An Important Collection of Medals to The King's German Legion, the Property of a Gentleman

Waterloo 1815 (Adj. Frederick Schnath, 1st Line Batt. K.G.L.) fitted with original steel clip and silver ring suspension, extremely fine £1800-2200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, An Important Collection of Medals to The King's German Legion, the Property of a Gentleman.

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Collection

Ex Payne Collection 1911.

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; the campaign of 1815 and the battle of Waterloo. 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.