The Hessians and the Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War
Author: Edward Jackson Lowell
Publisher: New York : Harper & Bros.
Published: 1884
Total Pages: 374
ISBN-13:
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A Generous and Merciful Enemy
Author: Daniel Krebs
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 2013-04-30
Total Pages: 479
ISBN-13: 0806189053
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSome 37,000 soldiers from six German principalities, collectively remembered as Hessians, entered service as British auxiliaries in the American War of Independence. At times, they constituted a third of the British army in North America, and thousands of them were imprisoned by the Americans. Despite the importance of Germans in the British war effort, historians have largely overlooked these men. Drawing on research in German military records and common soldiers’ letters and diaries, Daniel Krebs places the prisoners on center stage in A Generous and Merciful Enemy, portraying them as individuals rather than simply as numbers in casualty lists. Setting his account in the context of British and European politics and warfare, Krebs explains the motivations of the German states that provided contract soldiers for the British army. We think of the Hessians as mercenaries, but, as he shows, many were conscripts. Some were new recruits; others, veterans. Some wanted to stay in the New World after the war. Krebs further describes how the Germans were made prisoners, either through capture or surrender, and brings to life their experiences in captivity from New England to Havana, Cuba. Krebs discusses prison conditions in detail, addressing both the American approach to war prisoners and the prisoners’ responses to their experience. He assesses American efforts as a “generous and merciful enemy” to use the prisoners as economic, military, and propagandistic assets. In the process, he never loses sight of the impact of imprisonment on the POWs themselves. Adding new dimensions to an important but often neglected topic in military history, Krebs probes the origins of the modern treatment of POWs. An epilogue describes an almost-forgotten 1785 treaty between the United States and Prussia, the first in western legal history to regulate the treatment of prisoners of war.
The Hessians
Author: Rodney Atwood
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2002-08-15
Total Pages: 314
ISBN-13: 9780521526371
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA study of the German auxiliaries who fought with the British against the American colonists.
Hessians
Author: Friederike Baer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022
Total Pages: 529
ISBN-13: 0190249633
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBetween 1776 and 1783, Britain hired an estimated 30,000 German soldiers to fight in its war against the Americans. Collectively known as Hessians, they actually came from six German territories within the Holy Roman Empire. Over the course of the war, members of the German corps, including women and children, spent extended periods of time in locations as dispersed and varied as Canada in the North to West Florida and Cuba in the South. They shared in every significant British military triumph and defeat. Thousands died of disease, were killed in battle, were captured by the enemy, or deserted. Collectively, they recorded their experiences and observations of the war they fought in, the land they traversed, and the people they encountered in a large body of letters, diaries, and similar private and official records. Friederike Baer presents a study of Britain's war against the American rebels from the perspective of the German soldiers, a people uniquely positioned both in the midst of the war and at its margins. The book offers a ground-breaking reimagining of this watershed event in world history.
The Hessians and the Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War
Author: Edward Jackson Lowell
Publisher:
Published: 1884
Total Pages: 374
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKGerman Troops in the American Revolution (1)
Author: Donald M. Londahl-Smidt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-02-18
Total Pages: 50
ISBN-13: 147284016X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDuring the American Revolution (1775–83), German auxiliary troops provided a vital element of the British war effort. Some 30,000 German troops served in North America, continuing a long-established relationship between Britain and various German principalities. These troops were widely referred to as mercenaries, implying that they sold their services individually, but they were in fact regular troops hired as a body by the British. Initially feared by the American population, the German troops came to be highly respected by their opponents. Their role in the fighting would inform the tactics and methods of a generation of German officers who returned to Europe after the war, many of whom went on to hold senior commands during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. The largest body of German troops was from Hessen-Cassel. The only German contingent to be employed as a unit under its own general officers, they were clothed and equipped in the style of Frederick the Great's Prussians and were trained in much the same way. Many had seen active service during the Seven Years' War (1756–63) and served under career officers; they were well-disciplined and competent but showed little overt enthusiasm for the British cause. The troops of Hessen-Cassel would participate in every major campaign of the conflict, with the specialized skills of the famous Jäger being particularly in demand. Fully illustrated, this lively study examines the organization, appearance, weapons, and equipment of the Hessen-Cassel troops who fought for King George in the American Revolution.
