If this _Landsturm_ was to be mobilised for the maintenance of the security of the circle, or for service in the rear of the enemy, or in the neighbourhood of fortresses still held by them, the alarm bell was rung, and the town became in a state of stormy excitement. Anxiously did the women pack up food and drink, bandages and lint, in the knapsack, for according to the regulations no one was to forget the knapsack, bread-bag, and field-flask; it was his duty to carry with him provisions for three days; not unfrequently did the female inhabitants feel like the wife of a cutler in Burg, who stated to the commanding officer that her husband must remain behind, for he was the only cutler in the place, or like the wife of a watchmaker, who had compelled her husband to conceal himself. He was, however, traced by other women whose husbands had gone, was taken by them to the churchyard, placed on a grave, and punished in a maternal way with the palm of the hand. Any one who was a child at that time, will remember the enthusiasm with which the boys also armed. The elder ones assembled together in companies, and armed themselves with pikes; the smaller ones, too, had good cudgels. A poor boy who was working in a manufactory was asked why he carried no weapon, "I have all my pockets full of stones," was his answer; he carried them about with him against the French.[54] And no regulation of the _Landsturm_ ordinance was so zealously obeyed by the rising generation, as the provision that every _Landsturmer_ should, if possible, carry a shrill-sounding pipe with him, in order to recognise others in the dark, and come to an understanding. By the greatest industry the boys learnt to produce shrill tones from every kind of signal pipe, and there is reason to believe that the present use of the pipe in street rows was first adopted by our youths from hatred to the French. Seldom were the _Landsturm_ employed in military service in 1813; they were more often employed in clearing the districts of marauding rabble, and as watchers, or in the messenger service; their only serious military service against the enemy was performed at that Bueren, which under Frederic II. had driven back its flying sons to the King's army. There, after the peace, all the men wore the military medal. Up to the present day the people retain the memory of this feature of the great war; it has been more enduring than many others of more importance. Still do old people boast that though not in the field, yet at home they had borne arms for the Fatherland; it also is fitting that their sons should remember it. The time may come when in another form, and with stricter discipline, the general armament of the people will be an important part of German military power.