I ended up ‘discovering’ the King’s Germans in the footnote of
the ledger above.
In the latter part of 1794, with the tide of war
turned hard against the Allies, two Hanoverian infantry divisions had
surrendered in the town of Nieuport, the life-line and shortest supply route of
the Duke’s army back to Great Britain. The war in Flanders was over in all but
name. Although the ravages of the last few months leading to the final winter
campaign yielded no large set-piece battles, the damage inflicted upon those
soldiers who fought in a series of small and largely forgotten rear-guard
skirmishes was great. There were a series of rosters dated between 1793 and
1795. Gunn had travelled throughout German principalities as the British
government carried out a series of negotiations to purchase allied troops,
particularly infantry, to make good their own shortages and fulfil promises of
deployment quotas to Austria. Ultimately, there were never enough men, and by
late 1794, the troops that filed wearily into their winter cantonments on the
western banks of the Rhine, outside of Arnhem, were a shadow of the force that
had marched towards France twenty months earlier.
At the time, Nieuport was a location that held little
significance and there were two regiments to choose from, the 5th and the 10th.
I may have tossed a coin; I can’t remember now. Either way, I ended up with the
10th and decided on the 2nd battalion. The plan was to tell their
story, as truthfully as was interesting, within the bounds of fiction. And when
the battalion died, there would be no sorrow. I would be free to tell the final
tale of a confused retreat and my characters could be deployed as I saw fit.
That was the plan.
Except that history has a way of wanting to interfere
and the more that one researches, the more a writer feels duty-bound to tell
it.
Nieuport had been a perennial source of worry to the
British. The French had threatened it in September 1793 shortly after the
British debacle at Dunkirk. Furnes had fallen as part of a clever lightning
offensive in the spring of 1794 but Nieuport had held out, manned by a garrison
of Hanoverian, Hessian and émigré French troops. Only when cut off and
surrounded, by July 1794, did the defenders finally submit. Von Hammerstein,
the Hanoverian commander, was offered a stark choice. The redcoats could march
into exile with the honours of war but the émigré troops would be shown no
mercy. Everyone of them was put to the sword as traitors of the revolution.
Third brigade, to which the 5th and 10th belonged, would never see
those winter cantonments that bordered German soil.
The challenge now though, on the cusp of writing a
third book in a series of four that will tell this part of the war, is that 2nd
battalion is no longer faceless. I’ve come to love the characters, even the
ones that I created for readers to loathe. Throughout the next book, The Queen
of the Citadels, they will be plunged into the forlorn struggle for Nieuport.
Not all will make it, though each will fight tooth and nail as I type out the
words that condemn them, no doubt. Those who do, will become the flotsam of an
army, so badly scarred by its efforts in the low countries that six months
after it crossed the Rhine, the ledger shows 433 men on sick parade and 1056
still hospitalised from the force of 15,000 that had left Hanover in March
1793.
When 2nd Battalion was no more than an appendage to a
page, I had no qualms about their destruction. But now Sebastian Krombach,
Lieutenant Erich von Bomm, Captain Werner Brandt, Colonel Jacob Neuberg at al
are real to me and a small but loyal band of readers. In truth, some of that
decision can be put off until book, An Imperial Betrayal (nobody knows it’s
called that yet!). When the moment comes to wield the knife, my sorrows will
not be single spies, but legion for the death of the 10th and my fine
battalion.
The King of Dunkirk
The King’s Germans Book #2
May 1793: The French border.
Valenciennes, Paris then home! Every common soldier knows the popular
refrain so why can’t the commanders see sense?
The protracted siege of Valenciennes exposes the mistrust between the
allies. National interests triumph over military logic. The King’s Germans
find themselves marching north to the coast, not east to Paris. Dunkirk has
become a royal prize, an open secret smuggled to the French, who set a trap
for the Duke of York’s army.
Lieutenant Erich von Bomm and Captain Werner Brandt find themselves in
the thick of the action as the 14th Nationals, the Black Lions, seek their
revenge. In the chaos of battle, Sebastian Krombach, working alongside
Major Trevethan, the engineer tasked with capturing Dunkirk, must make a
dreadful choice: to guide a battalion of Foot Guards to safety across the
Great Moor or carry a message that might save the life of a friend.
The King’s Germans and the Black Lions do battle to determine who shall
be crowned the King of Dunkirk.
Except
St Amand: 7th May 1793
The warm
air was rich with the sights and sounds of insects carrying out their frantic
activities in the calm of a late spring evening. What traffic there was on the
road that wound through the Flanders countryside close to the French border
were mostly wagons, private traders or those hired by the Commissary General.
An army that was well fed, paid and had snatched victory from a certain defeat,
eased the path to selling what little surplus the locals could spare. The man
who had played a large part in that victory, according to the opinion of
others, could share little of the celebratory mood that had blossomed after
Rumes.
Von Bomm
had absented himself from an invitation to the Duke of York’s table, to face
the accusations of Baumann, his captain in 1st Grenadiers. Charged with
disobeying a direct order in combat, Baumann had demanded the satisfaction of a
court martial. The horse trotted an easy gait towards the 1st Grenadiers’ camp
and von Bomm felt the sap within him rise. He had bested a Baumann before, he
would do so again. A rugged, youthful complexion, powerful physique and blonde
hair swept rakishly forward under his Korsisch hat, the young bachelor’s easy
manner made von Bomm the focus of attention for the eligible ladies of Hanover.
