For the Prussian Reserve and Landwehr there were two service awards, LD1 and 2. The LD1 was for 20 years and over. The LD2 was for how many years? I know wartime service counted for 2x. Did foreign service time count regular or 2x. Foreign service being time spent in a foreign consult.
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Imperial German Medalbars and Ribbonbars -
don't goooooooo there.
XX was for CALENDAR years and not actual service at all
... but LD2 was for any of a number of differently computed things:
often a "normal" reserve officer (if not the less frequently drilled enlisted men) would get one at about 12 years of duty BUT
they were for cumulative DAYS of service, so could be earned for much briefer periods, or much longer years before the days piled up.*** Draftees or short service types (not career enlistees piling up time for the regulars' long service awards) taking part in a "war or campaign" were entitled to one on discharge-- which is why NONE were awarded after 1914-- every draftee of World War One would have been qualified, then!!!
Many medical officer reservists, for instance, never got an LD2 at all-- never having served the ACTUAL DAYS required, but got an LD1 for merely being "on the books." And many a former regular who went into the reserves got one right away the next year, as in the case of my Döhring group-- I think a search on "LD2" or "LD1" will turn up a number of the old threads. Regulars who went reserves but then came back again did not have to give up their LD2-- you'll find a few sprinkled among the regulars in Rank Lists.
Wartime did NOT count double for these two awards.
*** after 1 year, taking part in 4 exercises of at least 13 days each, or a total of at least 17 weeks back in uniform, or
having served at least 52 days within a two year period, or
38 days in "over two years," (unclear in the original, but I believe this meant more than in a period of over 24 calendar months and under 36, though that is not specified) or
at least 4 months reactivated service after release into the reserves.
As can be seen from these requirements, a considerable bit of wiggle room and no set way to determine WHY/WHENEVER a Prussian LD2 was granted without knowledge of a specific individual's actual service. Many men in their 40s called back into the Landwehr in 1914 did NOT have enough "micro-time" accumulated by any of these systems to have received an LD2, and only officers got LD1s.
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