Editor's note: This must be the worst group of mercenaries in the history of the world. And this group of people is the main ancestor of today's German Americans.
The Surrender of Hesse Mercenaries in Trenton, December 26, 1776, by John Trumbull.
The "Hesse Powder Depot" of the Carlisle Barracks.
At Camp Carlisle in Comborland County, Pennsylvania, there is a 70-foot-long, 32-foot-wide bungalow built in 1777. The building was built by Hesseian mercenaries captured by the Continental Army at the Battle of Trenton and later used as a guardhouse for storing ammunition, hence the name "The Hessian Powder Magazine".
When the thirteen North American colonies declared their independence, the British could not have enough troops at hand to suppress it, and could only lend troops to hesse-Kassel, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Ansbach-Byruit, and Anhalt-Zerbuster. In the end, soldiers from the Hesse region were in the majority, so the armed force that assisted the British against the North American Continental Army was called the "Hesse mercenaries".
In the 18th century, when standing armies were not yet widespread, Shinra was always ready for war, while in peacetime it was leased to other countries in need of war in exchange for foreign exchange: for example, in 1714, 12,000 Hesseian soldiers were leased to Sweden in the war to conquer Russia, and the British also tasted the sweetness of renting Hesseians in the battle to suppress the Jacobite rebellion in 1715.
Hesse mercenaries in the North American Theater of Operations directly used the uniforms, emblems, and flags of their original units.
The Russian uniforms of the 1770s were originally considered by the British to lend mercenaries to Russia.
By the way, the British also tried to lend 20,000 soldiers to Empress Catherine of Russia, but the latter was too busy dealing with the situation at home to give up, so that the battlefields of the thirteen north American colonies were less Russian.
Although American history textbooks, historians, and even commentaries on reenactments often refer to hesseians who worked for Britain as mercenaries, it's easy to misunderstand that this was a group that fought in exchange for income. Or, as the average person thinks, the mercenary at least knows where he will go, for whom he will fight, who he will fight, and who he will fight, and will take orders voluntarily.
Unfortunately, the Hesse "mercenaries" could not receive money at all, only their clothes and daily food, and they did not know where they were going to fight from the beginning, and even many people did not volunteer to join the army. As for the money given by the British, it went into the pockets of the princes or dukes who took the lives of soldiers as clearance goods, and even the merchants accompanying the army did not have to match it, in any case, where did these peasant dolls in military uniforms get their coins?
The 18th-century British maritime transport scene filled the warships with people as cramming as far as possible, and then transported to land as soon as possible in flat-bottomed boats after arriving at the destination.
In May 1776, the first batch of 18,000 Hesse mercenaries "delivered" were forced into crowded cabins and sailed to the North American continent, arriving in New York in mid-August. Soldiers suffered from storms and diseases during the three-month voyage, and it was not uncommon for them to be bruised or faint in their own excrement in violently shaking cabins.
The famous German writer Johann Gottfried Thulme was on the first warship to set off. He was supposed to go to Paris to study theology, but halfway through he was caught by the conscripts and smuggled to England, and he was crammed into the crowded ground cabin with a bunch of children of about the same age.
According to his memoirs, the cabins were so low that no one could stand or half-squat, and had to lie the floor squeezed against each other (as if buried alive in a coffin), and then when the storm came, they would rush into a large amount of seawater, struggling back and forth every minute between near drowning and regaining a breath of air with their mouths open.
John Seume with his memoirs.
From Polpsmouth to New York, 1776: The Testimony of a Hesse Mercenary, an English translation of food, water shortages, and scurvy.
Because the weather caused the sailing time to exceed expectations, food became scarce later, and each person received only 17 lo (about 240 grams) of hard bread per day. Successive winds and waves destroyed many oak barrels storing fresh water, while uniforms, tents, and ammunition were damaged by rats, and then scurvy struck everyone unsurprisingly. Sehumé learned to drink seawater or chew tobacco leaves from the sailor's earthwork to "heal", but he could not alleviate the pain caused by prolonged immobility and paralysis of the limbs. Come to think of it, these days lasted three months.
A hunter who fought in New York and Pennsylvania in 1777.
Hesse-Kassel's 3-pounder smoothbore gun.
The Hesseian mercenaries who first arrived in New York were so confused that it was hard to think of a regular army, but the British managed to regroup them and defeat the Continental Army at the Battle of Long Island on August 26 of the same year.
The British had high hopes for these German-speaking soldiers, who were known for their strict military discipline, but did not want to use the Germans but stimulated the public opinion war.
These Hesse mercenaries became the public opinion capital of the Continental Army to encourage popular resistance. In the eyes of the Americans, these foreign soldiers who did not speak English were invaders, so the war of independence against the British ruling class added another layer of meaning to resist foreign enemies. The Continental Army and its supporters seized the opportunity to publicize the atrocities committed by Hesse mercenaries, saying that they had looted property, raped women, executed innocent civilians, and forcibly captured children and young people for hard labor.
