16 April 2012

De Watteville [Swiss] Regiment

Ref; Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

WATTEVILLE, LOUIS DE
b. 1776 Bern, Switzerland. d. 16 June 1836, Rubigen, Switzerland
De Watteville's Regiment was a Swiss unit in the service of Britain. It was made up of Germans, Italians, Poles, Hungarians and Russians with a handful of Greeks and Frenchmen. Roughly 1/5th of its strength, including all the officers, was Swiss.
They were at Cadiz, Spain since late 1811 when ordered on 15 Mar 1813 to sail for the Canada's.
On 5 Apr.1813 de Watteville, 41 Officers, 1,414 men, 8 servants, 45 wives and 38 children boarder six ships the next day and reached Quebec on 4 June after calling at Halifax.
The regiment was in the Battle of Snake Hill [Fort Erie] and a few others. For more info consult the above Biography on DCB.

There was another Reg't, De Meuron with a similar history. They departed from Malta 4 May 1813 for Canada. I found some ref's by Googling their name, even a web page

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