[In a pamphlet printed in Melsungen and published in Cassel in 1879 under the title of “Frederick the Second and Modern History, a Contribution to the Denial of the Fairy Stories as to the Pretended Sale of Soldiers by Hessian Princes, with a New View of Seume’s Statements,” there is quite a full defence of the Hessians and their service in America under the British flag. As it is a second and enlarged edition, it must have found readers, although I do not think I have ever seen any notice of this somewhat novel view. It may not be without interest to students of history to have a brief summary and statement of the defence of the Hessians and their princes, who ever since our Revolutionary War have been the subjects of obloquy and treated with lofty scorn and contempt.] The Seven Years’ War had enlisted England’s rich help in men and money. A powerful army of one hundred thousand men, composed of English soldiers, of twenty-four thousand Hessians, of Hanoverians and Brunswickers, enabled Frederick of Prussia to continue a resistance which otherwise he could not have maintained for two years. The North German states were not Prussian vassals, but allies of England for a hundred years, on the basis of common political aims. Hesse, as the stronghold of the Protestants of North Germany, had been in close alliance with England at a time when Brandenburg was little thought of. The ancient military glory of Hesse during the Thirty Years’ War was so great that Gustavus Adolphus on landing in Germany had asked for a Hessian, Colonel Falkenburg, as military governor of Magdeburg. For a century and a half Hessian soldiers fought shoulder to shoulder with the English troops, mainly against France. That they should again act together in America was not more The Elector Frederick had been educated on the Rhine, and shortly before the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War was the guest of the Archbishop Elector of Cologne. Political honors have been made the reason of the Elector of Saxony’s change of his Protestant faith—that he might secure the throne of Catholic Poland. Vanity and want of patriotic pride have led German princesses to win Russian husbands at the sacrifice of their Protestant faith, while no Russian princess has ever given up her church for the sake of a foreign husband. Frederick of Hesse changed his religion from purely personal reasons and in perfect honesty. It was long concealed from his father, a strong Protestant, ruling the church in the spirit of his ancestor Maurice. An accident revealed the secret, and violent was the anger of the sturdy Protestant father. At first he wanted to exclude his son from the succession, but this required an appeal to the Emperor, who naturally would refuse. The elder prince then, with the approval of his Parliament, made a close alliance with England, and this added to the security of his son’s English marriage. The eldest son of that marriage, later on Elector William, was to rule in Hanau, free from any influence of In 1762 Elector Frederick returned home at the head of the Hessian army, and Hessian administration replaced that of the foreign invaders; but the treasury was empty, the resources of the state exhausted, and the population reduced one-half. The country had been laid waste. The Elector declined all show, and quietly reoccupied his ancestral castle on January 2, 1763. The Parliament was summoned, and again exercised its constitutional rights to examine and criticise the financial statements of the government. These showed that the only resource for the needs of the army was the claim against England for unpaid subsidies, amounting to 10,143,286 thalers. The government was authorized to reduce the army and to apply any saving thus effected for pressing civil needs. The representative in London was instructed to urge the prompt payment of the debt due for Hessian forces in English service. The matter was warmly discussed in Parliament, and only in 1775 was the debt discharged in part to the amount of 7,923,283 thalers. In 1772 a short supply of food led to the establishment of public warehouses, where flour bought abroad was sold at cost price. The agricultural condition, however, was a very unfavorable one, and in 1775 England first broached a renewal of the old alliance, with a view to the employment of Hessian troops in the case of war in America. The project of American independence was heartily disapproved of in Germany and even in republican Switzerland. It was turning colonies into rival states. Then, too, in seeking an alliance with France and Spain, America was turning to the hereditary enemies of Germany. The course of the English As far back as 1757 the King of Prussia had asked leave to buy eight hundred Hessian recruits to take the place of that number of