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A Generous and Merciful Enemy
Life for German Prisoners of War during the American Revolution
By Daniel Krebs UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS
Copyright © 2013 University of Oklahoma Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8061-8905-5
CHAPTER 1
Subsidy Treaties
Unlike other powerful European states, Great Britain never kept a large standing army. The English Civil War of the seventeenth century had cemented in the public mind a fear of the corrupting power of a paid professional military force. Therefore, when hostilities broke out with thirteen North American colonies in the spring of 1775, it was clear that the crown needed additional soldiers. Like his predecessors, George III looked to other states to enlarge his army, using subsidy treaties, an arrangement under which one contracting party provided funds to another in exchange for soldiers or other military efforts. Such agreements were common in early modern Europe—so common that "auxiliaries" is a more appropriate term for the troops than "subsidy soldiers." Contemporary armies were international institutions composed of servicemen from various regions and territories. Subsidy treaties quickly brought large numbers of trained and equipped soldiers to the front, at a relatively low cost. Over time, long-standing relationships, even alliances, developed between states that repeatedly negotiated such agreements. Hanover, particularly after the accession of Prince-Elector Georg Ludwig to the British throne in 1714, regularly sent large parts of its army into British service. Zweibrücken's men were an integral part of the French army by the end of the eighteenth century, and German auxiliaries served not only with the British in North America but also in the Regiment Royal Deux-Ponts, part of General Jean-Baptiste de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau's French expeditionary force at Yorktown in 1781. Prussia and Austria also used subsidy treaties to enlarge their already massive military establishments, particularly after 1740, when their decades-long contest for dominance in Central Europe began.
In 1775, Great Britain sent Hanoverian units to Gibraltar and Minorca, hoping to free up British troops there for service in North America. After the revolutionaries' invasion of Canada, however, it became clear that many more troops were needed. The court at St. James then approached Russia with a proposal for a subsidy treaty. This agreement would ensure that all auxiliaries came from a single state so that the British army would not have to be cobbled together from various contingents, with the attendant problems of communication, command structure, and logistics. Because of their foreign culture and language, Major General Henry Clinton was convinced that Russian soldiers in North America would also be less likely to desert. However, Catherine II did not want to send her soldiers so far away and claimed that she could not spare the large number of troops that George III desired.
The British were forced to look elsewhere. As so often before, they found enough soldiers among a number of small German principalities in the Holy Roman Empire. Back in the winter of 1774/75, the British envoy, Colonel William Fawcett, had already spoken to emissaries from Hessen-Kassel about the possibility of a subsidy treaty. For several decades, Hessen-Kassel had been closely associated with Great Britain and the so-called soldier trade (Soldatenhandel). Indeed, by August 1775, most officials in Hessen-Kassel fully expected that their entire army of 12,000 men would soon enter British service. Theirs was one of the best-trained, most readily available, and largest fighting forces on the European continent.
Subsidy Treaties
The first subsidy treaty, however, was signed with the principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel. In January 1776, Duke Karl I and his prince hereditary, Karl Wilhelm, agreed to make available 3,964 infantrymen and 336 dragoons. (See table 1 for British subsidy treaties with German principalities between 1776 and 1783.) Over the following years, Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel also sent numerous reinforcements. By 1783, more than 5,000 auxiliaries from this territory had served for the British.
In February 1776, shortly after concluding the agreement with Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, Fawcett signed the long-awaited treaty with Friedrich II of Hessen-Kassel. It was the most lucrative of all such treaties for a German principality in this conflict. The British backdated the agreement to January 15, making more subsidies available to speed up recruitment. Indeed, almost the entire Hessen-Kassel army entered British service and left for North America in April and June: four grenadier battalions, fifteen infantry regiments, and two Jäger companies, totaling 12,000 men. By 1782, seven replacement and reinforcement transports had brought the number of soldiers from this principality who served in North America to about 20,000.
On February 5, 1776, neighboring Hessen-Hanau, a small principality ruled by Wilhelm IX, son of Friedrich II and the prince hereditary of Hessen-Kassel, agreed to send one infantry regiment into British service. Under the command of Colonel Wilhelm Rudolf von Gall, this unit left Willemstad in the Netherlands with 729 soldiers, more than the contracted number of 688. On April 25, Britain negotiated for an additional artillery company of 120 soldiers under the command of Major Georg Päusch. One year later, on February 10, 1777, Wilhelm IX and the British crown signed yet another treaty, for a Jäger corps of 412 men. Finally, in January 1781, Hessen-Hanau agreed to create a Freikorps (corps of light infantry) with 830 soldiers. Including replacements and reinforcements, this small principality sent 2,422 men into British service. In light of these many subsidy treaties, later nationalistic German historians decried Hessen-Hanau's ruler as one of the worst petty princes in the Holy Roman Empire. Friedrich Kapp, for instance, characterized him as a "groveler without a will of his own."
