Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nation).

Holy Roman Empire from 1273–1378, and its principal royal dynasties.

 

Map of the Empire showing division into Circles in 1512.

The 7 Prince-electors.

A mostly Germanic empire, but at times including also parts of northern Italy, Bohemia, Flanders, the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, and some Swiss cantons. It was established in 962 C.E. by Otto I, ‘‘the Great’’ (912–973). It was self-consciously modeled on the empire of Charlemagne, which also maintained the fiction that it was the linear successor to the Roman Empire in the West. Otto succeeded in uniting most of Germany, Italy, and Burgundy into a medieval empire of overlapping vassalge. From the beginning the Empire was at odds with France: Otto invaded France, then ruled by Louis IV, in 942 and again in 948. For centuries emperors competed with the popes for primacy within Latin Christendom while also cooperating with the papacy to prevent the rise of challengers to either from among the barony and minor kings of Germany. Emperors were crowned by popes and claimed supreme temporal authority over all Christians in greater Germany. During this period the defenses of the Empire, which was still a frontier state facing multiple barbarian threats, were organized into eight military districts known as Marches. These were, north to south: Billungs, Nordmark, Lusatia, Misnia, Ostmark (Austria), Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. The main military activity was fending off Slavic raiders, along with larger campaigns over the Alps into Italy called the ‘‘expeditio ultra Alpes.’’

In the 11th century, papal–imperial relations were rent by the ‘‘Investiture Controversy’’ over whether popes or secular rulers should appoint local bishops. This was crucial since several sees hosted Imperial electors who chose the emperors. Investiture itself was a feudal ceremony that granted a fief or clerical office to a vassal, and few fiefs in Europe were as valuable as bishoprics and abbeys which were held by lords both temporal and religious. The emperors had long asserted a right of ‘‘lay investiture,’’ and as the Church entered one of its cyclical convulsions of reform enthusiasm, those seeking to eliminate corrupt practices focused on lay investiture. In 1075, Pope Gregory VII forbade the practice, but Emperor Henry IV (r.1084–1105) refused to accept papal appointees. For this ‘‘disobedience’’ he was excommunicated in 1076. In theory, that dissolved all bonds of vassalage binding barons, dukes, and princes of the Empire to the emperor. This was a radical papal challenge to Imperial power and it launched the ‘‘Wars of Investiture’’ (1077–1122). The excommunication initially proved a near fatal blow to the emperor’s perceived legitimacy, forcing Henry IV to ‘‘go to Canossa’’ in 1077 to perform public penance before Gregory. He groveled and gained absolution and lifting of the interdict on Church services and sacraments that accompanied the excommunication. War came anyway, during which Henry—who did not regain Gregory’s favor but did recover enough legitimacy in the eyes of his subjects that he saved his crown—organized a conclave to elect a more friendly pope, Clement III. In 1084, Henry took Rome and installed Clement. However, Clement was chased from Rome by Norman knights from southern Italy, rough allies of Pope Gregory who reinstated him after sacking his city. The sack of Rome left the populace so opposed to Gregory that it quickly became prudent for him to withdraw. Henry was then forced to abdicate (1105) by relatives and other members of the Imperial party who feared a long-term breach with the papacy would undermine the dynasty’s claim to the throne. Thus began a battle between popes and emperors that would last several centuries. Ultimately, the Investiture controversy severely undermined the temporal and spiritual authority of popes and emperors, in time helping to clear the way for the rise of local monarchs across Europe.

