The History of Feldwebel Wolfgang "Rutger" Bleucher

In 1520, spurred on by his desire to leave the family farm, Wilhelm traveled to Hanover to look for work as a manual laborer. He found employment in a large tailor shop that relied upon individual seamstresses around the city to create the garments for sale. Wilhelm was charged with picking up completed garments from the seamstresses and delivering them to the central sales point as well as delivering raw materials back out to the seamstresses to keep them working. It is here that he met my mother, Marie, a Danish immigrant whose father had traveled to Hanover seeking work several years before. Marie was a seamstress that Wilhelm delivered supplies to and gathered completed garments from. Over the next year they fell in love but before they could wed, the Empire started to gather armies for the Italian campaigns. Wilhelm, seeing an opportunity for additional money to afford a wife and family, answered the muster drums and began his formal military training. In 1522, Wilhelm marched off to Italy with a promise to return to Marie in due time.

 Following the Imperial victory over the French at Pavia on February 24, 1525, the armies returned from Italy just in time to fight in the peasant uprising in the southern parts of the Empire. With the end of the uprisings Wilhelm’s duty was over and he was released from his Imperial service. He returned to the family farm but also sought out Marie in nearby Hanover. There he found her again and they were wed. They moved to Hanover where he had been promised an opportunity to apprentice as a sign painter under a friend of his old Rottmeister from the army.

 While apprenticing in Hanover my eldest brother, David, was born. After completing his apprenticeship, Wilhelm moved his family to Magdeburg where he got a job with the town sign maker. My second brother, Steffan, was born there in Magdeburg. After several years working in Magdeburg, Wilhelm had saved up enough money to start his own shop and so he moved his family up the river to Wittenburg and opened his own sign business. During his years in Wittenburg, Wilhelm also added to his income by serving with the town guard as a jailer. 1541 was a year of change for the Bleucher household as my eldest brother, David, was apprenticed to the local stonemason and left the family hearth. This was also the year I was born.

 David managed to progress as a mason and eventually became a master mason. He married in 1543 and had two children (a son and a daughter) prior to his death in 1570. Steffan became a Teamster for several years before an injury ended his career at the reins. He has since taken work in a merchant’s warehouse in Dresden, married three times (having had two of his previous wives called home to our Lord) and one daughter by his second wife.

 As I was being raised in Wittenburg I was brought up on tales of my father’s service in the Imperial army. In 1557, facing a life in Wittenburg as a sign painter or a town guard, I left home and joined a fähnlein forming in Riesa called Der Toefel’s Kinder, where I met Josef von Thaden. He was my Rottmeister and we got along quite well together.

 Over the next several years I participated in numerous battles and held many jobs. I was at the Battle of Gravelines helping the Spanish Count of Egmont defeat the French Marshal Paul des Thermes, the year that Elizabeth took the throne in England, and I fought the Turks in Hungary. Additionally, I loaded wagons for a merchant, helped build pylons for a bridge in Stutengarten and worked as a runner for a moneylender in Baden bei Wien. Finally in 1564 my fähnlein disbanded near Augsburg. I questioned what I was going to do with myself as I journeyed into town to find a tavern. I had considered traveling home to see my parents, but as luck would have it after a day in town I heard a crier passing through the streets outside announcing the arrival of Der Kriegshund Fähnlein into town and that they were looking for able bodies to recruit. I rushed to join this new fähnlein. I had no difficulty in meeting up to the expectations of the Einziehenmeister and soon found myself with a speiß in my hands again.

 It was here, in the baggage train of Das Kriegshund that I saw a vision as lovely as any angel ever described in services. I was soon to learn this angel’s name, Anna Großhosen. Her father was the Faßbinder of the fähnlein. She also had a younger brother, named Dieter, who was determined to become a speißtrager some day.

 After a couple of weeks in town with the fähnlein mustering new recruits, Anna’s father, Laurenz, was given an offer to join up with a different fähnlein for better pay. As this meant that Anna, unmarried as she was, would travel away with her family, I asked her father for his permission to marry her and we were married the next day. Within two more days Anna’s family, Laurenz, Lois and Dieter left the city.

 We campaigned with Der Kriegshund Fähnlein for a few years with great success until one day in 1569, while in Austria; a strong young man came up to me and called me by name. To my surprise it was young Dieter, now all grown and striking a fine cut of a man. He told me that his mother had finally convinced his father to leave the fähnlein and settle down with a homestead. Dieter still had too much wanderlust in him to settle down yet. As his choice was to continue to travel with his current fähnlein with no family support or to settle with is parents, he chose to look up his sister and brother-in-law and seek employment with our fähnlein. He had been a capable speißtrager for a while already, so securing him a position with our group was not difficult.

 After a few months of battles against the Turks, my old friend Josef von Thaden, who was now a Gemenwebel with Das Nachtjäger Fähnlein, approached me and offered a position in his unit as a Rottmeister. When I asked if he could also gain a position for Dieter, he agreed. So we all moved over to this new fähnlein as soon as we could. I later learned that this fähnlein was lead by none other than Georg von Frundesburg, grandson to the Father of the Landsknecht. I saw this as a good omen.

 For the next few years we had many successful and profitable campaigns. We fought the Turks, the French Catholics and we even served a comfortable duty as bodyguards for the mother of the French King. Life was good. Dieter gained the trust of our unit Hauptman, Wolfgang von Schwartzwald and became a dopplesoldner and personal enforcer for the Hauptman.

 By 1572, I had risen to the rank of Feldwebel and Josef von Thaden had risen to the rank of Leutnant. While fighting the Spanish during the Dutch Revolt, our fähnlein was offered the chance to become a Verloren Haufe and act as a decoy for the remainder of the regiment. We were promised great rewards and a break from the fighting to all who survived. After the battle, which was a success but destroyed the fähnlein, all surviving members of the unit except the Hauptman was shipped to England to provide assistance to the English Crown for the summer months as part of our reward for our sacrifice. 

 Hauptman von Schwartzwald remained in the lowlands and began the process of mustering new troops to rebuild the fähnlein. I am enjoying my stay in England and having my family safe, but I anxiously await news from the mainland so that I may return to my regiment again.