He had
fought three duels in his life. At eighteen he fought for the honour of an
older woman who he thought he loved, three years later he fought to avoid a
scandal when a woman had become besotted with him and alleged scandalous
behaviour. That incident had been a clarion call for the handsome bachelor to
amend his ways or at least try. There had been minor indiscretions along the
way but for the last four years Erich von Bomm had led a more considered
life.
Then there
was the matter of Sophia; a simple misunderstanding.
He had
found the daughter of a well-respected judge on the side of the road; her
carriage having broken down. Offering the shelter of his buggy, he had ferried
the poor girl home but when Sophia had left his care and retired to the safety
of her father’s house, von Bomm had found a bag containing her dancing shoes. A
sixth sense had made him open the bag and he found an unsigned note detailing
an elopement. To return the bag to the front door risked the lovers’ secret
plans being discovered; this did not sit well with von Bomm’s more romantic
notions. In the height of the storm, he had attempted to scale a trellis
framework to a window where a candlelight had recently been lit, only to be
discovered in the act of ascending by a family servant.
The matter
could have been explained away but no-one seemed to be prepared to listen. Sophia’s
betrothed, Ludwig Baumann, had challenged von Bomm. The choice was stark.
Either resign his commission and accept full responsibility as being the author
of the note or face a duel to give Baumann, a seemingly boorish and snide
Guards officer, satisfaction. In the matter of the duel Erich von Bomm had not
even fired a shot, outwitting his opponent by positioning him into a strong
headwind. The glare of reflected morning sunlight and the fierce wind whipping
into Baumann’s face had made any attempt at an accurate shot tricky. The rider
flinched a little in the saddle with the memory of the shot fizzing past him
and slapping into the bark of a nearby tree. Then von Bomm had slowly raised
his pistol in an exaggerated action, a cool calculated response; before the
shot could be fired, Baumann had dropped his discharged weapon to the floor and
pleaded for clemency.
Then there
had been the meeting with Colonel Franke, two days after Rumes, when von Bomm
had been allowed to return to his duties, such as they were for an officer
facing the prospect of a court martial. The 1st Grenadiers colonel had simply
asked him two questions, outside of the small talk about his health.
“Did you
disobey a direct order from Captain Baumann in the face of the enemy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lieutenant,
given time to reflect on the matter, as no doubt you have, do you consider the
action of disobeying a senior officer was the correct course of action?”
“I have
given the matter a great deal of thought, sir. I have questioned my own decisions
and my conscience is clear. Had we given up Apple and Broken Tail house and
fallen back across the road, two dozen or more wounded men would have died or
been captured and the farm house that Captain Baumann was garrisoning, overrun.
Erich von
Bomm paused, then his eyes met that of his colonel. “Yes sir, I firmly believe
it was the correct course of action.”
Colonel
Franke had listened to the words, his face emotionless.
“Thank
you, Lieutenant. I will not show favouritism between my officers. You are
innocent until proven otherwise. I wish you to act as an aide to the Duke until
a date is set for your court martial or the matter can be resolved within the
battalion. For myself, I hope it is the latter but…”
Franke had
paused, lost in thought, before standing and offering von Bomm his hand. “Thank
you, Erich. I have communications to complete, return here in two hours to
collect them.”
In the
fitful nights of sleep that had followed, von Bomm had revisited the chaos of
Rumes, hearing the flames licking at the walls of the building, feeling the
inescapable heat and choking smoke that had caused him to push away the heavy
blanket he was wrapped in and gasp for air. Then he was stumbling through the
garden of Apple house, white blossom drifting around him on towards the church
whose cemetery grounds were filled with redcoat bodies, faces and names that he
knew. The last, a young grenadier clutching the lifeless body of the puppy the
men had christened Broken Tail. The pair looked as if they were enjoying the
lazy slumber of an afternoon amongst the ancient headstones, but it was a sleep
from which neither would wake and the moment that always shocked von Bomm
awake.
Adjusting
the wide brim of his light infantry hat to shield against the glare of the
evening sun, he nudged his horse into a trot. Four days had passed since the
interview with Franke. The summons to camp had arrived mid-afternoon today.
Whatever the outcome of the next hour Erich von Bomm was determined not to give
in. He loved his life and career in the army. Redcoats had died but that was
the lot of the soldier. He had played his part in delivering victory at Rumes
and despite the dreams, could find no fault in his own actions. The fate of
battle might rob him of everything he held dear in the blink of an eye, but he
would be damned if Captain Leopold Baumann was to be given such powers over
him.
Pick up
your copy of
The King's Germans
Dominic Fielder
The King’s Germans is a project that has been many
years in the making. Currently I manage to juggle writing and research around a
crowded work and family life. The Black Lions of Flanders (set in 1793) is the
first in the King’s Germans’ series, which will follow an array of characters
through to the final book in Waterloo. The King of Dunkirk will soon be
released and I hope that the response to that is as encouraging as the reviews
of Black Lions have been.
While I’m self-published now, I have an excellent support team that help me to produce what I hope is a story with professional feel, and that readers would want to read more than once. My family back-ground is in paperback book sales, so I’m very keen to ensure that the paperback design is something that I would be proud to put on my bookshelf.
I live in just outside of Tavistock, in Devon where I enjoy walking on the moors and the occasional horse-riding excursion as both inspiration and relaxation.
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See you on your next coffee break!
Take Care,
Mary Anne xxx