In 1156 the dukes of Austria were granted the ‘‘Privilegium minus,’’ which excused them from long-distance military expeditions. In 1212, Bohemia was dispensed from its military obligations by payment of a lump sum of silver. These territories remained part of the Empire in name, but grew more distant and independent in fact. An imperial succession crisis from 1250 to 1273, ‘‘The Great Interregnum,’’ reduced parts of the Empire to military anarchy after 1250. At its close Count Rudolf of Habsburg was elected ‘‘King of the Romans.’’ Thereafter, secure control of the Holy Roman Empire was the central preoccupation of the Habsburgs, who brought mystical imagery and belief in a Catholic mission to their reign in Germany. The affairs of central Europe and the Balkans were another Habsburg concern, as myriad German speakers migrated into once Slavic lands as far east as the Vistula, led by a powerful but fractious nobility and warrior monks such as the Sword Brothers and Teutonic Knights. The murder of Albert I in 1308 led to ascension of a Luxemburg dynasty to the Imperial throne, causing high tension between Habsburg designs in Germany and Luxemburg dependence on Bohemia for electoral support. In 1356 the ‘‘Golden Bull’’ was forced on Emperor Charles IV. This recognized local rights and established election procedures by which seven ‘‘Kurfūrsten’’ (‘‘Elector Princes’’), three bishops, and four territorial princes chose the emperor. These electors were autonomous rulers acting through representatives who met in the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) at Ratisbon, with representation also for hundreds of large and petty dukedoms, bishoprics, baronies, fiefdoms, and free cities. To many, the Empire seemed to be in terminal decline at the start of the 15th century. However, in 1438 the Habsburgs united the Austrian, Hungarian, Bohemian, and German crowns through a series of dynastic marriages. From 1504 to 1508, Emperor Maximilian I instituted modernizing military reforms, including setting up a royal foundry in Innsbruck and lesser foundries elsewhere. These cast iron and bronze cannon of various quality and caliber, from great bombards known as ‘‘Hauptstuke’’ to small ‘‘falconettes’’ and other early field artillery which could be pulled by just one horse.

With the ascension to the throne of Charles V in 1519 it seemed to many that a great military and imperial revival might be underway centered on events in the Holy Roman Empire. At that moment, Europe was sundered by the first soundings of the Protestant Reformation. In Germany this led to confessional division and then warfare between the emperor and some territorial princes, culminating in war with the Schmalkaldic League from 1546 to 1547. A general truce was achieved on the religious issue in the Peace of Augsburg (1555), which instituted partial religious toleration for Lutherans. Charles left the Imperial stage that year, dividing his vast inheritances between Austrian and Spanish branches of the Habsburg dynasty. In Germany, Augsburg helped avoid war over the religious question for 60 years. Under Maximilian II and even the erratic and actively anti-Protestant Rudolf II, Germany was relatively peaceful into the early 17th century. This was the case even though France descended into religious civil war and Habsburg cousins in Spain, Philip II and Philip III, conducted a protracted Catholic crusade against Protestantism in northern Europe. However, beneath the surface peace debate over the emperor’s constitutional position was unresolved and had become fixed to permanent religious conflict. Protestant princes were deeply loyal to the Empire, but felt the tug of reform subjects who demanded defense of their religious and legal rights against emperors and courts increasingly devoted to the Counter-Reformation. The stage was thus set for a great struggle, and eventually a great war, to reinterpret constitutional meanings in an ancient empire newly split by tri-confessionalism. Perhaps only war could resolve the attendant question of whether Germany’s territorial princes, Catholic and Protestant alike, were merely Estates of a larger and far more powerful monarchy, or themselves sovereign, joined in a voluntary confederation of over 1,000 polities, which in 1600 contained 20 million souls. Of the Empire’s component polities, eight large and populous principalities were key: Bavaria, Bohemia, Brandenburg, Hesse, the Palatinate, Saxony, Trier, and Wūrttemberg. None could dominate the Empire, but neither could the Habsburgs of Austria. And all efforts to establish a joint standing army were frustrated by refusal of the Imperial Diet to vote the necessary funds.