Hessians
Author: Brady Crytzer
Publisher:
Published: 2015
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781594162244
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThree Stories. Two Worlds. One Revolution. Revealing the German Experience in the American Revolution through the Experiences of an Officer, a Baroness, and a Chaplain In 1775 the British Empire was in crisis. While it was buried in debt from years of combat against the French, revolution was stirring in its wealthiest North American colonies. To allow the rebellion to fester would cost the British dearly, but to confront it would press their exhausted armed forces to a breaking point. Faced with a nearly impossible decision, the administrators of the world's largest empire elected to employ the armies of the Holy Roman Empire to suppress the sedition of the American revolutionaries. By 1776 there would be 18,000 German soldiers marching through the wilds of North America, and by war's end there would be over 30,000. To the colonists these forces were "mercenaries," and to the Germans the Americans were "rebels. "While soldiers of fortune fight for mere profit, the soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire went to war in the name of their country, and were paid little for their services, while their respective kings made fortunes off of their blood and sacrifice among the British ranks. Labeled erroneously as "Hessians," the armies of the Holy Roman Empire came from six separate German states, each struggling to retain relevance in a newly enlightened and ever-changing world. In Hessians: Mercenaries, Rebels, and the War for British North America historian Brady J. Crytzer explores the German experience during the American Revolution through the lives of three individuals from vastly different walks of life, all thrust into the maelstrom of North American combat. Here are the stories of a dedicated career soldier, Johann Ewald, captain of a Field-Jäger Corps, who fought from New York to the final battles along the Potomac; Frederika Charlotte Louise von Massow, Baroness von Riedesel, who raced with her young children through the Canadian wilderness to reunite with her long-distant husband; and middle-aged chaplain Philipp Waldeck, who struggled to make sense of it all while accompanying his unit through the exotic yet brutal conditions of the Caribbean and British Florida. Beautifully written, Hessians offers a glimpse into the American Revolution as seen through the eyes of the German armies commanded to destroy it.
A Hessian Diary of the American Revolution
Author: Johann Conrad Döhla
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 1993
Total Pages: 306
ISBN-13: 9780806125305
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis unique diary, written by one of the thirty thousand Hessian troops whose services were sold to George III to suppress the American Revolution, is the most complete and informative primary account of the Revolution from the common soldier's point of view. Johann Conrad Döhla describes not just military activities but also events leading up to the Revolution, American customs, the cities and regions that he visited, and incidents in other parts of the world that affected the war. He also evaluates the important military commanders, giving readers an insight into how the enlisted men felt about their leaders and opponents. Private Döhla crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1777 as a private in the Ansbach-Bayreuth contingent of Hessian mercenaries. His American sojourn began in June 1777 in New York. Then, after several months on Staten Island and Manhatten, the Ansbach-Bayreuth regiments traveled to the thriving seaport of Newport, Rhode Island, where they spent more than a year before the British forces evacuated the area. The Ansbach-Bayreuth regiments returned briefly to the New York New Jersey area before they were sent to reinforce the English command in Virginia. Eventually Döhla participated in the battle of Yorktown—of which he provides a vivid description—before enduring two years as a prisoner of war after Cornwallis's surrender. Bruce E. Burgoyne has provided an accurate translation, helpful notes for scholars and general readers, and an introduction on the Ansbach-Bayreuth regiments and the history of Johann Conrad Döhla and his diary. This first edition of the diary in English will delight all who are interested in the American Revolution and the thirteen original colonies.
The Hessians and the Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War
Author: Edward J. Lowell
Publisher:
Published: 2017-04-21
Total Pages: 179
ISBN-13: 9781521121320
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWho were the Hessians? Why were Germans fighting in the American Revolutionary War? Why were they fighting for the British? Edward J. Lowell's classic text on the German mercenaries in the Revolutionary War explains all of these questions as well as many others. From the princes that ruled them to the troops themselves, Lowell gives a complete overview of these men that travelled to another country to fight for a cause that was not their own. These troops were involved in some of the most pivotal battles of the Revolution, from their first at Long Island, to Trenton, Stillwater and Saratoga. These professional soldiers were involved from the beginning of the war, and it was only on 25th November 1783, two years after the fall of Yorktown, that the last Hessians sailed down the Bay of New York back towards Germany. The Hessians and the Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolution is essential reading for anyone interested in the in the Revolutionary Wars and the soldiers who fought within it.Edward J. Lowell was a historian and lawyer from the United States. He first gained interest in the German involvement in the Revolutionary Wars after a trip abroad. It was first published as a series of letters in The New York Times but later published as a book in 1884. He died ten years later in 1894.
The Hessians and the Other, German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War (Classic Reprint)
Author: Edward J. Lowell
Publisher:
Published: 2015-07-07
Total Pages: 370
ISBN-13: 9781330919316
DOWNLOAD EBOOKExcerpt from The Hessians and the Other, German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War The history of the German auxiliaries, who fought for Great Britain in the Revolutionary War, has not received from American writers the amount of attention which its importance would seem to deserve. Much has been made of the fact that seven thousand French soldiers and nineteen thousand French seamen assisted the United States in the siege of Yorktown, but we have forgotten that a force of between fifteen and twenty thousand Germans served for seven years against us; that more than twenty-nine thousand were brought to America for this purpose; that more than twelve thousand never returned to Germany. I know of no American historian but Bancroft, who has made any thorough study of this subject in the original authorities, and the general nature of his work does not call on him, and, indeed, would hardly permit him, to write the history of the German troops in detail. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
