----- Original Message ----- From: "Betty Rudolph" <Reindeer35@cableone.net> To: <HESSE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 3:34 PM Subject: Re: [HESSE] Conscription story > My conscription story is an ancestor from Wuertemburg who was an orphan and > was conscripted at age 16 - in about 1811 - deserted and fled to Holland. > He came to America in 1816. One of the helpers in the German section at the > LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake told me that during the Napoleonic > Wars whole families often fled to Holland to avoid having their sons and > fathers conscripted. > This seems like one of those stories, as for most of that period Napoleon's brother Louis was King of Holland as Ludwig I then later the entire Netherlands was incorporated into France and all male inhabitants subject to the same conscription as citizens of France (which by then they were)! Before believing stories like these one should do some reading up on history. For this period there are numerous references including "With Eagles to Glory, Napoleon and his German Allies in the 1809 Campaign" by John H. Gill, which includes separate chapters on all of his German Allies David Rorer