Hessian Mercenaries in the American Revolution

[Name of the institute]Hessian Mercenaries in the American Revolution

Who were Hessian Mercenaries?

Mercenaries were international, professional soldier or sailor usually an officer who fights for fee or plunder, not for a national or political cause or because he is a conscript. Historically, mercenaries have been important carriers of military skills across borders and among nations. Mercenaries have been around as long as war itself: they marched alongside, as well as against, the legions of the late Roman Empire; the Song emperors of China employed them in the twelfth century; they guarded great trans-Saharan trade routes for the empires of Mali and Songhay; and they fought for and against the crusader states of the Holy Land. The Aztec Empire was built by a people who began as for-hire soldiers to the more advanced city-states of the central Mexican Valley, who then founded their own city and callous and bloody imperium (Harris, 2009).

Great Britain leased the services of about 30,000 German soldiers to suppress the rebellion of the American settlers between 1776 and 1782. These soldiers were commonly referred to as “Hessians” because the majority of them (about 17,000 to 19,000 troops) came from Hesse-Cassel, and the commander of Hesse-Cassel's forces was put in charge of all German troops. Hesse-Hanau (about 2,400 troops), Brunswick (about 5,700 troops), Ansbach-Bayreuth (about 2,500 troops), Anhalt-Zerbst (about 1,100 troops), and Waldeck (1,200 troops) supplied additional forces. Hesse-Cassel was a small principality in the southwestern part of the Holy Roman Empire. With a total population of about 300,000 people, lacking natural resources, and occupying one of the least advantageous geopolitical places in central Europe, Hesse-Cassel's princes decided shortly after the Thirty Years' War that only the renting out of soldiers would secure Hesse a prestigious and influential position in European politics. The Hessian troops wore the traditional Hessian uniform. They were fully equipped and had to swear an oath to both the Hessian sovereign and King George III. Although many were forced into military service by recruiters for instance, Johann Gottfried Seume not all had joined the military involuntarily (Edward, 2005).

What they did and why

In parts of Medieval Europe primogeniture ensured that many young men were forced to turn to arms to earn a living. This produced the necessary forces to eventually defeat the Vikings and other warlike invaders and raiders, with the later surfeit of warriors produced by a whole society structured for war sent off to fight the Crusades. By the thirteenth century, independent mercenary bands (“companies”) were commonplace, and a social and economic scourge, especially in France during the Hundred Years' War. Much of the Reconquista was fueled by mercenary impulse, a need for armies to live off the land. The hard methods and cruel attitudes learned by Iberians while fighting Moors were then applied in the Americas by mercenary conquistadores (Rodney, 2000).

Between 1648 and 1813, Hesse-Cassel's military forces were rented out to foreign powers such as Denmark, Spain, Venice, the Netherlands, and Great Britain on nearly forty different ...