On April 20, 1776, Prince Friedrich Karl August of Waldeck agreed to send 670 soldiers from one infantry regiment to North America as auxiliaries. Like other territories in the Holy Roman Empire, this tiny principality—Waldeck had only 36,642 inhabitants in 1777—had first offered its soldiers in November 1775. Since two other Waldeck regiments were already serving as auxiliaries for the Dutch, it took longer than expected to raise another unit. To the dismay of the British, the 3rd Infantry Regiment arrived late for embarkation at Bremerlehe on May 30, and did not leave a stellar impression. A roster compiled at Portsmouth three weeks later listed a total of 758 Waldeck soldiers, organized into one grenadier company and four musketeer companies. Including reinforcements and replacements, 1,220 men served with this unit in North America during the Revolutionary War.
In Ansbach-Bayreuth, on February 1, 1777, Karl Alexander's first minister, Carl Friedrich von Gemmingen, agreed to a subsidy treaty with Fawcett for two infantry regiments, one Jäger company, and an artillery unit. Like Prince Friedrich of Waldeck, Margrave Alexander had offered his troops to London in 1775, but it was 1777 before Ansbach-Bayreuth finally received the highly desired and lucrative treaty. Great Britain was planning large offensives that year and needed more troops. A regiment was raised in each of the two parts of the principality, Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach. At Nijmegen, 1,223 soldiers were mustered into British service. Over the course of the war, a total of 2,386 Ansbach-Bayreuth auxiliaries served in North America, including several replacement and reinforcement transports as well as an enlarged Jäger corps.
The last subsidy treaty between George II and a German principality was negotiated in October 1777 and took effect on April 23, 1778. Anhalt-Zerbst was initially supposed to deliver 1,100 soldiers for North America, but because of severe recruitment problems, only 625 left the Holy Roman Empire from Stade near Hamburg. Of the 828 recruits who had assembled in Anhalt-Zerbst, at least 334 deserted during the march toward the coast. A detour had made their trip longer because Prussia, fearing a war with Austria and Russia, had refused to allow the auxiliaries to march through its territory. En route to Stade, however, officers were able to enlist a number of men as partial replacements for the deserters.
In explaining these subsidy treaties, it is insufficient to point only toward the princes' greed or their need to finance extravagant lifestyles. Rather, such agreements had become increasingly important in enabling smaller states in the Holy Roman Empire to keep relatively large standing armies, which in turn allowed their rulers to play a bigger role in European power politics. Standing armies were also a matter of pride, honor, and status. Subsidy treaties not only paid for the soldiers but also secured respect for their sovereign among Europe's ruling elite. Moreover, they pumped money into local economies. In the 1770s, for instance, Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and Ansbach-Bayreuth were still suffering from the destructive effects of the Seven Years' War and were burdened by debts. Karl I and his son in Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel eagerly signed the subsidy treaty with Great Britain in 1776 because it essentially averted the bankruptcy of the duchy. Karl Alexander of Ansbach-Bayreuth, in turn, used the subsidies to create a central bank for his territories. Other states, including Hessen-Kassel, started infrastructure projects. Contemporary observers pointed out that the subsidy treaties also affected dynastic relationships between the Hanoverian king in Great Britain and rulers such as Karl I, Friedrich II, and Karl Alexander. These principalities can be considered part of an eighteenth-century "Protestant System" that included most of the northern states in the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands.
During the long eighteenth century, from 1688 to 1815, warfare became increasingly globalized. The great imperial struggles between Great Britain and France in this period were fought in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Auxiliaries hired through subsidy treaties were thrust into new worlds around the globe. At the same time that soldiers from Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, Hessen-Kassel, Hessen-Hanau, Waldeck, AnsbachBayreuth, and Anhalt-Zerbst served for the British in North America, two Hanoverian regiments went to India. In writing the history of the Atlantic world, it is not enough to focus on the exchange of goods and free or forced migration. It is also necessary to take into account warfare, the expanding conflicts of this era, the soldiers who fought in these wars and were shipped back and forth across the oceans, and the profound effects of those wars back home. In this imperial world of global reach, the Holy Roman Empire was not just a place from which tens of thousands of migrants went east and west; it was also a preferred recruiting ground for the British, French, and Dutch armies. When Karl Alexander opened that special post office in Ansbach, a distant world was suddenly brought very close. Events unfolding in faraway places had repercussions in parochial towns and villages such as Ansbach, Arolsen, Hanau, Hanover, Kassel, Wolfenbüttel, and Zerbst. The Holy Roman Empire was linked to the larger Atlantic world not only through trade and the exchange of goods and people, but also through subsidy treaties and the provision of soldiers for British, Dutch, and French imperial wars. The American War of Independence involved not only revolutionaries in Boston and Philadelphia and their British, French, Spanish, Dutch, and American Indian enemies and allies, but also Central Europe with the Holy Roman Empire and its many small states and principalities.