The people of Philadelphia watched the captured Hesse mercenaries.
The fact, of course, is that the military discipline of the British and Continental Armies is half a pound —atrocities committed by all the belligerents in the War of Independence to a greater or lesser extent. For example, the locals who supported the British royal family would hide the female relatives of the family as soon as the Continental Army came in.
As a result, hesse mercenaries became infamous in the eyes of both North American patriots and North American royalists. And because all kinds of stories of adding fuel and vinegar spread too widely, coupled with the poor logistical conditions that led to the general poor image of soldiers, the Americans unanimously believed that hesse mercenaries were a group of foreign hooligans with weapons, a ragtag crowd.
The "Headless Horseman" of American folklore is said to be the ghost of a murderous Hessian cavalryman who continues to attack the lone traveler after the battle.
Christopher Walken's role as the "Headless Horseman" in Guillotine Valley.
The same actor played a Hessian officer in the 1975 historical drama Fauci Valley.
Hesse has become a universally derogatory term: the straw used by the Hesse soldiers to pave the ground is called the "Hessian bed" by the locals of the thirteen colonies; the wheat skinny mosquito that bites the crops is said to grow out of the "Hessian bed", which is called "Hesse flies"; people in this period are infected with the flu and will be questioned whether they have "Hesse fever"; even children have spread various stories about the villains of Hessian mercenaries, such as the horror film "Guillotine Valley" starring Johnny Depp. It is based on the folklore of Hesse mercenaries who go around killing innocent people.
Legend has it that in general, the combat strength of the Hesse soldiers is still OK, they occupy 1/4 of the British armed forces as auxiliary troops, mainly composed of hunters, hussars, flintlock guns, plus 3 artillery companies and 4 grenadier companies, each regiment is between 500 and 600 people, participated in every engagement with the Continental Army, and has had many beautiful records.
Hunters
Grenadiers
Hussars
artillery
Flintlock gunners.
Brass hat of a flintlock gunner captured at the Battle of Trenton (left).
Gradually, however, the British stopped sending Hesse mercenaries to the front, but remained in the rear to guard the camp. Because of the excessively bad treatment, many Hesse people chose to flee or surrender to the New World Army, even if the British used the death penalty and all-company flogging to intimidate. Even after the first continental army and the British army exchanged prisoners of war one-on-one in the early 1778, it was not uncommon for the returned Hesse prisoners to run from the British side to the continental army again.
Some Hesseian soldiers firmly believed that the contracts signed between the nobles of their homeland and the British had a clause that would be worth as many people died, which is why they were given such bad treatment and arrested so many inexperienced strongmen. Washington, on the other hand, promised every surrendered Hesse soldier 50 acres of land or to reclaim new fields in the southwest, far from the battlefield.
Virginia's 2016 reenactment of "Hessian mercenaries" at the event.
A resident of Hessian descent in Fredericksburg, Texas.
By the time of the Defeat of the British in 1783, more than 30,000 Hesse mercenaries had entered the North American Theater. In addition to more than 1,200 people killed in battle, more than 7,000 died of disease and famine, more than 17,000 people returned to their homeland to reunite with their families (including 1/4 of them immigrated with their families), and nearly 5,000 people chose to stay in North America to start a family — they will also become the backbone of the first generation of German immigrants in North America and the earliest developers in the southern United States.
For Americans today, the Hesse mercenaries are just a page in the history of the Revolutionary War that can explain the past, and the part of the historical reenactment that needs to be explained extra. For the British, unless they look up the historical records themselves, many people have no idea that there were German-speaking foreign soldiers in the war to eliminate the independence forces in North America.
Hesse mercenaries defeated the Irish rebels, the "Battle of Vinegar Mountain".
The atrocities committed against the populace in Wexfordshire made the Irish extremely resentful of the Hesse mercenaries.
Only one country still has a grudge against hesse mercenaries: Ireland.
In 1798, the British urgently sent troops to Ireland to suppress the revolution launched by the United Irishmen, killing both separatist and royalist supporters indiscriminately. During this period, in Wexfordshire on the banks of the Slavic River, the defeated Irish rebel army continued to break up into guerrilla resistance, which led the Hesseians to turn to cruel revenge on the old and weak women and children who could not fight back--this was closer to the mercenary norm in most of history, they did not get much silver, and they did not necessarily return to their homeland alive, but only to vent their anger on the weak.
I really don't know why in recent years, when people mention "mercenaries", they think that it is worth showing off their feathery existence. (*Shrug)
Everyone remembers this "Hello Little Sister, I'm a mercenary" meme, right?
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