Enemy Nationals in the British Army

[isanders]

I'm reading Middlebrook's The Kaisers Battle and it mentions one of the 16th Manchesters as being Private Hermann Schaefer, one of Manchesters pre-war german population.

I'm wondering how many enemy nationals joined the british army, and what criteria was applied as I would have imagined all enemy nationals would have been interned.

Anyone have anymore info?

all the best

Ian

[Ivor Lee]

Ian

When the war started there were a number of men of alien parentage serving in the regular army. For some time these men remained in their roles.

However as the war progressed (sorry cannot find the exact date at the moment - my memory tells me it was in June 1916) men of enemy parentage were transferred to the Middlesex Regiment to form alien (labour) companies.

These companies were placed under severe restrictions including not working within 16 kn of the front line, not used to move ammunition or hay, not near PoW companies nor at a base port.

In all 8 of these companies were employed in France and it was not until November 1918 that the restrictions on these companies were withdrawn.

[jhill]

My knowledge on this subject is mostly restricted to the Canadian situation. This may have differed from that in the UK due to the larger immigrant population out here, but the legal framework was quite similar, at least earlier on. Much of the relevant Canadian legislation and army regulations was initially copied word for word from the British equivalent.

Our modern notion of citizenship did not yet exist. One used the term “nationality”. This was determined largely by place of birth. In Britain (and thus Canada) there was a process by which “aliens” could be legally “naturalized”.

Enemy aliens, that is, men born in a country with which we were now at war, were ineligible for military service. In Canada at least, this was extended to include “naturalized” Canadians, as well as those born in any country whose major language was the same as that of any enemy country (I am not making this up!). Enemy aliens were all required to register at the nearest police station, and many thousands were actually imprisoned in camps.

Of course the system could not handle this very well in a society drawn from all over the world. Presumably thousands of would-be recruits were turned away at the recruiting office because of their place of birth. Others, perhaps due to lack of attention or knowledge of geography on the part of the reruiters were accepted and processed. I have seen Attestation Papers of men claiming to have been born in Austrian Galicia, and even Vienna which were apparently accepted and which men apparently served in France.

The bulk of our “enemy alien” soldiers, however, will probably remain unidentified. As I have mentioned on other threads, it seems obvious that fellows wanting to enlist adapted to the system. A large number gave their place of birth as “Russia”, which was an allied country. Everone knew that no one could check. Thus large numbers of Polish or Ukrainian born men served as “Russians” even though they were technically enemy aliens.

In this regard, I note that the War Diary of a battalion of the Canadian Railway Troops in Belgium records a visit by an official of the Russian embassy from London. This was at the time of the revolution in Russia, and presumably the French and British governments wanted to buck up the morale of their “Russian” troops. The lack of enthousiasm displayed can possibly be explained by the lack of “russianism” of the men.

Of course, much of this is just my opinion.

[Andrew P]

There is a book that was recently released called 'German Anzacs' which describes the large amount of Australians with a German background who served in the AIF.

Many of these men's parents or they themsleves were born in Germany.

South Australia in particular had a large German population.

A look through the AIF nominal roll will show quite a few Germanic names.

Many had no trouble enlisting under their own names, while others were rejected 4 or 5 times. Some also changed their surname on enlistment.

Unfortunately many German families in Australia came under suspicion during the war, even if their sons were fighting & dying with the AIF in France.

Regards

Andrew

[Mark Hone]

A distant relative of my wife's, Frederick Strolin (AKA Friedrich Strolhein) served with 2nd Cameronians and was killed in October 1916 at the Battle of The Somme. He is commemorated on Thiepval. The family were fairly recent immigrants to Liverpool from Germany, although I am not sure about their nationality situation at the time of the war. Friedrich was certainly born in Germany and the family still have relatives there.

[isanders]

thankyou for all your replies.

It gets more and more interesting.

[Guest Pete Wood]

How many South Africans fought with the British in 1914-18, yet had fought against them in the Boer War....??

General Jan Smuts is a classic example.

[healdav]

This happened with all armies. I have come across quite a number of men born in Germany, Austria and Switzerland who served in the French army (all of them from death notificiations).

It just shows that people were moving from country to country a lot more than we often suppose. Loyalties must have been very strained at times. I mean, someone who was born in Germany and lived their for, perhaps, most of their life, goes over the border to France to work (perhaps only a few kilometres) and suddenly your school mates and drinking pals are your bitter enemy.

Appalling thought.

