"Prussian Landwehr 1815: Regional Difference In Quality?" Topic

Hello everyone!

I know that the Prussians experienced some problems with their Westphalian units in 1815 – namely desertion, and thus assume that all other regions listed below were therefore of better troop quality than the Westphalians.

What I'd like to know is this, is it possible to group the landwehr of the regions below in to a 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. place ranking in terms of troop quality?

For example in 1815 no East or West Prussian landwehr were with Blucher's army. Was this because they were so poor to be of any use or because they were so good the powers that be thought it best they be kept in reserve with the V and VI army corps?

The region's landwehr (in alphabetical order) to be ranked are:

East Prussia
Elbe
Kurmark
Neumark
Pommerania
Silesia
West Prussia

All opinions are warmly welcomed

Dean Shaw

I believe – but can't give a proof for it – the East and West Prussian Landwehr units were left in the east, because there were sufficient Landwehr units farther west to fill Blücher's army and which thus had not to march so far.

In my opinion, if you want to rate the Landwehr units by "quality", they shouldn't be grouped by provinces, but by regiments or better even battalions.

For example, some battalions of the 1. Westphälisches Landwehr-Infanterie-Regiment had a high percentage of volunteers in their ranks (I am not talking about the detachments of self equipping Freiwillige Jäger here), and according to the regimental history, in the 1815 campaign this regiment performed quite well.

On the other hand, the 5. Westphälisches Landwehr-Infanterie-Regiment had many deserters from the beginning, and parts of it broke at Ligny. However, I don't know of any regimental history or memoirs of members of this unit.

In late 1813, one battalion (I don't remember which one) of the 1. Kurmärkisches Landwehr-Infanterie-Regiment was ironically nicknamed "the brave battalion" – obvieously, the other battalions perforemd better.

Generally, I think the info available is too sparse and sometimes too one-sided to arrive at any just classification of these units.

If you still want to compare the Landwehr (or any other) units, you could create a formula for the ratio of strength, losses and deserters and maybe – if at hand – awards distributed after the campaign. Some numbers, though obviously not always correct:

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According to Michael Leggiere in Napoleon & Berlin, the landwehr units in the Army of the North performed better than those in Blucher's Silesian Army. That those in the AotN "proved just as effective as the line, while others, particularly in the Silesian Army, collapsed at the first exchange of fire." (p.290)

He suggests that this difference was due to their regional loyalties and patriotism not being able to offset their poor training and lack of experience, but I'm not sure if he's suggesting that landwehr in the Silesian Army were less patriotic than those in the Army of the North….

BTW, I'm refering specifically to their performance in the 1813 campaigns only.

In 1815: The Silesian LW, I believe, is considered superior on the average to most of the others; those from Saxony and Westphalia (both recently absorbed by Prussia), inferior. But it seems to have depended, mostly, on how much experience they had or how long they had been in service.

Westphalian Landwehr in particular seems to get a bad press
And yet it was they who having struggled through the rain and mud for several hours repeatedly threw themselves against the Young Guard in Plancenoit-not a bad effort for an untrustworthy and badly trained outfit

The 1813 landwher were superior to the 1815 from what I hear. This could largely be explained as you say to the provinces they were raised from. Silesian Landwher were on the whole the best I think.

As jacko says though they put up a fiersom fight in planciot.