Saxon Catholic prisoners of war, who had been forced into the Prussian service to turn against their own king and country and had all escaped; but the old Elector of Hesse peremptorily refused permission. Prussia denounced the treaty by which the Hessian army served as allies of the British, but wanted to buy the individual soldiers as so many slaves. The young Elector openly disapproved the partition of Poland and refused any offer from Prussia. The feeling through Hesse-Cassel was strongly against Prussia and just as strongly friendly to England, and The first meeting with the enemy, soon after the landing of the first Hessian division under Lieutenant-General Heister, was a glorious one for his troops. At Flatbush Washington’s army was driven at the point of the bayonet almost to destruction, most of the American leaders captured, and nearly all their flags taken. The Hessian grenadiers who at Minden had attacked the French cavalry with the bayonet had lost nothing of the vigor they had shown in the Seven Years’ War. The war might have been finished in one campaign and the loss of the Colonies prevented, for at least two-thirds of the population of America looked on old England as the true source of liberty, but were coerced by the rebellious minority. But the English commander, Lord Howe, was a Whig, and forbade Heister’s pursuit and use of his victory. Howe ordered defensive lines to be fortified against the broken force of Washington’s army. This turned the tables. Washington enlisted a new army, largely by the promise of liberal head-money to recruits, and France and Spain appeared on the scene. The Yankees alone never could have achieved their independence. The Colonies then had only two and a half million white population. The Americans of to-day are the children of later immigrants, to a great extent the grandchildren of the very men who resisted the causeless rebellion, and even of those who fought against it. The anger of the Yankees wreaked itself on their adversaries by publishing the greatest untruths, the shallowest, idlest lies, that at first were unnoticed in Germany, but gradually, especially after the French Revolution, passed into German reactionary literature. These are now the stock in trade of modern historical writers. England paid into the Hessian state treasury, not to the Elector himself, between 1776 and 1783, besides indirect expenses, 21,276,778 thalers as subsidy money, and of this 2,203,003 thalers were arrears from the Seven Years’ War. Of this amount part went to pay the difference between the war footing and the peace footing expense of the Hessian army for eight years. The soldiers received the high English pay without deduction, often in gold, as is shown by reports, pay lists, and money accounts. The exceptions to the advantage of the war-chest were very rare, and for these the troops gained in a larger proportion at home. The wealth of the Hessian army in America is shown by the fact that in the first three and a half years of the war the common soldiers sent home through the regular channels some 600,000 thalers, and at least two or even three times that amount by mail or other facilities. The idea of a sale of these troops is absurd and ridiculous. Just as in other wars where allied troops serve together, so did the Hessians fight on the side of the English in America, with the advantage of not serving in unwholesome climates. They served under their own officers and were subject only to Hessian laws of war. The troops could not be divided unless in case of necessity; the supremacy of the Hessian state was never touched. If there were a “sale,” then there must have been a re-sale to their own country. At the beginning of the American war the Elector recommended to his Parliament the establishment of a war fund of 4,549,925 thalers for future state requirements. His wisdom secured a thoroughly good government, and at his death a national reserve fund of 12,473,000 thalers, while he had relieved the people of taxes to the amount of 8,255,000 thalers, practically a saving of 20,000,000 for the people. All he asked in return was an increase of his civil list of half of one per cent. He had found the country a waste; he left it a blooming, prosperous garden; he deserved the praise of MÜller, the historian, and At this time Frederick the Second [of Prussia] made another effort to draw Hesse within the influence of his policy. In 1779 he asked the Elector to send troops against a threatened Austrian advance from Belgium, then still under the Hapsburgs, so as to leave Prussia a free hand against its old enemy, and Prussia promised to pay subsidy for the force thus helping it against Austria. The Elector was supported by his Parliament in refusing thus to be tempted to violate his loyalty to the Emperor