The great crisis of 1618–1648 had roots in the paralysis of Imperial institutions (the Imperial Diet, Hofkriegsrat, Reichskreis, Chancery, Aulic Council, and Imperial Tribunal). Erosion of the great religious and constitutional compromise of the Peace of Augsburg accelerated as all Europe headed toward war. Institutions and principles alike fell into disuse and disdain without being fundamentally challenged on grounds of legitimacy. Instead, they unraveled from the 1580s as Rudolf II supported the Counter-Reformation and the Chamber Court of the Empire repeatedly ruled to restore secularized estates and benefices to the Catholic Church. In 1588, Catholic bishops in the Court refused to sit the Protestant bishop of Magdeburg. In 1600, Protestant princes paralyzed the ‘‘Deputationstag,’’ a subunit of the Diet, by abstaining from its deliberations. The first overt military move was Imperial occupation of the free city of Donauwörth in 1607, in behalf of a Catholic minority at war with the Protestant majority and town council. This violated the traditional right of each of the Reichskreis to maintain internal peace, and that provoked the founding of the Protestant Union in 1608. Bavaria and southern Catholics responded by founding of the Catholic League in 1609. Both steps further divided the Empire on confessional lines and moved it closer to war.

From 1609 to 1614 inability to resolve a succession crisis in Jūlich-Kleve demonstrated the Empire’s precipitous fall from real authority on the ground, and dangerous connections between German princes and external allies and interests. Within four more years these would propel Germany into the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648). That great conflict began with a crisis over who would succeed as king of Bohemia, and thus exercise the deciding vote for the new emperor as an Imperial elector. An awful war was extended and widened by the fanatic Catholicism of Ferdinand II, whose overreach united the princes against him, prolonged the war, and ensured that outside powers intervened in German affairs. The primary beneficiary of the effective demise of the Holy Roman Empire by 1648 was France, which emerged as first among equals among the Great Powers of the European state system as ratified by the Peace of Westphalia. Lacking any standing army, permanent corps of state officials, or central organs of government—at a time when other monarchies in Europe were beginning to build centralized nation-states—the Holy Roman Empire was thereafter a mere constitutional shell. It was kept in place by component members because this appeared to protect their freedoms from the larger powers which surrounded Germany, but it also allowed external powers to control parts of Germany, keeping it divided and weak as they added bits of its latent strength to theirs.

Suggested Reading: James Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire (1892; 1978); John R. Hale et al., Europe in the Late Middle Ages (1965); Friedrich Heer, The Holy Roman Empire (1968); R. E. Herzstein, ed., The Holy Roman Empire in the Middle Ages (1966).

Imperial Army (of the Holy Roman Empire).

Battle of Dornach July 22, 1499 – Landsknecht - Contemporary woodcut of the Battle of Dornach.

The Battle of Dornach was a battle fought on 22 July 1499 between the troops of Emperor Maximilian I and the Old Swiss Confederacy close to the Swiss village of Dornach. The battle turned into a decisive defeat for Maximilian, and concluded the Swabian War between the Swiss and the Swabian League: it amounted to de-facto independence of Switzerland from the Holy Roman Empire, acknowledged by Maximilian in the Treaty of Basel on 22 September (the independence was however not formally recognized until the Peace of Westphalia of 1648).

‘‘Landesabwehr.’’ The emperor traditionally had the right, as a German king, to issue a ‘‘bannum’’ in times of extreme need. In theory, this and other edicts applied to all subjects of military age, excepting only women, shepherds, and clergy. In fact, the bannum mostly called on the feudal service obligations of German knighthood (the ‘‘Ritterstand’’). In some cases, peasant militia were called up as foot soldiers while townsmen served as auxiliaries, usually, as archers or crossbowmen. The old feudal military order, dating to Charlemagne, required enfeoffed nobles and retainers to serve free for three months, which was significantly longer than the servitium debitum in France and England. This rule was invoked as late as the mid-13th century, but otherwise was eroded by the rise of service-for-pay arrangements even among German nobility. Still, as late as the early 15th century the idea of mandatory feudal service survived in the Empire: in 1401 German towns and nobles were summoned to an Imperial campaign in Italy by region (‘‘Landesaufgebot’’) and by individual fief (‘‘Lehnsaufgebot’’). While noble ‘‘officers’’ were paid a set fee, town militia received nothing. In the late 1480s, Emperor Maximilian I organized Landsknechte companies to mimic, and hopefully to best, the Swiss squares. In 1500 he gave responsibility for regional defense and recruitment to the Reichskreis.

