The Jaeger

Landgrave Frederick II of Hesse Cassel signed a Treaty with King George III of England to provide a Jaeger Corps, to help fight the rebellious Colonials in North America.  The trouble was no such unit existed.  Andreas Wattenbach, a man of minor nobility with distinguished service in the Seven Year War and a respected Jaegermeister, had the unique qualifications needed to establish such units.  However, he was happily married and expecting his first child.  Then his wife and son died in childbirth and he no longer had reason not to comply with the Landgraves request.  He threw himself into the task and soon found himself headed for North America on sea voyage which he feared worse than facing an enemy’s cannon.  He ended up in Canada with an independent command to test the concept of the new unit in the expected campaign from Canada down to New York City in the summer of 1777.

He found himself a pawn in an environment where the senior English leadership was engaged in internecine bureaucratic fighting over responsibilities, prerogatives and recognition while the English rank and file considered their Tories allies as unreliable and unappreciative, their German allies as incompetent, their Indian allies as children and the Whigs rebels as cowards.   The senior leadership didn’t know what the Jeagers were or how they should be used.  Andreas found himself working in the no man’s land between the British and Rebel Armies where they couldn’t tell which Indians were friend and which were enemies.  The Indians couldn’t tell which soldiers were friendly combatants which were deserters, or Rebel Soldiers.  Neither could tell which colonials were friendly Tories or Whig rebels. In this environment a split second error in judgment could mean their own life or the death of an ally.

Through all this Andreas tried reconcile his duty to God with his loyalty to his Prince and service to the British while maintaining his own integrity, filling his responsibility to his men and searching for his own ideals.

The Campaign from the North started with a triumphant departure from St John of a splendid expeditionary army, confident that they would soon be celebrating victory and the end of the American rebellion in New York City while waiting for transportation home.  They won an easy victory at Ticonderoga, but soon ran into an increasingly competent adversary and themselves started to disintegrate, until it was a starving, depleted and dispirited force that faced an overwhelming and confident rebel army at the battle of Bemis heights.  Andreas lead the remnant of his Jaeger Company on a futile advance into the face of the rebel guns.  By the end of the bravely fought battle the future of the United States and of Andreas had been decided.

Lee Watenpaugh was born in Arizona, has lived in Iraq, Germany, Morocco, and Belgium as well as nine different states.  He is a graduate of the University of Idaho, with a BA in Political Science, and the National War Collage.  He Served to the USAF and worked for the Defense Department for thirty-four years with assignments in the Air Staff, U. S. Diplomatic Mission to NATO and the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he was the Assistant for NATO Policy.  Among his recognitions is the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Award.  Upon retirement he joined I-Net Corporation which became the most successful minority, woman owned business of its time, where he built and was Vice President of the Network Products Group.  He enjoys Scouting (he has the Silver Beaver Award), traveling, camping and hiking and has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa,  twice since age of sixty-five.  Lee does volunteer work for his church and the National Park Service.  This is his first novel.