Mixed Nationalities: Anglo-Germans

[MaureenE]

I have recently received  a genealogical record  from a relative  which indicates that an ancestor, who was twenty years in the Royal Artillery, and then with the Australian Army during WW1 (served Gallipoli, was wounded and returned to Australia then returned to serve on the Western Front where he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal)  very likely was actually born in Germany, so would have been an officially an enemy alien during WW1.

 

He joined the British Army in London in 1893, with a German surname,  and stated he was born in London. If the record recently discovered is actually him, he probably had been in London no more than about three years, and would probably have had a German accent. However, he was recruited by the British Army, and went on to become a professional soldier, being recruited as an instructor to the Australian Army in 1913.

 

The genealogical record seems very likely to be him, however I find it difficult to reconcile his Army service, especially his WW1 service on the Western Front, with him legally being a German national. It would appear that his likely parents were still in Germany during the war, although his likely father died in this period.

 

Cheers

Maureen

 

[SiegeGunner]

Many men of German ancestry, some German-born and technically German citizens, served in the Australian army in the Great War.  There is at least one book about them, 'German Anzacs and the First World War' (John F Williams, UNSW Press).

[MaureenE]

Thanks  SiegeGunner, for the book reference.

 

Cheers

Maureen

[bill24chev]

On 10/03/2017 at 09:15, SiegeGunner said:

Many men of German ancestry, some German-born and technically German citizens, served in the Australian army in the Great War.  There is at least one book about them, 'German Anzacs and the First World War' (John F Williams, UNSW Press).

I believe some were casualties and the "telegram" or other method of notice of death/ condolence was sent to next of kin in Germany via Swiss Redcross

[Gardenerbill]

There is quite a lot of information on ALien Labour Companies in Ivor Lee and John Starling's book 'No Labour No Battle'.

[Guest]

On 12/22/2014 at 18:19, Andrew Upton said:

I'm more than happy to accept to accept the newly caveated version since he has indeed been alledged to have been murdered. It's just not a view I subscribe to, since the main account by Reverend O’Rorke of his supposedly being shot whilst escaping reads more like a sop to his family than any true account of events, and none of the only workman witnesses to Yates' later apparent suicide appear to have given any accounts that contradict this view.

As to "generally accepted", I would say Wikipedia provides a very good marker as to what is generally believed by the majority of people, even if not necessarily correct every time, and Yates entry has suicide. That and the fact it's a view shared by Richard van Emden, who I would consider a published author who generally knows what he's talking about...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Allix_Lavington_Yate

Rather late response as I didn't see it first time (sadly). On trawling for other info I stumbled on this. I probably disagree with most of the above. 

 

1. Wikipedia. Really? It is not a benchmark I would use as any measure. Lots of good stuff but undermined by the fact that anyone can adjust the pages at their whim and therefore unreliable in my view. Interesting and thought provoking nonetheless

2. Van Emden. I don't buy the arguments. 

 

I am not sure which I am most surprised by. In case there is any confusion I think Yate was murdered and did not commit suicide (although I dont think anyone can prove or disprove this). He had many opportunities to kill himself and (allegedly) insisted his captors kill him according to Wynne's rather fanciful account (King's College if you are wondering - also full of errors and the author of the source of one of the greatest mysths of the Great War - and you need to give a blood sample to get access to the account from the custodians at Kings). Yate's  deep immersion in Japanese culture is slightly at odds with committing suicide when dying at the hands of the enemy was a clear option. The methodology alone defies (Japanese) protocol. His earlier published works on this aspect in Blackwood's magazine might well belie some of the underlying philosophy. Are we to believe that a man completely immersed in the Japanse culture who had been awarded the VC, randomly decided to cut his own throat while attempting to escape? Personally I dont buy it and Van Emden's opinion is not a reference I would regard as definitive in this instance as the citations are not exactly unbiased witnesses. We were, after all at war with the witnesses. No one will know for sure, and personally I don't believe all the pieces of this jigsaw fit.  MG

Edited 16 March , 2017 by Guest
typos

[Guest]

  Here is a German heritage casualty from my local area- German home life but British national.