In the 16th century the Hofkriegsrat, or Imperial War Council, controlled 25,000 Imperial troops, but only on paper. Real control rested with the Imperial princes, and with commanders responsible for regional military order appointed by discrete Reichskreis. The Landsknechte were strictly mercenary troops. That meant in a shooting war the emperors relied principally on military contractors to raise mercenary armies to supplement noble heavy cavalry. There was no serious attempt to raise a conscript Imperial force because the emperors had no funds to pay for it outside revenues from their hereditary lands. Once the Protestant Reformation took hold in Germany it was next to impossible for emperors to obtain necessary funds and authorization from divided princes to raise and maintain Imperial troops, a problem made evident during Charles V’s desultory war with the princes of the Schmalkaldic League. Just before the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) the Imperial princes divided openly into confessional associations that briefly fielded their own armies: the Catholic League and Protestant Union. As a result, most Imperial troops from 1618 to 1648 were mercenaries raised by military entrepreneurs and sustained not by taxes but by forced contributions (there's a difference!).

German Auxiliaries in the War of American Independence

 

More than 30,000 Germans fought in the War of American Independence, taking part in every major campaign from the Floridas to Canada; and fighting overseas in the campaigns in the Mediterranean and India. Six independent German states contributed units to the British army for service in America: Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Hanau, Anspach- Bayreuth, Braunschweig-Lūnenburg (Brunswick), Anhalt- Zerbst, and Waldeck. Hanover, which was ruled by King George III of England, allowed individual recruiting for British regiments, and sent several units to Gibraltar, Minorca, and India. But German units also served in the armies of Britain’s opponents—two other Waldeck regiments were part of the Dutch army, and Zweibrūcken provided a number of regiments to France, including the Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment, which was part of General Jean comte de Rochambeau’s 1780 to 1782 expedition to assist the Americans.

MYTHS

The common image of the ‘‘Hessians’’ as brutal mercenaries sold for blood money by corrupt rulers is imbedded in the Declaration of Independence and in two hundred years’ worth of schoolbooks, but it is not true. It was the result of propaganda efforts initiated by the Continental Congress (with Benjamin Franklin in charge) and by liberal German intellectuals who were deeply influenced by the French Revolution and nineteenth-century nationalism. In point of fact, each of the states that furnished troops to the British did so after negotiating treaties that set forth a variety of conditions and concessions. For example, Hesse-Cassel’s situation was the direct opposite of the old myth. It had a formal alliance under which the British and Hanover guaranteed to defend the country from aggressors while the bulk of the nation’s army served overseas. In addition, the monies the Landgrave (territorial ruler) gained from the treaty were used to provide social services to the civilian population and to encourage industry.

A second myth is that the Germans deserted in droves whenever they had the chance, or died from combat or disease, leaving only about 60 percent to return home at the end of the war. This is a wild exaggeration, and attempts to depict all units behaving in a manner that applies to only a few. German losses in the Crown’s forces were no worse, overall, than those of the British or the Loyalists. Further, the numbers given for ‘‘returning’’ troops disregard personnel who were sent home earlier than the latter part of 1783. They also ignore the large numbers of troops who chose to take discharges in North America and settled in either Canada or the United States.

