No account of the American Revolution is complete without reference to the Hessians. They are vilified in the Declaration of Independence as “foreign Mercenaries” imported to complete Britain’s work of “death, desolation and tyranny.” They are the garrison of Trenton, celebrating Christmas not wisely, but too well, until George Washington and his men rudely interrupt their revels. A Hessian ghost is implicated as the Headless Horseman in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. They are the villains in D.W. Griffith’s 1909 film The Hessian Renegades, one of the earliest war movies. A Hessian (Yosemite) Sam Von Schmamm even serves as a cartoon foil for Bugs Bunny, finally collapsing in frustrated exhaustion with the memorable line, “I’m a Hessian without no aggression.”

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Recent research is revising those traditional impressions. Hessians made up only about half of the German troops that served in North America during the Revolution, and scholars point out that almost half of these settled here after the war, intermarrying along classic immigrant lines. Military historians have even vindicated the Hessians at Trenton, demonstrating they were in fact alert and ready—just outfought by the Ameri­cans. The Hessian image nevertheless remains incomplete: They appear on the American stage without context, then vanish with little explanation. What’s missing is a clear sense of who they were, where they originated, and why they came to America to fight, kill and die in a war that was not their own.

To begin with, the Declaration of Independence was wrong: Hessians were not mercenaries in the generally accepted sense of the term—men serving the British as individuals under specified conditions of enlistment. Instead, they were classified under international law as “auxiliaries,” subjects of a ruler who assisted another by providing soldiers in return for money. In a modified form this process remains recognized in law and practice. In Vietnam, the United States supported a Korean contingent financially and materially. In turn, during Desert Storm, some states that did not send troops to the Middle East provided funds that helped defray America’s costs.

The 18th century, however, is generally and correctly understood as the great age of subsidy armies. Dubbed Soldatenhandel (the “soldier business”), it centered on Germany, and the principality of Hesse-Kassel was its archetype. The roots of the trade are best sought in the Thirty Years’ War, as states sought to pay their bills by recruiting and leasing soldiers to the highest bidder. That practice was easy to legitimize once the Treaty of Westphalia recognized the sovereignty of Germany’s lesser rulers. Instead of authorizing the enlistment of mercenaries in the traditional way, through contractors and taking a cut of the profits, the new states went into the army business for themselves, raising men, organizing regiments and negotiating contracts with larger, richer countries—rather like state-run military temp agencies.

Hesse-Kassel had always been poor—a midsize land of villages shaped by subsistence agriculture. At the same time, it lay between two parts of Prussia and athwart some of the regular routes of the contending armies. The result was catastrophe on all levels: the countryside wasted and the government deprived of its usual sources of revenue. Military service was not particularly popular as Hesse slowly recovered from its bruising. And that recovery was limited—so limited it was difficult to sustain a force sufficient to protect Hesse’s political sovereignty and territorial integrity. In 1676 its army totaled a mere 23 companies.

The following year, the Hessian Landgraf Karl leased 10 of those companies to Denmark for a total sum of 3,200 thalers. In 1687 Karl rented 1,000 men to Venice for 50 thalers apiece. Fewer than 200 returned home, but the Hessians had fought well enough to attract a more generous paymaster. The Estates of Holland had a full treasury and a long history of hiring fighting men from outside their borders. In 1688 Karl sent 3,400 of his subjects to serve William of Orange. They took no part in the invasion of England, but did so well on the continent that the Dutch wanted more of them for longer periods. In the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–1697) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), Hessian troops established a solid reputation for discipline in the field, steadiness under fire and willingness to endure the high casualties characteristic of flintlock-and-saber battles. Britain’s Duke of Marlborough praised their valor. Prince Eugene of Austria, also no mean judge of fighting men, took 10,000 Hessians into Italy in 1706 and led another contingent against the Turks in Hungary.

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