 

GULDEN,  HENRY FREDERICK 

Private  10157,  2^nd. Bn.  Honourable  Artillery Company

 

Killed in action at  Bullecourt, 26^th July 1917, aged  30

 

     Henry Frederick Gulden was the elder  son of  Frederick Gulden (1863-1907) and his wife Minnie Clara Auguste, nee Kleinhorst. (1865-1911). He remained close to his younger brother George, a year or so younger, throughout his life.  Both of Henry Gulden’s parents were of German origin and were part of the extensive community of Germans across East London before the war. His father continued to use his German birth names, Georg Friedrich, within the German community. The father, the anglicised Frederick Gulden, was in turn the son of George Frederick Gulden, a German from the state of Wurttemberg, who seems to have arrived in London in 1849, as did many Germans in the aftermath of the revolutions of 1848, particularly from the western German states, in the face of political repression. London was attractive and the usual means of emigration was by ship down the Rhine. The German community was centered across the eastern parts-Whitechapel, Shoreditch and Stepney and was the most noticeable minority until the vast waves of Jewish immigration in the last decades of the century. The Germans were noted for their industry, particularly in business and their maintenance of German culture.

      Henry Gulden’s grandfather, George Frederick Gulden was a licensed victualler. He became naturalised in 1873 and at that time was the landlord of  the “Black Bull” inn in

Old Montague Street

, Whitechapel. Crucially for Henry during the war, George Frederick’s father, Frederick-a child of 8-was naturalised at the same time, along with his 2 sisters. This meant that, officially, Henry Gulden, despite evidence of a German homelife, was not classed as an enemy alien in 1914. Henry’s father, Frederick, was a butcher on his own account and in the censuses of 1891 and 1901 his business was at

366 High Street, Stratford

. It was a German pork butcher, common across East London before the war, specialising in pork products and in the range of sausages and “wursts” closer to a charcuterie than a normal butcher. The business was prosperous-the 1891 Census shows that the business had 4 employees living above the shop, 3 of them German.

    Frederick Gulden married Minnie Kleinhorst at St. Paul’s GermanChurch, Whitechapel on 23^rd December 1885. She was born in West Ham but both her parents were German, her father Wilhelm Kleinhorst was from Waleck and in business on his own account as a slipper manufacturer.. By the 1901 Census, the Gulden family were at

22 Lonsdale Road

, Leyton. The censuses of 1891 and 1901 both show a German female domestic servant, indicating that, culturally, the Guldens maintained a German domestic life. Of Henry Gulden’s early life and education, nothing is known but by the 1901 Census he was working as a commercial clerk. .By the 1911 Census, both he and his brother George were running their own businesses. George was a baker, running a “Scots Bakers”, Steven and Wilson in

Church Lane

, Leytonstone, while Henry was a wallpaper merchant. (Despite the name, Scots Bakers made different types of breads, again heavily influenced by a German background). Henry and his brother maintained a joint bachelor household,with a domestic servant at

35 Lonsdale Road

. Henry Gulden must have prospered for the probate after his death shows he left nearly £5,000-a considerable sum.

      Henry Gulden married  Ada Parry at WoodfordParishChurch on 23^rd December 1912- maintaining what seems a family tradition of Christmas weddings, the date being the same wedding date as his parents. They set up home at “Nettleston”,

Malmesbury Road, South

Woodford (Then still just a part of the Borough of Wanstead). Their only son, Frederick Robert, was born in Woodford on 30^th May 1914. When war came, Henry did not volunteer, nor did he attest. A small businessman, with a young family and a German heritage, he had no reason to rush to the Colours. Instead, he was a Special Constable in Woodford for 2 years.

    Henry Gulden was conscripted in July 1916 and medically examined at Epping on 1^st August. He obtained an exemption before a local tribunal in Woodford  for 13 weeks, running from 19^th July 1916 and was called up on 7^th February 1917 (Suggesting that he had obtained a further exemption of 13 weeks for which records have not survived). He expressed a preference to join the Honourable Artillery Company, an elite London territorial unit and was accepted, signing the HAC “Vellum Book” that day. Had his father not been naturalised, then Henry Gulden’s military service would have taken a different course- he would have been deemed the son of an enemy alien and kept away from front-line service in the artillery or medical services. It was only late in the war that those of more direct German ancestry were collected into 2 service battalions of the Middlesex Regiment ,30^th and 31^st, but still kept away from front line service.

