Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Germans within the British Army

  • Chapter
German Forces and the British Army

Part of the book series: War, Culture and Society, 1750–1850 ((WCS))

Abstract

In the last three chapters we have examined the similarities and differences between British soldiers and their German counterparts, be they allies in a coalition army, or as auxiliaries to Britain’s armed forces. In this and the next chapter, we will turn to those German soldiers who served formally within the British Army from the mid-eighteenth to early-nineteenth centuries, focusing on the staggered progression towards direct integration into the army. Rather than following the template adhered to for the last three chapters, this chapter will survey the history of Germans within the British Army in this period, and rather than stressing the perceptions towards fellow-soldiers (in part because so few exist), the emphasis will be placed on some of the key themes in their recruitment and integration, and what made service in the British Army so desirable or undesirable. This chapter will then be followed by a case study of one particular entity that achieved a degree of structural and social integration that no previous foreign corps had attained — be they Dutch, Huguenot or German. That this force, the King’s German Legion, should come into being at the end of the period under examination is no coincidence as those factors that spurred German assimilation throughout this era were particularly acute in the quarter century of conflict with Republican and Imperial France.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. Kenneth Ferguson, ‘The Organization of King William’s Army in Ireland, 1689–92’, Irish Sword, XVIII(70) (1990), pp. 68–9.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Matthew H. Glozier, The Huguenots of William of Orange and the Glorious ‘Revolution’ of 1688 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2002), p. 136.

    Google Scholar 

  3. For an insightful history of the 60th Regiment see: Alexander Campbell, The Royal American Regiment: An Atlantic History in Microcosm, 1756–1762 (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Such foreign contingents were only allowed to serve in the American Colonies and the Caribbean until the 1804 Act, permitting as many as 10,000 foreign men to serve in Britain. Lewis Butler, The Annals of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps: Volume I. ‘The Royal Americans’ (London: Smith & Elder, 1913), p. 208

    Google Scholar 

  5. Richard Holmes, Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket (London: Harper Collins: 2002), p. 329.

    Google Scholar 

  6. For more on these issues, see, Peter Wilson, ‘The Politics of Military Recruitment in Eighteenth-Century Germany’, English Historical Review, (472) (June 2002), p. 539.

    Google Scholar 

  7. See: Charles Oman, Wellington’s Army, 1809–1814 (London: Greenhill Books, 1986), p. 227

    Google Scholar 

  8. Charles Boutflower, The Journal of an Army Surgeon Duringthe Peninsular War (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 1997), p. 53.

    Google Scholar 

  9. For a fascinating and highly readable monograph on the many propagandized retellings of Major von Schill’s life, see: Sam Mustafa, The Long Ride of Major von Schill: A Journey Through German History and Memory (Plymouth: Rowan & Littlefield, 2008)

    Google Scholar 

  10. See also: Anon, Wider Napoleon! Ein Deutsches Reiterleben 1806–1815, herausgegeben von Friedrich M. Kircheisen (Stuttgart: Robert Luß, 1911), esp. vol. I.

    Google Scholar 

  11. The King’s German Legion have received by far the most attention of all Germans within the British Army, with the most noteworthy and significant contributions to their history from North Ludlow Beamish, History of the King’s German Legion (London: Thomas and William Boone, 1837 (1997))

    Google Scholar 

  12. Adolf Pfannkuche, Die Königlich Deutsche Legion 1803–1816 (Hannover: Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1926)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Anthony Brett-James, Life in Wellington’s Army (London: George Allen, 1972)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Roger Edward Francis Guilford North, ‘The Raising and Organizing of the King’s German Legion’, JSAHR, 39 (1961), pp. 168–84

    Google Scholar 

  15. Bernhard Heinrich Schwertfeger, Geschichte der königlich deutschen Legion, 1803–1816 (Hanover and Leipzig: Hahn’sche Buchhandlung, 1907).

    Google Scholar 

  16. C.T. Atkinson, ‘Hanoverian Soldiers in Gibraltar’, United Service Magazine, 180 (1919), p. 25.

    Google Scholar 

  17. The growth of Bexhill from a village to a town at the beginning of the nineteenth century is credited to the presence of the Legion’s headquarters, where a number of men were continuously stationed. For an account of the headquarters, see: Emanuel Biedermann, Von Malta Bis Waterloo: erinnerungen Aus den Kriegen gegen Napoleon I (Bern: Hallwag, 1941), p. 134.

    Google Scholar 

  18. For the letters of a soldier serving in these newly formed regiments, see: Joachim Kannicht, Mit der hanseatischen Legion gegen Napoleon: Erfahrungen eines jungen Studenten 1813–1816 (Aachen: Helios, 2008).