Joseph, for whom he had always felt profound respect. Frederick the Second was stirred to great anger, as he had made the Elector the honorary colonel of the Prussian regiment stationed at Wesel, and wrote to Voltaire: “If the Elector were of his way of thinking, he would not have hired his troops to England, but to Prussia; but the Elector was a Catholic and therefore loyal to the Emperor.” His real anger was thus confusing England with the Catholic powers. But it was a great good fortune that, thanks to the wise policy of its sensible Elector, Hesse was spared a renewal of the horrors of the Seven Years’ War, which its unquiet neighbor would have gladly invited, to its own great injury. The contrast between the two cousins and namesakes was a very marked one, for Elector Frederick was an orthodox Christian, King Frederick a follower of Voltaire. The Swiss historian, MÜller, republican as he was, wrote from Cassel to his Swiss home in terms of strong praise of the Hessian corps of officers, of their scientific and social culture; the Hessians, he said, are sound, honest folk, warlike and courageous,—all the peasants have served in the army, and in every village the men show the good effects in their manly strength and love of discipline. Almost every one can speak of his own or his father’s service in Sicily, in the Morea, in Scotland, Flanders, Hungary, or Germany, under Morisini or Prince Eugene or Maurice of Saxony or Ferdinand of Brunswick. All that Hesse has of material as well as intellectual advantages it owes to Elector Frederick, from hospitals to art galleries. In his day the visitor might think that Cassel The circumstances of the enlistment of the Hessian troops may be explained thus: German and other European countries had for centuries strengthened their armies by enlisting men. Hesse, and later Brandenburg Prussia, made service compulsory, and thus, in the years that followed the Thirty Years’ War, filled their armies with their own subjects. Still, voluntary enlistments continued and do so still. But no country cared for the enlisted man and for his protection from acts of violence at the hands of officers as Hesse-Cassel did, and yet no country has been so much blamed for its dealing with its soldiers. Personally, the Elector was opposed to all enlistments, both at home and from outside, and he tried hard to limit it after the close of the Seven Years’ War. When, however, in 1777, the Hessian Parliament concluded its treaty of alliance, which provided for Hessian troops to serve in the British army, it was necessary to increase the force, and there was a rush of volunteers from all parts of Germany, and the Elector No foreign subject was ever retained in the Hessian service against his will. All those who voluntarily enlisted for the American war were, on their return, regularly and honorably discharged, and received as a reward half a month’s pay at the high English rate as the personal gift of the Elector. All of this is proved by the official records. During his whole reign the Elector made a steadfast effort to prevent forcible enlistment, and went so far in opposition to neighboring sovereigns, who acted differently, that once, at least, this led to a formal declaration of war. His conduct was met by false reports industriously spread abroad to his injury. Frederick of Prussia knew that the Hessian government neither could nor would allow Hessian subjects to be enlisted against their will in foreign service. With consent of the Parliament, Hessian troops could serve as allies for a time regulated by treaty with any friendly power, but the State could never sell its individual citizens into foreign service. King Frederick could never introduce in Hesse the servitude that put his Brandenburg and Pomeranian subjects at his beck and nod. As early as 1760 the Hessian troops took the oath under the Hessian constitution, but the Prussian and Brandenburg people were helplessly bound to the nobility and princes as chattels down to 1808, and it was not until 1848 that the Prussian constitution, as the outcome of a revolution, gave the people the protection which the Hessians had always enjoyed. The Elector was libelled as no prince was ever before in history. He spent freely and largely of his own private means to help his subjects, yet an American, in his “History After this “Defence” was first published, it was submitted to Mr. Frederich Kapp, the Prussian American, who had attacked the Elector of Hesse in his books, and his charges were referred to the leading authority on Hessian history, who fully refuted them. To further substantiate the character of the Elector, reference is made to the funeral sermon of the Free Masons’ Lodge of Cassel on the death of the noble prince. Kapp’s books, especially his “Soldaten-Handel” [Dealing