    Henry Gulden was trained with the 1^st Reserve Bn. HAC in England and was sent as part of a draft of 24 Other Ranks to France for the 2^nd HAC, arriving on 12^th May 1917 at Le Havre. After further training at 8 Infantry Forward Depot, he arrived in the line on 1^st June 1917. His battalion had suffered heavily in actions at Bullecourt in the Spring and was being brought back to strength-his draft was one of several insisted on by a new CO, Lt-Col Richard O’Connor, a go-ahead rising star (as a General, he commanded in North Africa in the Second World War). Henry Gulden went into the line on 15^th June 1917 at the gruesomely named “L’Homme Mort” and  he did a further turn in the front line from 25^th June 1917 at Bullecourt, relieving the 9^th Devons who had been badly battered on the first day on the Somme,1^st July. Thereafter O’Connor was allowed a few weeks to get his new battalion into shape-it was re-equipped, new officers and a chaplain arrived and O’Connor organised sporting and other activities to build a team spirit. Battalions out of the line being “rested” did not get a lot of rest- they were used as fatigue parties for food, water and ammunition for those battalions still in the line. In addition,2^nd HAC was engaged in a lot of battlefield clearance of salvage of equipment and weapons from earlier in the year.

     Henry Gulden’s battalion was returned to the line at Bullecourt on the night of 24^th /25^th July 1917. On the afternoon of 26^th July the battalion was hit by a heavy German artillery barrage, which killed  Henry Gulden and 4 other men and wounded 6 others. The Leytonstone Express noted that he was killed by the “bursting of a shell”, indicating that Henry Gulden was killed by a German shrapnel shell that exploded in the air over the British line. Henry Gulden was buried, along with the other HAC casualties at MoryAbbeyMilitaryCemetery (Grave reference II.H.8). He is remembered on the Wanstead War Memorial.

 

Sources:  G.Goold Walker: The Honourable Artillery Company 1914-1919 (London,1930). Anon. Die Deutsche Kolonie in England (London 1911). Leytonstone Express, 25^th August 1917

[pagius]

On 21/12/2014 at 11:10, Guest said:

Battenbergs, Tecks (Life Guards) and Gleichens all changed names under a Royal Warrant in July 1917. Link here for the full shouting match

In the Army List of Aug 1914 there are; Von Essen Moberley (11H), Von Steiglitz (Connaught Rangers), Von Pawel, (6th essex)Von Peollnitz (Herman 10th Lincs), Von Roemer (RFA), Von Truenfels (HAC), Beitmeyer (7 H), von Brockdorff, Weinhardt, and the spectacularly named im Thurn, Bernhardt B von B (Hampshires) etc..to name a few. Some or all of who may well have German connections. I recall from transcription works a few dozen Germanic names popping up. I never made note at the time but I was constantly wondering if they had been given any stick by their brother officers or even (quietly) by the rank and file.

My sense is that outside the Colonel in Chiefs, the vast majority of Anglo-German officers were fully assimilated into British society and saw their allegiance with Britain. Given the sheer scale of the Great War, there must be examples of men who had split loyalties or even fled to Germany and possibly fought on the German side. I have a vague recollection of some British public-school educated men having fought for Germany.

More difficult to trace are those with English surnames due to their British father and German mother, or Germans that anglicised their names in prior generations. The histories and war diaries seem to be devoid of any mention, so I suspect any interesting material will be in personal diaries.

I recall reading Haldane was sidelined for his alleged German sympathies, which always puzzled me given the monarchy's links to the Vaterland. While not of German blood, he studied at Gottingen University and was fluent in German. If a man as important as Haldane could be sidelined, one wonders about men the Anglo-Germans.

Your idea on thread title is well received.

MG

The 3 Von Brockdorff brothers  Ulric, Charles and Hugh   were all  Maltese born and bred  .    All started with the  KOMR  (King's Own Malta Regiment) .  Hugh was attached to th e South Wales Borderers  (after serving with the KOMR at Gallipoli)  , Charles served in Salonica and Ulrich in Cyprus.     http://agiusww1.com/we-will-remember-them-1914-1918/