A Hanoverian - English Officer a Hundred Years Ago. Memoirs of Baron
Ompteda, Colonel in the King's German Legion, 1765- 1815. Translated by John Hill, M.A. (Grevel and Co.)—" Every distinction is much the same to me," Colonel Ompteda once wrote, " unless it leads to the recovery of our lost fatherland," and a strain of patriotic regret and of pervading sorrow marks these Memoirs throughout. Christian Ompteda was the most affectionate of brothers, and his letters to Louis Ompteda, who became a dis- tinguished diplomatist, embrace a period of twenty-eight years, and show the constancy of his love. To Ferdinand, a younger brother, and like himself a soldier, he was also deeply attached. He was a young man in the days when Wertherism was in the ascendant, and formed a passionate devotion to a married lady, which seems to have been returned, but is said to have been wholly innocent. It had, however, the effect of preventing the thought of marriage, and increased, there can be little doubt, Ompteda's tendency to melancholia, which twice in his life in- capacitated him for active service. The successful invasion of Hanover by the French in 1803 was a bitter and enduring grief
to Ompteda, and he cherished an intense desire of revenge. His hopes were fixed on England, and there, as a Hanoverian staff officer, he aided in the reconstruction of the " King's German Legion." His letters from this country, when in 1805 an invasion was hourly expected, are full of interest. Ompteda's high abilities were recognised; George III. gave him a friendly reception, and declared at a later period that ho was one of his best field officers. " Happy is he who has a fatherland like England," is the Baron's exclamation on seeing again, after a brief visit to the Continent, "the lovely Kentish coast." After three years, Ompteda's battalion received orders to sail for Gibraltar, and there the Colonel remained for a year, during which time there was not a single delivery of letters, and of the letters written by Christian to his brother Louis, three only reached their destination. Ompteda's battalion, on being recalled, joined the expedition to Copenhagen, which ended in the capture of the Danish Fleet. Shipwrecked on the return voyage, he was made a prisoner of war at Gorkum. Later on, after a second severe attack of insanity, for which George III. showed the kindest interest and consideration, Ompteda highly distin- guished himself under Wellington in the Peninsular War ; and finally, owing to a foolish command of the incompetent Prince of Orange, died the death of a brave soldier on the field of Waterloo. Apart from his military genius and splendid courage as a soldier, Colonel Baron Ompteda was a man of large acquirements and of many noble qualities. Whether these Memoirs, edited by his grandnephew, will attract the general reader, is somewhat doubtful, for the style is a little halting in the translation ; and many of the allusions in the early portion of the book need more historical knowledge than he is likely to possess. But there are books that are not written for Mudie or the Grosvenor, and readers of another type will find much in this volume that will amply repay perusal. We have never had the advantage of com- paring Mr. Hill's version with the original published in Leipzig ; but it is easy to see without this comparison that in his endeavour to translate German accurately, he has sometimes forgotten that English also has its claims.
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