in Soldiers], are full of sneers at him and at his son, and although Kapp disproves and discredits the “Urias”[1] letter, it is on technical and not moral grounds that he relieves the Elector of the disgraceful charge of dealing in the blood and bones of his subjects out of avarice. He does not contradict Mirabeau’s appeal to the No less an authority than Moser, the historian, long ago pointed out that the Americans, with Franklin at their head, had perjured themselves. The Hessians wrote home their contempt for the leaders and the people of America from actual personal observation. From Washington down the greatest unfairness was shown to the “Loyalists,” who were driven into exile, stripped of all their property. He it was who tried to tempt the Hessians to desert, who proposed to burn New York, who ordered the execution of Andre, who wanted Aspill [Asgill], an entirely innocent man, put to death, and connived at the robbery of the Hessian prisoners of their English pay, prevented their exchange, and kept the stores and clothing sent for them. In SchlÖzer’s “Letters” are found the unfavorable opinions of the Americans written home by Captain Wagner, wounded at the side of Count Donop; in Wiederhold’s “Diary,” Philadelphia is described as a “confluenz canaillorum,” as bad as Sodom and Gomorrha, those who had escaped the gallows in Europe being warmly welcomed in the New World. Ewald warned the people of a suburb of Philadelphia that there was no honor among them; and Bauermeister, a British adjutant-general, was equally emphatic. Pfister, in his “History of the American Revolutionary War,” gives many details of the bad conduct of the leaders and people of the young republic. Dr. Kapp’s false charges relate to (1) the enlistment and Kapp charges that the Elector reserved the right, forbidden, it is true, to his officers, of filling the ranks of his regiments going to America by compulsory enlistment, and that his subjects fled to Hanover to escape it. Schlieffen and Faucit, the former the Hessian, the latter the English agent, and Suffolk, the English minister of war, had a long correspondence on the subject. The answer to this is that Hesse had passed stringent laws on this subject as far back as 1733, renewed them with increased penalties in 1762, Prince Charles of Hesse reported that in the war of the Kapp says that the Hessian soldiers who returned home at the end of their service received as a reward half a month’s pay, but the Elector received from England a whole month’s pay. Did he put the other half in his own pocket, or did he pay it all, as well as the extra half month’s pay out of his own pocket, over to his soldiers? The answer is, that there is a great difference between the allowance of a year’s subsidy after the peace to the treasury of Hesse as compensation, and the voluntary gift, by the Elector, to the foreign soldiers who had enlisted in his service, of extra pay as reward for good conduct. They had no claim, yet the Elector, following the English custom, gave them an extra allowance as compensation, after deducting the expense of their equipment and clothing. Kapp asks for reference to any official report of the action of the Hessian Parliament in favor of making an alliance with England giving the Hessian troops, and urging the Elector to make the treaty under which this was done. The answer is that the Duke of Brunswick set the example, and the Hessian Parliament urged the Elector to secure the payment of the outstanding balance due for the Hessian forces serving in the Seven Years’ War, and to do this by a new alliance with England, providing for a Hessian contingent. It was Schlieffen, the Prime Minister, who in the Hessian Parliament urged the English treaty as a means of refilling the state treasury, so exhausted that it was at the end of its resources. The Elector hesitated, but yielded to the urgent wish of all his ministers and the Parliament. Abundant evidence is found in the records of the Hessian army and the Parliament. Kapp asks what authority there is for the At the outbreak of the American war England owed Hesse 10,143,286 thalers in arrears for its services since 1764, of which 2,559,000 was due in 1760, making the total Hessian debt on the former date 7,425,965 thalers. England paid 900,000 thalers first, and later on 2,220,000 thalers, and Hesse still claimed £41,820 for hospital expenses; but there was still due to Hesse 3,128,000 thalers for its increased debt, and 300,000 for losses by fire and the sword, and 150,000 for local expenditures, and 914,772 for the expenses of the Hessian army. Mr. Kapp says it is claimed that the Elector paid his troops the full English pay, but his authorities show that they got only three-fourths of it, although he had promised Suffolk not to reduce it to one-half