[OL]Oldenburg Military History

Hello, Fred, Ingrid, Gerold and all listmembers:
I read with great interest all entries regarding "Oldenburg Military
History" and wanted to ask a few questions for some guidance. A family
history recently came into my possession which was written by a deceased
cousin (the son of one of several brothers, sister and parents who
emigrated from the Oldenburg area between 1882-1895). It noted that the
eldest son was conscripted into the Kaiser's army for 3 years at around
20 years of age, his service ending by 1882. The family lived in the
village of Hatterwusting and watched, at times, the Kaiser's army on
maneuvers in the area around them. The history said that Ernst Stalling
(the conscripted son) was a "Pioneer" in the army. Some time after his
service, he found out that they were coming back for him to serve for
another year...which he didn't want to do, so he deserted and went over
the border to the Netherlands and then on to America. This started the
emigration of the rest of the family.

My questions are these for anyone who might know: 1) What was a
"Pioneer?"; 2) Is there a good history book available that describes
service in the Kaiser's army?; and 3) Are there military service records
available for this time period that can be researched?

Thanks in advance for all your kind responses
Susan (Stalling) Dunaway
P.S. I did contact Dierk Feye and obtain his wonderful information on
my family ancestry!

1) an engineer
they built bulwarks and bridges and things
2) Yes (more later)
3) no.

Fred

Since my last few messages and exchanges with Ingrid, I did a
little exploring and found that my memory had failed me once again.

My memory of the Prussian hesitancy to be involved in Schleswig-
Holstein was confused with the first wat of the late 1840s and the
next one in the early 60s. In the former they basically stayed out
by design and in the second they joined with Austria but this time
with designs on the land for itself.

But that's not really what I wanted to bring up. I'm sure most of you
know that Oldenburg was an independent country until 1918 when
it became a state within the new Republic, the 2nd German Reich.
I don't know though how many of you wonder what the
Oldenburgers where doing serving a Prussian King or German
Kaiser before that. How did Oldenburg come to have it's men in the
91st Regiment of the 10th corps in the Prussian army?

I'm going to write a small paper going into the history of the
Oldenburg armed services, were they came from, where they
fought and who they were. What I really want to do and have
wanted for a long time is put all of this on the web as the subject
comes up again and again as new people discover Oldenburg only
to find such a dearth of information about its military arm.

So give me a little time. I'll be back.

Fred

PS I'm on a new computer as my old one is in the shop with
hopefully my diskdrive still in readable shape. But there were
unresponded mails on there and addresses to which I don't have
access to. So if you're waiting on me for something, that's my
excuse. :slight_smile: drop me a note if it's something urgent.

PPS One item in half limbo is a translation of the article I published
here in German on the first emigrants to Teutopolis. Somebody had
done a partial translation which I then fixed and modified slightly.
I'm still waiting for the second part so that we can finish this and
publish it here in English. There were a number of people intersted
in a translation.

The best I know in English id Jonathan White's 'The Prussian
Army, 1640-1871'

isbn 0-7618-0206-(1)=paper or (3) for cloth

but there are many as would be indicated by the 10 page
bibliography in the above.

Fred