And it got even worse. Because of the 1871 division of France you had families divided, so for a lot of people WW1 was a civil war. I have come across several French men who said that even into the 1930s they were coming across uncles or cousins who had been on the opposite side in the war because one part of tha family lived on one side of the village and the other lived on the other and the frontier after 1871 ran down the middle.

I have even heard of them saying that they found themselves at family events in French uniform whilst doing their national service and met relatives whose family had moved to Germany (usually the Saarland) in the early 1900s, and they were in German uniform.

And, of course there was the opposite way around as well.

It got even worse in WW2 when men were conscripted into the German army from Alsace-Lorraine (having been French from 1919 to 1940 when they were declared German!) and found themselves fighting the allies.

I actually came across one man (and there must have been thousands) who said he changed nationality five times and lived in the same house from the day he was born until the day he died.

[Jonathan Saunders]

Not quite a foreign national but presumed (by me) to have a German father was Jesse Penfold, Household Battalion, kia 12.10.1917 and commenorated at Tyne Cot.

I had a lot of difficulty finding details of this man and his family (ie parents/siblings) but when I started piecing info together I suspected that he was the son of a John (Johann?) Kohn, a German national (a skin dresser by profession - whatever that was).

Jesse's birth certificate has father unknown but certainly by the time Jesse was 18 mths John Kohn was lodging with Jesse's mother and had been probably well before that. By the time he was four, Jesse's mother had married John Kohn and they had another son aged 2 or 3. By this time Jesse had adopted his "step" father's name although that was probably how itt used to be in the circumstances. I think Jesse only reverted to Penfold, his mother's maiden name, when he enlisted in October 1915. Before the end of the war, and possibly before it started, his mother had been widowed but she maintained using her married name until she died, sometime afterwards.

Not conclusive but I have always suspected that Jesse Penfold, who died fighting for the British Army, was the son of a German national and I suspect this was not unusual on either side.

[Myrtle]

(a skin dresser by profession - whatever that was).

Signals

An old term for a man who shaved or pared leather.

[Guest Pete Wood]

a skin dresser by profession - whatever that was

Animal skin/fur preperation.

I attended Skinners Grammar School, Tunbridge Wells, and my education was subsidised by the Worshipful Company of Skinners and is one of the oldest guilds, with the headquarters in the City of London - hence the examination term, City and Guilds.

[Jonathan Saunders]

Thanks Myrtle and RT.

[BeppoSapone]

I'm reading Middlebrook's The Kaisers Battle and it mentions one of the 16th Manchesters as being Private Hermann Schaefer, one of Manchesters pre-war german population.

I'm wondering how many enemy nationals joined the british army, and what criteria was applied as I would have imagined all enemy nationals would have been interned.

Anyone have anymore info?

all the best

Ian

We have all heard of the "Germans" on the British side in WW1, from the "Windsors" and "Mountbattens" on down.

Does anyone know anything about "British" people fighting on the other side?

One that springs to mind was a member of the Prince family, whose name had been "Germanicised" - Tom Von Prince, a German officer, who fought the British in German East Africa

[Clive Maier]

Signals

An old term for a man who shaved or pared leather.

Myrtle,

I fancy there may be more to it. A dresser is 'one who prepares' so I think a skin dresser would have done all the messy stuff prior to tanning or the final stages - whatever they are - for furs. Splitting a skin or shaving the edges down was done by - a fine old service term, this - a skiver.

I attended Skinners Grammar School, Tunbridge Wells, and my education was subsidised by the Worshipful Company of Skinners and is one of the oldest guilds, with the headquarters in the City of London - hence the examination term, City and Guilds.

Teapots,

I know a bit about the Worshipful Company of Skinners. I went to school in that other place five miles up the road.

[Guest Pete Wood]

Teapots,

I know a bit about the Worshipful Company of Skinners. I went to school in that other place five miles up the road.

I'd guessed as much when you mentioned your local memorials.

The Skinners still look after your old school - massive place, compared to mine.

Tonbridge was my half-way point home, on my bicycle, to Hildenborough.

[Robert Dunlop]

How many South Africans fought with the British in 1914-18, yet had fought against them in the Boer War....??

General Jan Smuts is a classic example.

The answer is heaps. The most influential example was probably Botha. He was hugely respected, even by the likes of the De Wet and the other Boer War heros who led the rebellion in 1914/15. Botha decided to only use Dutch-speaking soldiers to put down the rebellion. This amounted to around 20,000 commandos and other armed forces. Many of these (but by no means all) had been involved in the Boer War. Having rounded up De Wet, Kemp, Wessels, De Villiers and Van Rensburg, it was Botha who then appealed to the Parliament to be lenient and put aside 'all feelings of revenge and hatred'. This sort of behaviour, coupled with his own personal bravery, particularly in the campaign in German West Africa, held the Dutch-speaking and English-speaking force together when so many had been enemies in the Boer War.

