Reprinted from
“The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography.”
July, 1899.
PHILADELPHIA:
1899.
[In a pamphlet printed in Melsungen and published in Cassel in 1879under the title of “Frederick the Second and Modern History, aContribution to the Denial of the Fairy Stories as to the PretendedSale of Soldiers by Hessian Princes, with a New View of Seume’sStatements,” there is quite a full defence of the Hessians and theirservice in America under the British flag. As it is a second andenlarged edition, it must have found readers, although I do not thinkI have ever seen any notice of this somewhat novel view. It may notbe without interest to students of history to have a brief summaryand statement of the defence of the Hessians and their princes, whoever since our Revolutionary War have been the subjects of obloquyand treated with lofty scorn and contempt.]
The Seven Years’ War had enlisted England’s rich help in men and money. Apowerful army of one hundred thousand men, composed of English soldiers,of twenty-four thousand Hessians, of Hanoverians and Brunswickers, enabledFrederick of Prussia to continue a resistance which otherwise he could nothave maintained for two years. The North German states were not Prussianvassals, but allies of England for a hundred years, on the basis of commonpolitical aims. Hesse, as the stronghold of the Protestants of NorthGermany, had been in close alliance with England at a time whenBrandenburg was little thought of. The ancient military glory of Hesseduring the Thirty Years’ War was so great that Gustavus Adolphus onlanding in Germany had asked for a Hessian, Colonel Falkenburg, asmilitary governor of Magdeburg. For a century and a half Hessian soldiersfought shoulder to shoulder with the English troops, mainly againstFrance. That they should again act together in America was not more[Pg 4]surprising than that the Sardinian Italians should coöperate with theFrench in the Crimea. The same statesmanlike wisdom was shown in Casseland in Turin, and led to a like result. The little Hesse of 1866 must notbe confused with the old Hesse, which was an important factor in Germanpolitics. In almost every war of the last century Hesse had taken partwith its army of twenty-four thousand men,—an important contingent atthat time and one that made Hesse the object of many invitations to closealliance. In the Seven Years’ War, England joined Frederick the Great, so,too, did the Hessians and the other German allies. It fared badly withHesse,—repeatedly it was overrun and often held by the French, while itsarmy was serving in Westphalia and Hanover; the Elector died away from hishome and was succeeded by his son; none of the eastern provinces ofPrussia suffered like Hesse.
The Elector Frederick had been educated on the Rhine, and shortly beforethe outbreak of the Seven Years’ War was the guest of the ArchbishopElector of Cologne. Political honors have been made the reason of theElector of Saxony’s change of his Protestant faith—that he might securethe throne of Catholic Poland. Vanity and want of patriotic pride have ledGerman princesses to win Russian husbands at the sacrifice of theirProtestant faith, while no Russian princess has ever given up her churchfor the sake of a foreign husband. Frederick of Hesse changed his religionfrom purely personal reasons and in perfect honesty. It was long concealedfrom his father, a strong Protestant, ruling the church in the spirit ofhis ancest