Setting the Scene
At the end of the eighteenth century, the web of small European countries was in danger of being swallowed by their neighbours. France, the United Kingdom and Russia all were expanding their empires. The fate of Lithuania had been determined in the 1807 Treaty of Tilsit (Tilzė in Lithuanian). The Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) had folded into Prussia and Russia.
The small countries were forced to form alliances with their neighbours. They hired foreign mercenaries to supplement their own armies. Unaligned countries such as Switzerland supplied soldiers to both the UK and France in the interests of ensuring their own survival.
Ethnic Lithuanians joined the armies of countries that would assist the return of Lithuania’s independence. This meant that many GDL men joined Napoleon’s army.
The tide was turning against Napoleon. His armies were shrinking as men became prisoners or deserted. Among those were Lithuanians who left Napoleon’s army in Italy, Sicily, Spain and Malta. Ninety-nine Lithuanians found themselves serving, not on the battlefields of continental Europe, but in British North America. as part of the Swiss-based de Watteville Regiment.
This is their story.