My great-great grandfather and uncle left Germany before it was a unified country when it was still little city states. All young males had compulsary military service with the Prussian Army but everyone was allowed to go home in the spring to help with the planting. Later they returned to military duty to what ever war the Prussian Army was fighting at the time. My male relatives escaped from Germany and the Army when released in the Spring by hiding on a ship leaving England to start a new life in America.