United States or Russia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Of our western neighbours, Switzerland and Holland come first under consideration, and then Belgium. Switzerland can command, in case of war, a combined army of 263,000 men. The Landwehr consists of 50.000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry, with 36 12-centimetre cannons belonging to foot artillery. It has a total strength of 69,000 men. The Landsturm finally has a strength of 53,000 men.

Every German, unless physically unfit, is subject to military duty and cannot shift the burden on a substitute. He must serve for seven years in the standing army: that is, three years in the field army and four in the reserve; thereafter he takes his place in the Landwehr . Conscription is the rule on the coasts for service in the German Navy.

Whether this was the consequence of the materials of which they are built, or was the result of some local institution, we were unable to determine. We saw a body of 3000 Prussian landwehr enter Brussels, shortly before we left the city. The appearance of these men was very striking. They had just terminated a march of 14 miles, under a burning sun, and were all covered with dust and sweat.

Prisoners of the 351st Regiment, which lost thirteen hundred men in fifteen days, told of officers who had refused to take their men up to the front-line, and of whole companies who had declined to move when ordered to do so. An officer of the 74th Landwehr Regiment is said by prisoners to have told his men during our preliminary bombardment to surrender as soon as we attacked.

Farther to the south three Austro-Hungarian divisions were also advancing namely, the Twenty-fifth Austrian Division against Lagow, and the Fourth Austrian Landwehr Division, supported by the Forty-first Honved Division, against Ivaniska; they moved along roads converging on Opatow.

Vorwarts! And the Landwehr with one great shout slew their enemies with the butts of their muskets until their arms were weary and the bodies were tossed like logs in the foaming waters. They called Blucher Marachall Vorwarts! "Then Napoleon was sent to Elba.

A completely new institution, that of the Landwehr or armed citizens, in contradistinction with the mercenary soldiery, was set on foot. Enthusiasm and patriotism were not wanting. The circumstance of the pope's imprisonment in Rome by Napoleon sufficed to rouse the Catholics. Everything was hoped for from a general rising throughout Germany against the French. Precipitation, however, ruined all.

The almost untrained peasantry comprising the Landwehr of the Mark and of Pomerania rushed upon the enemy, and, unhabituated to the use of the bayonet and firelock, beat down entire battalions of the French with the butt-end of their muskets.

I looked upon them with unqualified respect, and said to my young companion, that if all the landwehr regiments be composed of similar materials, Prussia can have nothing to apprehend from any hostile movement on the part either of Austria, or of France.

We had met on the road as we trudged along, several small parties of soldiers; twos and threes, belonging to the landwehr, or militia of the country, of which the season for training was arrived. This was not, however, the commencement of our acquaintance with that remarkably fine-looking body of men.