Information from 'Urgent Imperial Service: South African forces in German West Aftica 1914-15' ISBN 1 874800 22 7

Robert

[Jock Bruce]

A fair proportion of the men who served in the WW1 Intelligence Corps were of imigrant parentage - German, French, Dutch, etc (plus possibly more from the Channel Islands than is strictly proportionate). Languages were the thing.

Jock

[Myrtle]

I fancy there may be more to it. A dresser is 'one who prepares' so I think a skin dresser would have done all the messy stuff prior to tanning or the final stages - whatever they are - for furs.

Clive

At that time a skin dresser is more likely to have worked on the skin after the messy stuff had been done. A skiver was the name for the knife used to thin the leather. My information is based on having worked with a leather manufacturer.

Myrtle

[Charles Fair]

However as the war progressed (sorry cannot find the exact date at the moment - my memory tells me it was in June 1916) men of enemy parentage were transferred to the Middlesex Regiment to form alien (labour) companies.

I am currently ploughing through the BW&VM roll of the Middlesex Regt looking for 19th London men. I have so far found the ones Ivor refers to in the Infantry Labour Companies of the Middx mainly in the following volumes: WO 329/1506, WO 329/1507 and WO 329/1508. They were in very large blocks, and I would guess at least 2,000 names in total. Other volumes have smaller numbers of these men scattered around.

There is huge range of German (including a few Vons) and central European names, a proportion of which are Jewish. It is strange to flick through one of the large blocks of names - more like reading the nominal roll of a German unit than a unit of the British Army.

A proportion (I'm guessing here at 10 - 20 %) had already served overseas with th BEF, many in an infantry unit. I found one who, judging by his number had been a prewar member of the Hertfordshire Regt

[jhill]

Just to add a bit more to this thread I append this detail from a Canadian Division Order dated November, 1914 at Bustard Camp. Presumably King's Regulations para 392 (xxv) refers to enemy aliens. I have tried to look up these fellows but most of them do not appear in the Soldier's of the Great War data base. Perhaps even their Attestation Papers were destroyed! For the eight or nine I could find, most, as expected, were born in Germany, Austria, or Turkey. Three (with germanish sounding names) were born in the U.S.A.

I take some interest in noting that a large proportion were with the 9th Battalion, which at this point meant they came from my neck of the woods.

[Paul Johnson]

Ian,

My Great Uncle, Rifleman Frederick KOTTMAN (of German heritage) was killed in action on the Somme on the 1st September 1918 whilst serving with the 1/21st London Regiment (First Surrey Rifles). He was 19 years-old and had been serving with the Regiment since April 1918.

I have often wondered how he would have been treated by troops with a"British" heritage.

No much help to yu but a point of interest.

PAUL JOHNSON

[Dimitri]

Hi there-

Interesting thread!!! The only thing I can add to all the above is that if you add the foreigners participating in the war on the British side as members of the British Merchantile navy, then the situation can get pretty messy ! I have seen Merchantile medals awarded to Greeks, a Cypriot and what appears to be an Egyptian (Middle Eastern anyways). I am sure that there were more nationalities represented in that force!! Best regards

Dimitri

[Dian]

Sometimes the names were changed (Battenberg to Mountbatten) or had already been changed before the war for ease of pronunciation. My grandfather saved the life of a chap called Geoffrey Burr when they were fighting in France. His family surname had been Buhr.

Dian

[N.S.Regt.]

I know of one man in the 106th Battalion C.E.F. who was born in Germany. 716253 pte. Anthony Richard Sumiejski his papers are on the Canadian National Archives website.

Best regards

N.S. Regt.

[Neil Burns]

Hi N.S.,

Pte. Sumiejski was born in Posen (in Polish Poznan) so it is possible (and likely as he was an interpreter at a steel mill) that he was an ethnic Pole.

Poznan was taken by Prussia during the Polish partitions of the late 18th Century.

I've never seen actual figures for the number of Germans who served in the US but know from my own local experience that large numbers of German immigrants and first generation Germans served in the US forces during the war. Carlstadt, NJ which is the town next door to me was originally settled by Germans in the late 1800's and I know from trying to research a WW I vet that the local newspaper was almost completely in German until the early 1920's.

Take care,

Neil