[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Germans drafted in Russian army

[gpvjem]

    My paternal grandfather served 5 1/2 years in the Russian army during the years 1878 to 1884 as a commissioned officer and Paymaster.  He was well educated and  multi-lingual, which was likely why he served in that role.   
    He was born in Poland but had to return there from Volhynia where he had moved with his parents as he put it "to fulfill his military duty".
    In 1905 his father in Volhynia, my g-grandfather, wrote to him (now in Canada), the following;
The Russian-Japanese war has caused a great deal of stress in our communities.  Many men have already been called into the army to become occupation troops and have been sent to the far east having to leave behind their wives, children, parents and their farms.  
    He goes on to describe the hardships resulting from the departure of the able bodied men.

John Marsch

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  My great grandfather emigrated from Volhynia in about 1896, taking a  
  ship in May of that year.  I'm not 100% sure where he was living but  
  my grandmother was born in the village of Michailoska in Kreiz  
  Zhitomir in 1894.  According to family stories, he was about to be  
  drafted into an army and so left for America to escape this draft.   
  I'm curious if Germans were subject to a draft (and what army?) while  
  living in Volhynia around that time.  Anyone know?