Fact checking a fictional character

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charwo
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Joined: 05 Sep 2020, 05:43
Location: Ohio

Fact checking a fictional character

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Post by charwo » 20 Oct 2020, 09:36

OK, I'm working on an alt history project and I'm making a protagonist. As alt fic, and this world is alt fic from the beginning, but with no butterflies cause I reject butterflies cause things don't happen for a reason they happen for 10,000 reasons, so I can change anything I want technically but I want to ground it in reality as much as possible.

Character's name is Becker. His family was ennobled at the end of the Seven Years War and actually made Knights, RItter, which is just above untitled nobles, but I think makes sense as it was for battlefield heroism, namely saving Frederick the Greats Life. The Guys name was Becker, but he thought von Becker sounded stupid and it's not grammatically correct in German, and since he was given an estate near Tanennburg he called it Freirichhaussen after the King who gave it to him. So instead of being (in English) of Baker he chose to be entitled as Baker of Frederick House or Becker vom Frederickhaussen

So the guys name is something like Wilhelm Frederick Augustus Immanuel Becker, at least before the revolution name the vons and voms into family names. Basically, despite being the first son of the line, he is trained at a Gymnasium in Konigsberg, I have one in mind, he's 17 when the war breaks out and his class is conscripted as armed cadets during the Russian offensive into East Prussia, something Becker is helpful in as it's his home turf. He's been trained as cav, and though technically the distinctions were meaningless in per-war Germany, in the hussar tradition, the scout harass, burn the supply wagons, shoot from the horse rather than lance, but they fight as infantry skirmishers.

As I have it, he becomes an officer very quickly because the war has needs for junior officers and his whole schooling was prep for this. His cav unit is on the eastern front and his battalion more or less becomes proto-special forces in order to not be stripped of their horses and turned into jager units. He comes out of the chaos in 1922 with eight years of combat experience and a fanatical hatred of communists, including a stint in the Polish Army as either a major or colonel during the Russian invasion of Poland. Wasn't his only rodeo serving non-German factions as he had a small force and basically fought for anyone who was fighting the Communists/

Thing is his mothers side is actually ennobled Messian Poles, that is Polish Lutheran settlers in the Lake district, the von Clementskis, which honestly doesn't sound too far off the mark given some of the clearly Polish names of many MANY German officers. In this version the original Clementski was at various points the right hand man of Albert Hohenzollern before and during his secularization of Prussia. Full Teutonic Knight. But the Von Clementski's are supposed to be quite a bit higher in the food chain of East Prussian nobility by prestige.

What I'm trying to figure out what was the wartime process and length of turning a cadet into a junior officer, especially with military prep. I'd like it to be under a year so he can start fighting again in 1915, but I'm flexible, and how far up the German ranks he could have gone in all four years and if the Germans have an equivalent to the brevet rank system or how much he'd have to take a demotion to stay in the MUCH smaller Reichswehr.

As a comparison, General Custer very young in the civil war, 22, and finished the war with a brevet rank of a two star general though had to take a demotion to Lt. Colonel to stay in the post war Army. I figure by the end of World War I being a Captain sounds reasonable, but if higher, I'd like to read stories of German officers who climbed higher. I want him to be a highly regarded, very competent if highly unorthodox badass, but not a Mary Sue.

The other is of course, how must cred with the other officers would he have if he comes back 25 with nearly eight years of constant combat? I would imagine that would make him more combat experienced than almost anyone in the Reichswehr. And that could be both good and bad.

And if anyone has links on how European middle names work and whyI'd appriciate it. The middle names SOUND right, but if there's method to the madness, I want to check it against how people actually named their kids in the late 19th century.

Thank you for your time.

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