in the American war, as he had done in the Seven Years’ War. He certainly broke faith by a reduction of even a quarter. That the Hessian soldiers did receive the full English pay is attested by the The English troops in Gibraltar began their pay with £1 9s. for the sergeants, the Hessian troops with £1 14s. The general officers alike received £59, while the Hessian company commander’s pay was increased from £13 to £19 by special allowances. The second lieutenant in the English service got £5 2s., the Hessian one shilling more, and in addition there were extra monthly allowances—for lieutenants 8 thalers, for captains 32 thalers, for generals 180 thalers. The higher officers retained their Hessian rank with its pay. The Hessian commander-in-chief drew his English monthly pay of £121 and the Hessian pay of £182. Captain Ewald, of the famous yÄgers, is on record as notifying his company commanders that their pay was a guinea a day in addition to their share of booty. For provisions got in the country where the troops were serving there was no charge. The yÄgers received each twenty English shillings’ worth a month and his side arms; the line soldier, twelve and a half shillings. There never was an army so well paid as the Hessians in the English service in America. A married subaltern could support his family at home and live well. Ewald says the company commanders did this and saved money besides. Even the enlisted men saved sums reported at 170 and 300 and 525 and even 700 thalers. The pay department showed that thirty staff officers and six The English government dealt directly with the Hessian government; the Hessian soldiers fought alongside the English soldiers as their allies; their pay was regulated by the treaties made by the Hessian sovereign and approved by the Hessian Parliament. These provided fully for the pay and food and equipment and care of the Hessian troops at the expense of England, but on the basis provided by the treaties with Hesse and other allies. Mr. Kapp asks for particulars of the taxes released by the Elector. These amounted to 2,170,140 thalers, besides 56,000 thalers in the reduced interest on loans to public institutions,—the reduction of allowances to Hessian princesses of 159,466 thalers, and a reduction of war taxes of 204,000 thalers. Appropriations for the relief of the people injured by storms amounted to anywhere between 500 and 740,000 thalers; then there were paid for forage 147,000 thalers, for servants 90,000 thalers, and for arrears of 1,090,827 down to 1785, 300,000 were allowed and cancelled, and a debt of 116,000 for the administration was paid. Mr. Kapp denies that he charged the Elector with putting Kapp says that pay for wounded soldiers began in the treaty with Brunswick in 1776, although it was implied in the Hessian treaty at the time of the war of the Spanish Succession that three wounded men counted the same as one dead man, at about 51 thalers at modern rates. It is true that there were such provisions in the earlier Brunswick and Hanau Treaties, but Schlieffen had them struck out of the new Hessian Treaty of 1775. Dead men were replaced by living men and the injured and disabled by well men, while the latter went into the Invalid Corps and were duly cared and provided for. The contemporary accusations are perpetuated by Schlosser, who says in his history that England paid a premium that went into the Elector’s pocket for every limb that was lost,—and this is absolutely false. The Elector to the last day of his life made provision for the disabled soldiers. Such charges are made by Germans who ought to go to the Hessian archives and there find the truth. A fair statement ought to satisfy the modern reader that the great majority of American citizens of our own day have little in common with the perjured Yankees of the Revolution, and are, indeed, descendants of the men who fought against, rather than of those who fought for independence. The rebels turned against England and denounced it as a tyrant, although to it America owed Magna Charta and the Habeas Corpus Act. The treatment of the Indians by American governments shows how far they departed from the example For many years all of the charges discreditable to the Hessians have been drawn from the “Autobiography” of Seume tells another falsehood in reference to affairs at Ziegenhain. There was a garrison at that place of two companies of infantry and some artillerymen, and four hundred recruits, part of the Eighth Division, on its way from Cassel to America, and a handful of yÄgers under instruction. Some of the recruits planned a mutiny, and intended to kill a sentry and steal the regimental funds. Their plan was discovered and reported by one of the yÄgers. A court-martial sentenced two of the mutineers to the gallows and others