Criticism
Despite their long tradition and ubiquity, subsidy treaties were heavily criticized by German intellectuals and Enlightenment thinkers at the end of the eighteenth century. Friedrich Schiller portrayed German subsidy soldiers as innocent victims of greedy and tyrannical rulers who were interested only in luxuries for themselves and their mistresses. His 1784 drama Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love) includes a famous scene in which an old servant brings Lady Milford, the prince's mistress, a collection of precious gemstones. When she asks him who paid for all the jewelry, the despondent response is that the prince sold 7,000 men, including the servant's sons, to the British as soldiers. These young men, the servant explains, "pay for everything." When some of the soldiers dared to question their service for the British, they were immediately shot. Horrified, the others then shouted in unison, "Hooray, let's go to America!"
Less elegant but equally critical of the subsidy treaties was a play by Johann Krauseneck from 1777, staged just as the Ansbach-Bayreuth treaty went into effect. Titled Die Werbung für England, it tells the story of the Brawe family—a father, mother, and two daughters living in an unnamed principality—on the day before the recruits are supposed to leave for British service in North America. (Not incidentally, the family's name is pronounced like the German word brav, meaning "well-behaved" or "upright.") The family is about to be torn apart because the father, who is in his forties, has been conscripted into the army and is scheduled to leave for North America, despite having fought with distinction in the Seven Years' War and subsequently led a respectable life as a farmer. Fritz Knauf, the son of Brawe's well-to-do neighbor and madly in love with Lise, one of Brawe's daughters, has been conscripted, too. Mrs. Brawe, confronted with the prospect of losing her husband and future son-in-law, exclaims in anger
It's wrong! It's cruel! Is the prince not ashamed? ... Does he feel anything? Is he not bothered at all ... by driving so many fathers, mothers, brides into despair? Oh, those hard, inhuman hearts of the rulers.... So, we educate and bring up our sons as servants to a rich people, to protect a country that has nothing to do with us?
In the end, it is Brawe's old commander from the Seven Years' War, Captain Stromberg, who saves both Brawe and Fritz. He offers the recruitment officer two other soldiers in exchange for them. The play concludes with a play on words when Brawe says, "Blessed would be those states in which all princes thought like Captain Stromberg." Stromberg answers, "And their subjects would only be Brawe."
Another influential critic of subsidy treaties was Johann Gottfried Seume. His autobiographical works Spaziergang nach Syrakus (A Stroll to Syracuse), from 1803, and Mein Leben (My Life), published posthumously in 1813, attacked German princes in a powerful way, setting the tone for decades to come. In particular, Seume accused the Hessen-Kassel army of abducting him while he was traveling through the territory as a student in 1782 and then impressing him into military service for the British in North America. Only the war's end in the spring of 1783, he implies, saved him from death in a foreign land.
Although this account is heart-wrenching, it is not true. Historian Inge Auerbach and others have pointed out that Seume was actually seeking a career in the military when he traveled through Hessen-Kassel in 1782. He was not en route to Paris as a student, as he later claimed, but wanted to enroll in the well-known French artillery school in Metz. Instead of continuing on to Metz, it seems that he took the opportunity offered by Hessen-Kassel's engagement in North America and joined the military voluntarily. Arriving in Halifax with one of the last Hessian reinforcement transports, he was actually disappointed to have lost the opportunity to distinguish himself in combat and become an officer. Seume was genuinely dismayed that the Peace of Paris had abruptly ended his military career. He began criticizing the "soldier trade" only after he was disappointed with Napoleon's coup d'état in 1799. In his mind, one monarch in France had merely replaced another. This "return to the normalcy of despotism" prompted a reexamination of earlier positions, leading him and others to question the Holy Roman Empire's entire societal and political system. Small German principalities, with their long history of subsidy treaties, now looked like the worst examples of tyranny in the ancien régime—symbolic of everything that had gone wrong in Europe. Even worse, over the next years these states often sided with Napoleon in exchange for territorial gains or other promises, weakening a "national" German resistance movement against French invasions.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Generous and Merciful Enemy by Daniel Krebs. Copyright © 2013 University of Oklahoma Press. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
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