Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Waterloo 1815 (Adj. Frederick Schnath, 1st Line Batt. K.G.L.) fitted with original steel clip and replacement silver ring suspension, nearly extremely fine £3,000-£4,000

Dr Payne Collection, Glendining’s, July 1918; An Important Collection of Medals to the King’s German Legion, Dix Noonan Webb, April 2003.

Frederick Schnath served in the ranks from September 1809 and was commissioned Lieutenant on 18 March 1812. He served in Hannover 1805; in the Mediterranean, at Gibraltar, 1806-07; in the Peninsula 1808-13; in Southern France 1813-14; in the Netherlands 1814; and in the campaign of 1815 and the battle of Waterloo. In the Peninsula he was engaged at Busaco, Ciudad Rodrigo, Morisco, Salamanca, Vittoria, St Sebastian, Bidassoa, Nivelle, Nive, St Etienne and the siege of Bayonne. He was severely wounded on 18 June 1815 at Waterloo and promoted Captain by brevet.

Adjutant Schnath was wounded late in the day at Waterloo, at about seven o’clock, when the 1st and 3rd Line Battalions, formed in one square, beat off a powerful charge of the enemy’s cavalry. The 1st Line Battalion alone lost three officers killed and six wounded in this attack. Beamish, in his History of the King’s German Legion, makes reference to the ‘Journal of Captain Schnath, Adjutant, half-pay, first line battalion, late King’s German Legion,’ but the existence of this journal today is not known.