    Google Scholar 

  19. W.B. Tyler, ‘The British German Legion — 1854–1862’, JSAHR, 54 (1976), pp. 14–29.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Harding, Hanover and the British Empire, pp. 255–8. For a collection of William Cobbett’s arguments against this favouritism, see: Daniel Green, The Great Cobbett: The Noblest Agitator (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1983), pp. 345–8, 377.

    Google Scholar 

  21. For the 60th’s focus on frontier warfare: see A.J. Barker, Redcoats (London: Gordon Cremonesi, 1976), p. 145.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Gleig, Hussar, p. 35; René Chartrand, Émigré and Foreign Troops in British Service (I) 1793–1802 (Oxford: Osprey, 1999).

    Google Scholar 

  23. Conway, War of American Independence, p. 246; Lieut.-Col. Sir Frederick von Arentschildt, Instructions for Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers of Cavalry On Outpost Duty (London: Parker Furnival and Parker, 18

    Google Scholar 

  24. Anon, Memoirs of A Sergeant: The 43rd Light Infantry During the Peninsular War (Gloucestershire: Nonsuch, 2005).

    Google Scholar 

  25. See also: Christopher Hibbert (ed.), A Soldier of the Seventy-First: The Journal of a Soldier of the Highland Light Infantry 1806–1815 (London: Leo Cooper, 1975), p. 33.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Captain George Bent, ‘Major Morris Bent, South Staffordshire Regiment, A “Royal American”’, Journal for the Society of Army Historical Research, JSAHR, 1 (1921), p. 98.

    Google Scholar 

  27. It should be noted that the validity of this memoir is somewhat in doubt. Anon, Adventures of a Young Rifleman in the French and English Armies, During the War in Spain and Portugal, From 1806 to 1916 (London: Henry Colburn, 1826), pp. 297–8.

    Google Scholar 

  28. In Canada during the Seven Years War, German soldiers who had been tricked into French service were quick to desert to the British. See: John Knox, An Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America for the Years 1757, 1758, 1759 and 1760, edited by Sir Arthur Doughty (Toronto, ON: Champlain Society, 1914–16), vol. I, pp. 246, 323.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Thomas Agostini, ‘“Deserted his Majesty’s Service”, Military Runaways, the Press, and the Problem of Desertion in the Seven Years War’, Journal of Social History, 40(4) (2007), p. 967.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. For Montesquieu’s opinions, see: Michael Rapport, ‘“The Germans are Hydrophobes”’: Germany and the Germans in the Shaping of French Identity’, in Alan Forrest and Peter H. Wilson, The Bee and Eagle (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009), pp. 234–55.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Friedrich Lindau, Erinnerungen Eines Soldaten aus den Feldzügen der königlichdeutschen Legion (Hameln: Niemeyer, 1846), p. 8.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Christopher Hibbert (ed.), The Wheatley Diary: A Journal and Sketch-Book Kept During the Peninsular War and the Waterloo Campaign, 2nd ed. (Gloucestershire: Windrush Press, 1997), p. 8.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Peter Way, ‘Class and the Common Soldier in the Seven Years’ War’, Labor History, 44(4) (2003), p. 476

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. See also: Thomas Agostini, ‘“Deserted his Majesty’s Service”, Military Runaways, the Press, and the Problem of Desertion in the Seven Years War’, Journal of Social History, 40(4) (2007), pp. 957–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Victor Sutcliffe, Regiments of the British Army: Part 1 Infantry (East Rudham: Mulberry Coach House, 2007), p. 329.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Sir Augustus Simon Frazer, Letters of Colonel Sir Augustus Simon Frazer, K.C.B., edited by Major-General Edward Sabine (East Sussex: Naval Military Press, 2001), p. 263.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Adolf Pfannkuche, Die Königlich Deutsche Legion 1803–1816 (Hannover: Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1926), p. 18.

    Google Scholar 

  38. John Spencer Cooper, Rough Notes of Seven Campaigns in Portugal, Spain, France and America During the Years 1809–1815 (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 1996), pp. 14, 20.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600–1815 (New York: Anchor Books, 2002), pp. 328–32.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Quoted in Peter Way, ‘Soldiers of Misfortune: New England Regulars and the Fall of Oswego’, Massachusetts Historical Review, 3 (2001), p. 77.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, San Diego, USA

    Mark Wishon (Visiting Lecturer)

Authors
  1. Mark Wishon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 2013 Mark Wishon

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Wishon, M. (2013). Germans within the British Army. In: German Forces and the British Army. War, Culture and Society, 1750–1850. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137284013_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137284013_6

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-44900-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-28401-3

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation