Description
Hannoverian Waterloo Medal, Soldat Heinrich Bostelmann, Landwehr Bataillon Lueneberg, A German Militia Man from Luneburg fighting for Hannover at Waterloo.
Officially impressed: “Soldat Heinrich Bostelmann, Landwehr Bat Lueneburg”
The reverse design reads: “Hannoverscher Tapferkeit” meaning Hannoverian Valor or Bravery.
The Hanoverian Landwehr, meaning “Militia”, were local men from the Electorate (later Kingdom) of Hanover who had experienced years of French occupation under Emperor Napoleon after the country was conquered in 1803 by the French Empire.
As part of Napoleon’s grand plans to dominate Europe, Hanover was occupied by French forces and, in 1807, much of the territory became part of the new Kingdom of Westphalia, ruled by Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jérôme Bonaparte. From 1810, some Hanoverian lands were annexed directly into the French Empire.
Following the Allied victory at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, Coalition forces, including Russian Cossacks, helped liberate Hanover. In 1814, Hanover was elevated to the status of a kingdom, and George III became the first king, whose portrait would later appear on this medal issued by Hannover.
Thousands of Hanoverians then volunteered to re-establish their army and continue the fight against Napoleon. Many of these men served in the Hanoverian Landwehr and Regular Army during the Waterloo Campaign of 1815, helping to secure Napoleon’s final defeat.
The Lüneburg Landwehr Battalion was raised shortly after Hanover’s liberation in late 1813. Many local men volunteered, having endured years of French occupation, military requisitions, heavy taxation and economic hardship. Under the Kingdom of Westphalia, young Hanoverians had even been conscripted into Napoleon’s armies, compelled to fight for the very regime that had occupied their homeland despite their loyalty to King George III.
During the 1815 Waterloo Campaign, they formed part of Colonel Best’s 4th Hanoverian Brigade, under overall command of Wellington.
William Siborne, in his authoritative History of the War in France and Belgium in 1815, describes an incident during the Battle of Waterloo in which the Lüneburg Landwehr Battalion came to the aid of the Verden Battalion:
“Whilst a considerable portion of the French Cavalry was thus fruitlessly assailing the British Squares, a body of French Lancers, which had advanced considerably in the rear of those squares, made a sudden and unexpected charge upon the Hanoverian Landwehr Battalion Verden, which was then, as previously explained, deployed a short distance in front of the Namur road: it was completely successful, and the great part of the Battalion was cut down by the Lancers, who, emboldened by this triumph, were preparing to cross the Namur road, where a well directed fire opened upon them by the Landwehr Battalions LUNEBURG and Osterode, lying concealed in the ditch by which it was lined, threw them into disorder, and forced them to a precipitate retreat.