The third myth about the Germans is that they were all well-disciplined and drilled in the tradition of Frederick the Great. In this interpretation, historians argue that, when first employed, the Hessians were respected by the British and feared by the Americans. As this theory goes, they quickly found that the traditional tactics of the Potsdam parade ground brought disaster in American conditions. It is true that by the end of the 1777 campaigns, Americans had lost their fears and the British had started to relegate German units to garrison duties or service in the second line of battle formations, but not for the reasons commonly assumed. It was not contempt, but rather the recognition that the very tables of organization of the German units limited their ability to maneuver in broken terrain, although they functioned quite well in situations where a premium was placed on frontal attack or solid defense. German formations like the jägers (riflemen) or the highly-trained chasseurs (light infantry) who had organizational flexibility and training to carry out skirmishing provided British commanders with perhaps their best light troops.

AUGMENTING BRITISH FORCES

When the British government went to war in 1775 the conflict turned out to be very unpopular. The recruits available were barely sufficient to bring existing regiments up to strength. Only one new unit (the Seventy-first Foot) could be raised, and that only by turning to Highland Scots. In this situation the Ministry quickly turned to a century-old tradition and sought to bring foreign units into their service, primarily drawn from the Protestant states in the north-western part of Germany. Some were procured to provide trained units to the generals in North America quickly (raising new regiments in Britain would require a long period of training before they could be sent into combat). Others were obtained to relieve British regiments from garrison duty so that they could be transferred to the war zone.

Preliminary negotiations began on 2 December 1775, and the first three treaties were submitted to Parliament on 29 February 1776. Not counting Hanover, four states concluded treaties in 1776: Brunswick (9 January), Hesse-Cassel (31 January), Hesse-Hanau (5 February), and Waldeck (25 April). While the terms of each treaty varied, basically the British picked up the costs of paying the troops, providing them with food, and transporting them. The Germans retained responsibility for weapons, equipment, and uniforms, and for furnishing replacements. The treaties also called for cash payment to enable the individual states to conduct recruiting and carry out other preparations, and for each casualty—but this was the same practice used when a new unit was formed in Britain or when a unit had to recruit new troops to replace losses. In 1777 Britain made two smaller treaties with Anspach- Bayreuth (1 February) and Anhalt-Zerbst (October, although the troops did not reach Canada until late 1778 due to transportation problems). Some of the contingents increased (especially by adding more jägers) during the course of the war after supplemental treaties. Table 1 gives a summary of the size of each contingent.

SIGNIFICANCE

Three significant British defeats involved forces which were primarily composed of Germans: Trenton, Fort Mercer, and Bennington. These failures have been used to argue that the Germans were not an effective combat force, but purely British or Loyalist engagements also ended in stunning defeats. The truth is that the only way that the Ministry could have procured enough troops for the relief of Canada and the simultaneous capture of New York in 1776 was to turn to the policy of treaties. The troops from Hesse-Cassel, Braunschweig-Lūnenburg, and Hesse-Hanau generally performed credibly, those of Anspach-Bayreuth and Waldeck competently, and only the small Anhalt-Zerbst contingent could be considered sub-par. When employed properly, they were extremely valuable, and once France entered into the war, no British offensive could have been undertaken without having Germans available to garrison the major bases.

