In the Dutch archives all soldiers and officers registers are studied and put in Excel sheets.
Everything is counted, calculated and summarized.
The author did carry out this massive task for he need the background information for writing his book about Sergeant Evert Roelof Bijl.
Nevertheless we like to make some parts of the information public. And that's what we will do here.
General information about the unit can be found in the history chapter at this site, but some extra figures can be found here.
Some facts:
Age.
Off all man enlisted to the unit 286 were below age 20. Between 21-30 there were 388 man; between 31-40 there were 163 man, between 41-50 there were 40 man and above 50 there was only one. The average age was 25,7 years.
Enlisted and volunteers.
Around 60% of the man volunteered for the unit.
Officers.
When the unit was raised in March 1814 there were 9 officers who were very old, recalled from retirement. They were helping to raise the unit and all went with pension again within six months.
Numbers
In June 1814 the amount of enlisted was on his highest point; 855 man. But soon after that this amount began to decline. Between march 1814 and June 1815 there were 49 deserters and 161 man who were leaving the unit for several reasons. Most of them went to overseas army units like the 2nd battalion/5th Regiment East Indies and the 21st East Indies Jager battalion. A lot of man also went to the newly raised navy. Some went out for illness or were found dead. Some had accidents during the service, some went to prison and some were replaced by other men. The battalion in June 1815 in Belgium had a strength of 561 men and 22 officers. In the depot were still 84 man left behind.
Veterans?
Although many books say that Dutch militia units were green troops this is certainly not the case. 61% was raw, 39% were experienced men, some with long histories in the military service.
Casualties during the campaign.
These can be found in the history chapter on this site. The total losses for the campaign following Kolonel de Jongh was: 10 killed, 108 wounded (some will return to there unit) and 3 captured or missing . That means that the strength must be 583 (take the field) man- 121 (losses)= 462 man. This means a loss of almost 21%. Of the 22 officers + one medical officer, one was killed, one badly wounded and 5 lightly wounded (7 in total).
The figures and names:
Click
here to go to all man who fought on 16th and 18th of June 1815.
Man in the depot company are not included here. This could take some time to download!
Click
here for the casualties list; wounded and dead.
Click
here for the officers records.
Click
here for the soldiers who received a medal for their brave service.
MWO 3rd class medal
MWO 4th class medal
