German Legion (Crimean War)

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Memorial stone for the members of the British-German Legion, Haydarpaşa British Cemetery in İstanbul

The German Legion (English: British-German Legion , also Anglo-German Legion ) was a formation of German volunteers who were to fight as foreign legionnaires with the British Army in the Crimean War (1853-1856).

The officer Richard von Stutterheim was in Great Britain when the Crimean War broke out. The British government appointed him major general and entrusted him with the recruitment and organization of a foreign legion for the war. This German Legion was brought to Istanbul , but was no longer used because the fighting had ended.

In 1856 the Legion was stationed at the Colchester Garrison, where many soldiers married local women.

Some members of the unit were buried in the British cemetery of Haydarpaşa in Istanbul, there is also a memorial stone for the dead of the British-German Legion. After the Peace of Paris in 1856, its members were sent to the Cape Colony as settlers . A total of 2,400 men, women and children under Baron von Stutterheim were settled on the border of the Cape Colony. Several villages were founded by these settlers, including: Berlin, Frankfort, Hamburg , Hanover and the later small town of Stutterheim .

However, many of these settlers found no livelihood in the colony and emigrated again in the following years. It is estimated that around 1,100 of them emigrated to India in 1857 , where they returned to service with the British Army during the Sepoy Uprising , but returned too late to take part in the fighting as the uprising had already been put down. Gradually those who remained in the Cape Colony were released. The Legion was dissolved in February 1861.

literature

  • Bayley, CC: Mercenaries for the Crimea: the German, Swiss, and Italian Legions in British Service, 1854-1856. Montreal (McGill-Queen's University Press) 1977. ISBN 0773502734
  • Koller, Christian : The British Foreign Legion - A Phantom between Military Policy and Migration Discourses, in: Military History Journal 74 / 1-2 (2015). Pp. 27-59.
  • Westphal, William: Ten years in South Africa: only complete and authentic history of the British German Legion in South Africa and the East Indies. Chicago (BS Wasson & Co. printers) 1892.

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