01/30/2026
It's fairly obvious why Britain wanted to hire German troops, but why did the Germans themselves engage in this soldier trade? The greed of a monarch? An overly warlike people spoiling for a fight?
Like everything in life, there is context. And that context brings nuance to the discussion. Beyond the well established precedence for hiring out soldiers and the familial ties with England (Frederick's ex wife Mary was George II's daughter, but that's a whole different messy story), there was indeed the well being of his country to think about.
Hesse's ~275000 people were overwhelmingly involved in agriculture (over 90%) in a country that, by all accounts, was not well suited to agriculture. There was poor infrastructure, little manufacturing, and even gainfully employed artisans were struggling due to insufficient local markets and high trade barriers for foreign ones. The seven years war and its three French invasions into Hesse-Cassel was doing significant damage to an already fragile economy, and this was the Hesse-Cassel inherited by Frederick II in 1760.
The Landgrave attempted numerous reforms during the postwar recovery years. Promoting trade fairs, improving infrastructure, recruiting entrepreneurs to establish various factories, and instituting a number of agricultural reforms. He even attempted some criminal justice reform, fining lawyers overcharging, streamlining bureaucratic processes, and even retaining lawyers for peasants to have legal representation.
These and many other reforms were the governing strategy of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Some things, like the center for expectant mothers and foundlings were celebrated as a great success. Others, like an obsession with establishing a Hessian silk industry, were doomed to fail. Overall however, the country was starting to head in the right direction. That is, until famine struck in the early 1770s. Despite all of the attempts at building up commerce and agriculture, Hesse-Cassel's 12000 man army was still its greatest and most reliable money maker, and the Landgrave was desperate for an influx of cash in order to throw more spaghetti at that wall and bring the country out of poverty.
The "American venture" ultimately proved to be a boon, at least in fiscal terms. The 12.6 million taler net profit injected into industries rescued textile and iron factories, allowed taxes to be reduced by 50%, employed thousands in a building spree, and lead to "Cassel's golden age" after the war. But, like with many of his other projects, it had unintended consequences. Depopulation being the main one, with approximately 5000 deaths and 3000 desertions. Having gained fiscal security at the cost of thousands of lives, Frederick II turned down five more requests for soldiers in the last seven years of his reign.