to chains. Elector Frederick, whose weak point was kindness, reduced the sentence of a dozen of the offenders to whipping, and that of the men sentenced to be hung to imprisonment. This is record evidence, yet Seume says there were fifteen hundred recruits who were all at once charged with intending to rob and run away, among them old service men. Some of them had been sergeants and corporals in the Prussian army, yet Seume, nineteen years old and who had never carried a musket, was chosen robber captain. A worthless tailor from GÖttingen betrayed the plot rather than help carry the plunder to the next village. The Elector did show mercy to some, but only to enjoy the protracted misery of the men in jail. Now, if Seume knew of any such plot, he perjured himself by violating his oath in failing to report the fact. In May, 1782, he says there was an outbreak among the troops at Cassel. A body of recruits from Ziegenhain was increased by an equal number from the then Hessian fortress at Rheinfels, all on their way to America. At that time there were complaints of the poor quality of the recruits The official reports of Colonel Hatzfeld, in command of the detachment to which Seume belonged, and of Commissary Harnier, contain the real facts. The squadron consisted of six vessels for the Hessian recruits, two transports for freight, and eight more troop-ships, and two more with stores, and three frigates as convoy. The names of the ships and the directions as to the care and food of the men are all recorded. There were over one thousand men and a great number of women, wives of the soldiers with their children, all part of the Hessian force,—this was the ninth Hessian soldiers were so well treated that in the last century there was no other army with so few deserters. Why, then, did Seume desert? Why, eight days before the return to Cassel, did he throw away his good name and his pay and his property? Because in a fit of drunkenness he had made himself liable to sharp punishment for his neglect of duty as commissary sergeant, and for fear of the consequences he fled. In ordinary conditions he would never have abandoned the Hessian colors. He makes his fault worse by lying,—pretending that he and others enlisted from Prussian territory were afraid that they would be returned to Prussia and be forced to the hard service in its ranks, and this he says although he knew perfectly well that there was an order published at Bremerlehe which was perfect protection for him and men in exactly his position. Having told one falsehood as to his reason for deserting, he adds another to justify the first, and thus puts himself clearly beyond the pale of credit for any of his statements. He wants to pose as a martyr, and to do so vamps up unfounded charges against the Elector of Hesse. Between 1783 and 1810 Seume thought it more to his credit to try to forget and make others forget that he voluntarily entered the Hessian service, and pretended that he had been forced into it, as a palliation for serving against the Yankees, and boasted of his desertion, as if that, too, was to his credit. He pretends to give the replies he—an utterly unknown, unimportant enlisted man—made to captains, colonels, and generals. Any such answer would soon have brought down the punishment prescribed by the articles of war for insubordination. In later life Seume paid dearly for the sins of his youth,—and he did not atone for them by publishing his own autobiography. He had no reason to find fault with the Hessian Note.—This pamphlet is a disguised attack on the Prussia of 1866 for seizing and holding Hesse-Cassel, along with Hanover and Brunswick, as part of its own kingdom, driving the Elector of Cassel and the King of Hanover into exile. The author is clearly a champion of the lost cause, and seeks to justify it by rewriting the history of Hesse and Prussia of a hundred years before. He aims at elevating the claims of the Hessian electoral family in the eyes of their former subjects and of the rest of the world, and in depreciating the part taken by Prussia both at the time of the American War of Independence and in enlarging its own borders and increasing its power at the expense of the small sovereign states of Germany, whose princes opposed the aggression of Prussia and its claim to control the whole of Germany. It was the beginning of that series of advances which culminated in the establishment of the German Empire as the outcome of the war with France in 1870. Having crushed out all opposition within and near its borders, having driven the Elector of Hesse away and forced the King of Hanover into a hopeless resistance, Prussia granted its permission to Baden and Bavaria and Hesse-Darmstadt and Wurtemberg and Saxony and Weimar Footnote: [1] Attributed by Mr. Ford to Franklin. |