Here is a closeup of the inscription on the bottom of the right side of the memorial seen in the previous photo. On the very bottom right you can see the name "L. Lauinger". It so happens that Lauinger is my maternal grandmother's family name! So I can now state that I had an ancestor who fought in the Franco-Prussian War!

I am rather pleased at this since that war is one of my favorites in history. It brought about the unification of the German state as we know it today, where before there was a loose coalition of kingdoms, margraviates, free cities, and so on. It was the last time that the Germans were able to defeat the French with impunity. And because of French arrogance for most of the 19^th century, assuming themselves to be the dominant power of Europe by right, other countries were actually rooting for Prussia. According to an excellent book I have on the history of the von Moltke family (Field Marshal von Moltke was in charge of Prussia's army in that war), Queen Victoria of Britain sent a letter to Otto von Bismarck basically telling him to go for it when the war started. Moltke and many other Germans had it in for the French because they could remember Napoleon's troops rampaging across their homeland when they were children. And best of all, the French were generally expected to win, but didn't quite simply because of the superior organization (and artillery) of the Prussian troops that had been organized by von Moltke.

a fallen ancestor

And an interesting tidbit relating this to our Civil War -- did you know that Union General Phillip Sheridan was an observer at the crucial Battle of Sedan, alongside Bismarck and Moltke?