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A GENEROUS AND MERCIFUL ENEMY: Life for German Prisoners of War During the American Revolution

A GENEROUS AND MERCIFUL ENEMY: Life for German Prisoners of War During the American Revolution
by Krebbs, Daniel

1-202380

Explores German POW experiences during the American War of Independence.

Some 37,000 soldiers from six German principalities, collectively remembered as Hessians, entered service as British auxiliaries in the American War of Independence. At times, they constituted a third of the British army in North America, and thousands of them were imprisoned by the Americans. Despite the importance of Germans in the British war effort, historians have largely overlooked these men. Draws on research in German military records and common soldiers' letters and diaries.

Setting his account in the context of British and European politics and warfare, Krebs explains the motivations of the German states that provided contract soldiers for the British army. We think of the Hessians as mercenaries, but, as he shows, many were conscripts. Some were new recruits; others, veterans. Some wanted to stay in the New World after the war. Krebs further describes how the Germans were made prisoners, either through capture or surrender, and brings to life their experiences in captivity from New England to Havana, Cuba.

Krebs discusses prison conditions in detail, addressing both the American approach to war prisoners and the prisoners' responses to their experience. He assesses American efforts as a 'generous and merciful enemy' to use the prisoners as economic, military, and propagandistic assets. In the process, he never loses sight of the impact of imprisonment on the POWs themselves.

Adding new dimensions to an important but often neglected topic in military history, Krebs probes the origins of the modern treatment of POWs. An epilogue describes an almost-forgotten 1785 treaty between the United States and Prussia, the first in western legal history to regulate the treatment of prisoners of war.

1 vol, 344 pgs 2013 US, UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS
NEW-softcover, available late July 2013 ......$35.00

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Updated as of 3/28/2024

ABBREVIATIONS: dj-dust jacket, biblio-bibliography, b/w-black and white, illust-illustrations, b/c-book club addition.
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