At this stage of its development, the Hessian army was recruited in more or less traditional fashion from society’s expendables, including a strong infusion of men from other small German states. Karl saw it as a means of maintaining sovereignty, not a source of profit. Honor was also involved. Five of Karl’s sons served under arms; two were killed in action. And despite generous French offers, Karl, ruler of a Calvinist state, refused to do business with any but Protestant employers.

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The pattern began to change after 1715, when the Stuarts incited rebellion in Scotland. That year Britain’s George I sought the services of no fewer than 12,000 Hessians. In 1726, when Britain reasserted a continental commitment by joining the Grand Alliance of Austria, Bavaria, Spain and other entities, it paid Hesse an annual retainer of £125,000 for first call on its army. Five years later, with no war on the horizon, Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole convinced Parliament to vote £240,000 to keep 12,000 Hessians ready for British service.

Reluctant to depend on a single connection, successive electors sought to expand their clientele. Results were not always positive. In 1744 a treaty with Bavaria briefly put Hessians on both sides in the War of the Austrian Succession. That same treaty for the first time included a blood money clause providing extra compensation for dead and wounded. In battle, however, the Hessians sustained and enhanced their reputation for rock steadiness. In 1745 and again in 1756, Hessian regiments shipped out to a Britain fearful of invasion by French and Scots. Landgrave William VIII had a defensible case when he declared: “These troops are our Peru. In losing them, we would forfeit all our resources.”

The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War placed major demands on Hesse-Kassel’s resources. While a member of Britain’s parliamentary opposition, William Pitt had been an eloquent and forceful critic of military subsidies. But as prime mini­ster of a state at war, Pitt opened the treasury to create an army on the continent whose regiments were largely German. Of the 90,000 men under arms in 1760, only 22,000 were British—2,000 fewer than the Hessian contingent alone. The Hessian soldiers once again proved themselves among Europe’s best. Under the overall command of Ferdinand of Bruns­wick, they played a central role as “His Britannic Majesty’s Army in Germany” and tied down superior numbers of French and imperial troops in an unheralded campaign, enabling Frederick of Prussia to outfight his enemies for seven years.

The Hessian people paid the price. Hesse was a major theater of operations for five campaigns—occupied, reoccupied and drained by requisitions, contributions and simple plundering by both sides. But as its tax base shrank, and the prospects of actually collecting taxes diminished, more and more English gold flowed into the treasury. The subsidy conventions concluded between 1702 and 1765 met a good half of Hesse-Kassel’s total budget. It was money gained without having to consult the Landtag, or diet, the assembly of merchants, townsmen and nobles who in principle controlled Hesse’s purse strings. Initially, subsidies had been used to maintain the army: soldiers supporting soldiers in accepted European fashion. But the kind of money the new treaties generated was becoming a different matter. Subsidies brought in foreign exchange, which could be used to support investment in commerce, industry and agriculture. Since they went into the military treasury, directly under the Landgraf’s control, the government had a potentially powerful fiscal weapon against the diet—should it prove necessary.

Well before the Seven Years’ War it was clear Hesse-Kassel lacked the strength to pursue an independent foreign policy. On the other hand, integration into a stable subsidy system enabled postwar reconstruction without the penny-pinching and bootstrapping necessary after 1648. In the long term, subsidies also enabled the administration to develop and finance a spectrum of development programs without turning to his people for money—a revival of the medieval axiom that “the prince should live of his own.”

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