German service in the American Revolution had another impact frequently overlooked by American historians— it was an important learning experience for those participants interested in professional development. The Hesse-Cassel army completely changed both its organizational structure and its tactical doctrine after reviewing the lessons of the war, producing units that were much more flexible and patterned after the Americans they had fought. This change made their forces the most effective in the opening years of the Napoleonic Wars. One Hessian, Johann Ewald, would go on to reach the rank of lieutenant general in the Danish army and become the foremost authority on light infantry tactics in that period.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Atwood, Rodney. The Hessians: Mercenaries from Hessen-Kassel in the American Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Auerbach, Inge, Franz G. Eckhart, and Otto Fro¨lich, eds. Hessische Truppen im amerikanischen Unabha¨ngigkeitskrieg [HETRINA]. 5 vols. Marburg: Vero¨ttenlichungen der Archivschule Marburg-Institut fu¨r Archivwissenschaft, 1972–1976. Brown, Marvin L., Jr., ed. Baroness von Riedesel and the American Revolution: Journal and Correspondence of a Tour of Duty 1776–1783. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1965. Bu¨ttner, Johann Carl. Narrative of Johann Carl Buettner in the American Revolution. Translated by C. F. Heartman. New York: C. F. Heartman, 1915. De Marce, Virginia Easley. Mercenary Troops from Anhalt-Zerbst, Germany, Who Served With the British Forces During the American Revolution. 2 vols. McNeal, Ariz.: Westland Publications, 1984. Du Roi, August Wilhelm. Journal of Du Roi the Elder Lieutenant and Adjutant, in the Service of the Duke of Brunswick, 1776–1778. Translated by Charlotte S. J. Epping. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1911. Eelking, Max von. German Allied Troops in the North American War. Translated by J. G. Rosengarten. Albany: Joel Munsell’s Sons, 1893. Ewald, Johann. Diary of the American War: A Hessian Journal. Translated by Joseph P. Tustin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. ———. Treatise on Partisan Warfare. Edited by Robert A. Selig and David Curtis Skaggs. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991. Hoffman, Elliott W. ‘‘The German Soldiers in the American Revolution.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Hampshire, 1982. Ingrao, Charles W. The Hessian Mercenary State: Ideas, Institutions and Reform under Frederick II, 1760–1785. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Kochan, James; and Lyon Miles. Hessian Documents of the American Revolution. [Microfiche publication of the Lidgerwood Collection, Morristown National Historical Park.] Boston: G. K. Hall and Co., 1991 (with Supplement, 1993). Lowell, E. J. The Hessians and Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War. New York: Harper & Bros., 1884. Muenchhausen, Friedrich von. At General Howe’s Side: The Diary of General Howe’s Aide de Camp, Captain Friedrich von Muenchhausen. Translated and edited by Ernst Kipping and Samuel S. Smith. Monmouth Beach, N.J.: Philip Freneau Press, 1974. Popp, Stephen. A Hessian Soldier in the American Revolution: The Diary of Stephen Popp. Translated by Reinhart Pope, Jr. N.P.: Privately printed, 1953. Rainsford, Charles. ‘‘Transactions as Commissary for Embarking Foreign Troops in the English Service from Germany with copies of Letters Relative to It. For the Years 1776–1777.’’ New-York Historical Society Collections for 1879, pp. 313–543. Riedesel, Frederick Augustus von. Memoirs, and Letters and Journals, of Major General Riedesel, During his Residence in America. Translated from the Original German of Max von Eelking. Translated by William L. Stone. 2 vols. Albany, N.Y.: J. Munsell, 1868. Slagle, Robert Oakley. ‘‘The Von Lossberg Regiment: A Chronicle of Hessian Participation in the American Revolution.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, American University, 1965. Stephens, Thomas Ryan. ‘‘In Deepest Submission: The Hessian Mercenary Troops in the American Revolution.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Texas A&M University, 1998. Stone, William L., trans. Letters of Brunswick and Hessian Officers During the American Revolution. Albany, N.Y.: Joel Munsell’s Sons, 1891. ———, trans. Journal of Captain Pauch Chief of the Hanau Artillery During the Burgoyne Campaign. Albany: Joel Munsell’s Sons, 1886. Uhlendorf, Bernard A., ed. Revolution in America: Confidential Letters 1776–1784 of Adjutant General Major Baurmeister of the Hessian Forces. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1957. ———, ed. The Siege of Charleston with an Account of the Province of South Carolina: Diaries and Letters of Hessian Officers From the von Jungkenn Papers in the William L. Clements Library. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1938. Waldeck, Philipp. Philipp Waldeck’s Diary of the American Revolution. Translated and edited by Marion Dexter Learned. Philadelphia: Americana Germanica Press, 1907.